Archaeologist Gabriele Franke of Goethe University, inspecting Nok ships at Nigeria’s Janjala research station. Franke is the co-author of a new article on honey harvesting in prehistoric West Africa. Image via Peter Breunig / University of Bristol.
Terracotta pottery pieces, unearthed at excavation sites in central Nigeria (some up to 3,500 years old), bear direct evidence that the ships had honey, humanity’s oldest sweetener. Residue analyzes found in the fragments show compounds found in beeswax, suggesting that wax combs may have been heated in the vessels to separate the honey. This new knowledge is an exciting find in the world of archeology. So far, direct evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, related to bees and beekeeping, has been lacking.
The new findings were published on April 14, 2021 in the peer-reviewed journal Communications on Nature.
A map showing the former Nok territory in present-day Nigeria. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Pottery is associated with the Nok culture, a civilization that first emerged in 1,500 BC and lasted about 1,500 years. The Nok were known for the elaborate terracotta sculptures that were the oldest known figurative art in Africa. The Nok culture was present at a time and place where the first farmers and foragers coexisted. But it is not known, for example, whether the people of the Nok culture had domesticated animals or whether, on the other hand, they were primarily hunters. Archaeologists have been studying figurines of Nok and other artifacts to learn more about this early culture. This includes identifying the foods they ate.
Nok terracotta figurines. Image through Goethe University / University of Bristol.
At archeological sites, scientists look for food scraps to learn about food, hunting, and agricultural practices. For example, animal bones on the ground provide valuable clues. But in central Nigeria, acidic soil does not preserve animal remains. Thus, the scientists focused their attention on fragments of pottery, with more than 450 pieces, doing chemical analyzes to look for food residues trapped in the porous terracotta.
Scientists were surprised to find that about a third of the pottery pieces contained complex lipids found in beeswax. The beeswax may have been trapped in the terracotta pores of the vessels when it melted during heating, or it was absorbed into the pottery during the storage of the honeycombs. The stable lipids of beeswax were preserved for thousands of years. A chemical analysis technique called gas chromatography was used to identify lipid compounds as beeswax originals.
Julie Dunne, of the University of Bristol, is the lead author of the new paper. She said in a statement:
This is a remarkable example of how biomolecular information extracted from prehistoric pottery, combined with ethnographic data, provided the first insights into ancient honey hunting in West Africa 3,500 years ago.
Check out my blog at @NatureEcoEvo in ours @NatureComms honey hunting in west africa paper from 3500 years ago #lipids #bees #mull #Enough #Nigeriahttps://t.co/urkVLhXGQh
– Dr. Julie Dunne (@thepotlady) April 15, 2021
It is difficult to know for sure how ancient Nok used honey. They probably heated the combs in the pots to separate the honey. Maybe honey was processed with other foods. It is even possible that the boats were used to make mead. Beeswax may have been used medicinally, as a cosmetic, or for other practical applications such as creating a sealant or adhesive. Pottery itself could have been used to house hives, as some traditional African societies do today.
Bees and their association with honey have appeared in petroglyphs and prehistoric paintings. For example, an 8,000-year-old rock painting in Valencia, Spain, shows a man collecting honey from a wild hive. There are more than 4,000 documented cases of prehistoric rock art with bees and honey in Africa. According to records kept by the ancient Egyptians, beekeeping was practiced as early as 2,600 BC. Until now, little was known directly about honey collection in sub-Saharan Africa. Richard Evershed, also of the University of Bristol and co-author of the paper, commented on the statement:
The association of prehistoric people with the bee is a recurring theme throughout the ancient world; however, the discovery of the chemical components of beeswax in the pottery of the Nok people provides a unique window into this relationship, when all other sources of evidence are lacking.
Excavation at a Nok site in Ifana, Nigeria. Image via Peter Breunig / University of Bristol.
Abstract: The first direct evidence of honey harvesting in sub-Saharan Africa, 3,500 years ago, was announced by scientists who found remnants of beeswax in the ancient terracotta pottery associated with the Nok culture from central Nigeria.
Source: Honey collection in prehistoric West Africa 3500 years ago
Read “Behind the Paper” by its lead author, Julie Dunne
Via University of Bristol
Via Goethe University
