Biomolecules and the archaeological assemblage: Bridging disciplines toward new archaeological narratives in the Bronze Age Mediterranean and beyond

The explosion of techniques such as ancient DNA, organic residue analysis, and paleoproteomics marks an unmistakable ‘biomolecular turn’ in the discipline of archaeology that has rapidly reshaped narratives about the human past. Yet this explosion has also challenged archaeology’s interdisciplinary limits. Discipline-specific knowledge, interpretative frameworks, and jargon complicate the integration of biomolecular data with micro- and macro-scale archaeological evidence. Drawing from research on interdisciplinarity, I explore the essential concept of the archaeological assemblage, nuanced by recent developments in assemblage theory, as a tool to cultivate shared languages of communication and interpretative frameworks in biomolecular archaeology. Through a case study of storage vessels from Late Bronze Age Cyprus (1600-1150 BCE), I test the integration of organic residue, ceramic, and spatial evidence with soil science data and chemical engineering methods. The results challenge longstanding assumptions about olive oil’s dominance in the Late Bronze Age Cypriot economy as well as about the ability to detect plant oil residues in sherds from the calcium-rich soils of the eastern Mediterranean. Together, this work shows how an interdisciplinary approach incorporating biomolecules as part of archaeological assemblages enables new, nuanced narratives and robust methodological tools grounded in archaeological and environmental context.