Lipid residue analysis reveals divergent culinary practices in Japan and Korea at the dawn of intensive agriculture

Abstract

Rice and millet dispersed from the Korean peninsula to the Japanese archipelago, arriving first on the island of Kyushu around three millennia ago, beyond that little is known about their culinary use. Pottery was used extensively in East Asian prehistory and retains evidence of use through lipids that penetrate the surface. By extracting and characterizing lipids, we identified clear differences in the use of ceramic cooking vessels from Bronze Age Korea and pre- and postagricultural sites in Kyushu. While Korean pottery was extensively used for processing common millet, this product was absent in contemporary Japanese vessels despite extensive testing. We attribute this discrepancy to different “culinary traditions” that prevailed beyond the arrival of intensive agriculture. Keywords: organic residue analysis, lipids, agriculture, pottery, East Asia