Anta 1 de Val da Laje – the first direct view of diet, dairying practice and socio-economic aspects of pottery use in the final Neolithic of central Portugal

Abstract

This article presents the results of the first dedicated study of organic residues in Portugal, extracted from pottery excavated from Anta 1 de Val da Laje passage grave. We fully exploit the organic residue extract, to obtain information regarding the diet of the people and their relationship with the environment, the socio-economic aspects of an otherwise elusive society, and we also used a new methodology to obtain direct absolute dates for the pottery, the residue extract being the only datable organic material from the site. Our results suggest a community with diet based on terrestrial resources, that was fully benefitting from a range of domestic animals including their secondary products. We present the first direct evidence of not only meat consumption, but also milk and dairy production in Iberia. The compound-specific radiocarbon dating methodology, opens a door to possibilities for investigating otherwise poorly dated archaeological phenomena in the Iberian Peninsula.