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Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers
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Journal Article
Widespread exploitation of the honeybee by early Neolithic farmers
2015
Overview
Detection of molecular biomarkers characteristic of beeswax in pottery vessels at archaeological sites reveals that humans have exploited bee products (such as beeswax and honey) at least 9,000 years ago since the beginnings of agriculture.
Hive products in use before the beginnings of agriculture
Bees and humans have enjoyed a long association, as evidenced by bee iconography in rock art and ancient Egyptian paintings and carvings, and a few isolated reports of beeswax in archeological contexts. But when did this association become common? Mélanie Roffet-Salque
et al
. use the telltale gas chromatographic signature of beeswax from lipid residues preserved in pottery vessels to plot the use of beeswax across Neolithic Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. They demonstrate its extensive and possibly continuous use in some places for 8,000 years or more. The association, therefore, goes back to the beginnings of agriculture and possibly earlier.
The pressures on honeybee (
Apis mellifera
) populations, resulting from threats by modern pesticides, parasites, predators and diseases, have raised awareness of the economic importance and critical role this insect plays in agricultural societies across the globe. However, the association of humans with
A. mellifera
predates post-industrial-revolution agriculture, as evidenced by the widespread presence of ancient Egyptian bee iconography dating to the Old Kingdom (approximately 2400
bc
)
1
. There are also indications of Stone Age people harvesting bee products; for example, honey hunting is interpreted from rock art
2
in a prehistoric Holocene context and a beeswax find in a pre-agriculturalist site
3
. However, when and where the regular association of
A. mellifera
with agriculturalists emerged is unknown
4
. One of the major products of
A. mellifera
is beeswax, which is composed of a complex suite of lipids including
n
-alkanes,
n
-alkanoic acids and fatty acyl wax esters. The composition is highly constant as it is determined genetically through the insect’s biochemistry. Thus, the chemical ‘fingerprint’ of beeswax provides a reliable basis for detecting this commodity in organic residues preserved at archaeological sites, which we now use to trace the exploitation by humans of
A. mellifera
temporally and spatially. Here we present secure identifications of beeswax in lipid residues preserved in pottery vessels of Neolithic Old World farmers. The geographical range of bee product exploitation is traced in Neolithic Europe, the Near East and North Africa, providing the palaeoecological range of honeybees during prehistory. Temporally, we demonstrate that bee products were exploited continuously, and probably extensively in some regions, at least from the seventh millennium cal
bc
, likely fulfilling a variety of technological and cultural functions. The close association of
A. mellifera
with Neolithic farming communities dates to the early onset of agriculture and may provide evidence for the beginnings of a domestication process.
