Archaeology of Food
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Archaeology of Food
An Encyclopedia
EDITED BY
KAREN BESCHERER METHENY
AND
MARY C. BEAUDRY
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
Lanham • Boulder • New York • London
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Published by Rowman & Littlefield
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2015 by Rowman & Littlefield
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic
or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written
permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Archaeology of food : an encyclopedia / edited by Karen Bescherer Metheny and Mary C.
Beaudry.
volumes cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7591-2364-9 (cloth : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-0-7591-2366-3 (electronic)
1. Prehistoric peoples—Food—Encyclopedias. 2. Food habits—History—Encyclopedias.
3. Diet—History—Encyclopedias. 4. Excavations (Archaeology)—Encyclopedias. 5. Social
archaeology—Encyclopedias. I. Metheny, Karen Bescherer, 1960– II. Beaudry, Mary Carolyn,
1950–
GN799.F6A73 2015
394.1'209—dc23
2014049892
™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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In memory of our colleagues
Klaus Schmidt
1953–2014
Sharon Zuckerman
1965–2014
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CONTENTS
Thematic Contents
List of Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Featured Archaeological Sites
xiii
xxi
xxvii
xxix
xxxi
Agave Distillation
1
Agricultural Features,
Identification and Analysis
2
Agricultural/
Horticultural Sites
4
Agriculture, Origins of
6
Bakeries
42
Barley
44
Bean/Common Bean
45
Bedrock Features
45
Beer
46
Bioarchaeological Analysis
48
Agriculture, Procurement,
Processing, and Storage
18
Biomolecular Analysis
61
Amphorae
23
Black Drink (Cassina)
63
Bogs
64
Bone Fat Extraction
67
Bottle Gourd
69
Bread
70
Ancient Clam Gardens
(Northwest Coast,
North America)
24
Animal Domestication
25
Animal Husbandry
and Herding
27
Breweries
75
Archaeobotany
29
Brewing/Malting
78
Archaeology of Cooking
32
Broad Spectrum
Revolution
79
Archaeology of Household
Food Production
33
Butchery
81
Architectural Analysis
37
Cacao/Chocolate
84
Areni (Armenia)
40
Cannibalism
87
vii
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viii
CONTENTS
DNA Analysis
141
89
Documentary Analysis
142
Çatalhöyük (Turkey)
91
Domestic Sites
144
Cattle
93
Ethnoarchaeology
146
Cereals
94
Ethnographic Sources
149
Chicha
97
Experimental Archaeology
150
Chicken
98
Factories
153
Chili Peppers
99
Famine
155
Clay Cooking Balls
100
Feasting
157
Coca
102
Coffee
103
Feddersen Wierde
(Germany)
159
Columbian Exchange
104
Fermentation
161
Commensality
109
Conchopata (Peru)
111
Fire and the Development
of Cooking
163
Condiments
112
Fire and the Development
of Cooking Technology
165
Consumption
113
Cookbooks
115
Fire-Based
Cooking Features
168
Cooking Vessels, Ceramic
116
Fish/Shellfish
171
Cooking Vessels, Metal
118
Fishing
172
Cooking Vessels,
Other Materials
Flotation
173
121
Food and Capitalism
174
Cooperative Hunting
122
Food and Colonialism
180
Creole Cuisines/Foodways
123
Food and Conflict
182
Creolization
125
Cultivation
126
Food and Dining
as Social Display
184
Curry
128
Food and Gender
187
Dental Analysis
130
Food and Identity
189
Dhra’ (Jordan)
132
Food and Inequality
191
Diaspora Foodways
133
Food and Politics
193
Digestion and
Human Evolution
Food and Power
195
136
Food and Ritual
197
Distillation
138
Food and Status
199
Distilled Spirits
139
Carvings/Carved
Representations of Food
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CONTENTS
ix
Guilá Naquitz (Mexico)
245
201
Gut Analysis
246
Food as a Commodity
203
Food as Sensory Experience
205
Haithabu/Hedeby
(Germany)
247
Food Preservation
206
Hazor (Israel)
248
Herculaneum and
Pompeii (Italy)
249
High Performance
Liquid Chromatography
252
Hilazon Tachtit (Israel)
253
Honey and Nectar
255
Household Archaeology
256
Hunter-Gatherer
Subsistence
257
Iceman
261
Immigrant Foodways
262
Industrialization of Food
and Food Production
264
Informal Economic
Exchange
266
267
Food Appropriation and
Culinary Imperialism
Food Production and
the Formation of
Complex Societies
209
Food Production and
the Origins of Writing
in Mesopotamia
211
Food Sharing
215
Food Storage
217
Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of
219
Foodways
221
Foodways and Gender Roles
222
Foodways and
Religious Practices
224
Foraging
226
Franchthi Cave (Greece)
228
Fruits
229
Fungi
231
Infrared Spectroscopy/
Fourier Transform
Infrared Spectroscopy
Gao (Mali)
232
Innovation and Risk
268
Insecticides/Repellents
270
Insects
271
Irrigation/Hydraulic
Engineering
272
Gas Chromatography/
Gas Chromatography–
Mass Spectrometry
233
Gesher Benot
Ya‘aqov (Israel)
234
Globalization
235
Jamestown, Virginia
(United States)
276
Göbekli Tepe (Turkey)
238
Jerimalai Cave (East Timor)
277
Gordion (Turkey)
239
Joya de Cerén (El Salvador)
277
Gran Dolina (Spain)
241
Kabah (Mexico)
280
Greens/Herbs
244
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x
CONTENTS
Lactase Persistence
and Dairying
283
Lake Villages (Europe)
284
Mummies
330
Ñanchoc Valley (Peru)
332
Native American
Ethnobotany
334
Neanderthal Diet
336
Neolithic Package
338
Niah Caves (Malaysia)
340
Landscape and
Environmental
Reconstruction
286
Latrines and Sewer Systems
288
Legumes and Pulses
291
Macroremains
294
Nixtamalization
342
Maize
296
Nuts
343
Manioc/Cassava
298
Oedenburg (France)
344
Offerings and Grave Goods
345
Ohalo II (Israel)
347
Manures and Other
Fertilizers, Identification
and Analysis
300
Oil-Bearing Seed Plants
349
Manuring and Soil
Enrichment Practices
301
Old World Globalization
and Food Exchanges
350
Marine Mammals
303
Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)
356
Markets/Exchange
304
Olive Oil
358
Material Culture Analysis
306
Oral and Folk Narratives
360
Mead
308
Ovens and Stoves
362
Meat
309
Pacific Oceanic Exchange
365
Mesoamerican
Archaic-Period Diet
311
Paisley Caves, Oregon
(United States)
369
Mesolithic Diet
312
Palace of Nestor (Greece)
370
Middens and Other
Trash Deposits
316
Paleodemography
371
Military Sites
318
Paleodietary Analysis
373
Milk and Dairy Products
320
Paleofecal Analysis
375
Paleoindian Diet
376
Millets
321
Paleolithic Diet
377
Milling
323
Paleonutrition
379
Mortuary Complexes
326
Paleopathology
385
mtDNA Analysis
328
Palynology
398
Multi- and Interdisciplinary
Approaches
329
Parasitological Analysis
400
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CONTENTS
xi
Philistine Foodways
402
Root Crops/Tubers
441
Phytolith Analysis
404
Rye
444
Pig
406
Salt
447
Plant Domestication
407
Plant Husbandry
409
San Genesio, Medieval
Tavern Site (San Miniato,
Pisa) (Italy)
448
Plant Processing
410
Plants
412
Sardis, Ritual Egg Deposit
(Turkey)
449
Poplar Forest, Virginia
(United States)
414
Scanning Electron
Microscopy
450
Potato
415
Secondary Products
Revolution
451
Sedentism and
Domestication
454
Preferences, Avoidances,
Prohibitions, Taboos
418
Pre–Silk Road Agricultural
Exchange (Central Asia)
420
Sheep/Goat
457
Psychoactive Plants
422
Shell Middens
458
Pulque
423
Shipwrecks
459
Quids
425
Slave Diet, on Slave Ships
461
Quseir al-Qadim (Egypt)
426
Radiocarbon Dating
428
Slave Diet, on Southern
Plantations
463
Recipes
429
Slave Diet, on West Indian
Plantations
465
Representational Models of
Food and Food Production
430
Soil Microtechniques
467
Residue Analysis, Blood
432
Sorghum
469
Residue Analysis, Dairy
Products
432
Spatial Analysis and
Visualization Techniques
470
Residue Analysis, Starch
433
Spent Grain as Animal Feed
473
Residue Analysis, Tartaric
Acid
434
Spices
473
Residue Analysis,
Theobromine
Squash/Gourds
474
435
Stable Isotope Analysis
478
Rice
436
Star Carr (England)
479
RNA Analysis
438
Starches, Role of
480
Rock Art
439
Storage Facilities
481
Rockshelters/Caves
440
Stores/Markets
482
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xii
CONTENTS
Subeixi Cemeteries (China)
484
Use-Wear Analysis, Metal
525
Subsistence Models
485
Sucrose
487
Use-Wear or Use-Alteration
Analysis, Pottery
526
Sustainability
489
Vegetables
528
Sweet Potato
491
Wall Paintings/Murals
531
Taro
493
Water
534
Taverns/Inns
494
Water Supply and Storage
534
Tea
496
Weapons, Bone/
Antler/Ivory
536
Teeth, Diet, and
Human Evolution
497
Weapons, Metal
538
Tehuacán Valley (Mexico)
499
Weapons, Stone
540
Tel Reḥov (Israel)
499
Weeds
542
Tobacco
501
Wheat
544
Tools/Utensils, Decorated
505
Wild Progenitors of
Domesticated Plants
546
Tools/Utensils,
Ground Stone
506
Wine
548
Tools/Utensils, Metal
508
Wineries
551
Wonderwerk Cave
(South Africa)
552
Work Camps
554
Tools/Utensils,
Organic Materials
511
Tools/Utensils, Stone
515
Trace Element Analysis
in Human Diet
Yam
556
518
Yeast
557
Trade Routes
519
York (England)
558
Umami/Glutamates
522
Zooarchaeology
559
Use-Wear Analysis, Lithics
523
Index
563
About the Editors and Contributors
585
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T H E MCAT
O NI CT CE N
ON
T ST E N T S
Animals
Cattle
Chicken
Marine Mammals
Pig
Sheep/Goat
93
98
303
406
457
Beverages, Fermented
or Distilled
Agave Distillation
Beer
Cacao/Chocolate
Chicha
Distilled Spirits
Mead
Pulque
Wine
1
46
84
97
139
308
423
548
Beverages, Nonalcoholic
Black Drink (Cassina)
Cacao/Chocolate
Coffee
Milk and Dairy Products
Tea
Water
Categories of Evidence
Archaeobotanical
Archaeobotany
Landscape and
Environmental
Reconstruction
Macroremains
Palynology
Phytolith Analysis
Starches, Role of
Archaeological
Agricultural Features,
Identification and
Analysis
Agricultural/
Horticultural Sites
Ancient Clam Gardens
Architectural Analysis
Bakeries
Bedrock Features
Breweries
Domestic Sites
Ethnoarchaeology
Experimental Archaeology
Factories
Fire-Based Cooking
Features
Landscape and
Environmental
Reconstruction
Latrines and
Sewer Systems
Manures and Other
Fertilizers, Identification
and Analysis
Markets/Exchange
Middens and Other
Trash Deposits
Military Sites
Offerings and
Grave Goods
Ovens and Stoves
Rockshelters/Caves
63
84
103
320
496
534
29
286
294
398
404
480
2
4
24
37
42
45
75
144
146
150
153
168
286
288
300
304
316
318
345
362
440
xiii
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xiv
T H E M AT I C C O N T E N T S
Shell Middens
Shipwrecks
Storage Facilities
Stores/Markets
Taverns/Inns
Wineries
Work Camps
Bioarchaeological
Bioarchaeological Analysis
Dental Analysis
Digestion and
Human Evolution
Gut Analysis
Iceman
Lactase Persistence
and Dairying
Mummies
Paleodemography
Paleodietary Analysis
Paleofecal Analysis
Paleonutrition
Paleopathology
Parasitological Analysis
Stable Isotope Analysis
Teeth, Diet, and
Human Evolution
Trace Element Analysis
in Human Diet
Biomolecular
Bioarchaeological Analysis
Biomolecular Analysis
DNA Analysis
mtDNA Analysis
Residue Analysis, Blood
Residue Analysis,
Dairy Products
Residue Analysis, Starch
Residue Analysis,
Tartaric Acid
Residue Analysis,
Theobromine
RNA Analysis
Stable Isotope Analysis
Trace Element Analysis
in Human Diet
Ethnographic
Ethnoarchaeology
Ethnographic Sources
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xiv
458
459
481
482
494
551
554
46
130
136
246
261
283
330
371
373
375
379
385
400
478
497
518
48
61
141
328
432
432
433
434
435
438
478
518
146
149
Material Culture
Agricultural/
Horticultural Sites
Agriculture, Procurement,
Processing, and Storage
Amphorae
Archaeology of Cooking
Architectural Analysis
Bedrock Features
Carvings/Carved
Representations of Food
Clay Cooking Balls
Cookbooks
Cooking Vessels, Ceramic
Cooking Vessels, Metal
Cooking Vessels,
Other Materials
Domestic Sites
Fire and the Development
of Cooking Technology
Fire-Based Cooking
Features
Food and Dining
as Social Display
Food Storage
Food Technology and
Ideas about Food,
Spread of
Industrialization of Food
and Food Production
Material Culture Analysis
Middens and Other
Trash Deposits
Milling
Offerings and
Grave Goods
Ovens and Stoves
Plant Processing
Recipes
Rock Art
Shell Middens
Shipwrecks
Storage Facilities
Stores/Markets
Taverns/Inns
Tools/Utensils, Decorated
Tools/Utensils,
Ground Stone
4
18
23
32
37
45
89
100
115
116
118
121
144
165
168
186
217
219
264
306
316
323
345
362
410
429
439
458
459
481
482
494
505
506
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T H E M AT I C C O N T E N T S
Tools/Utensils, Metal
Tools/Utensils, Organic
Materials
Tools/Utensils, Stone
Wall Paintings/Murals
Weapons, Bone/Antler/
Ivory
Weapons, Metal
Weapons, Stone
Oral Sources
Ethnographic Sources
Oral and Folk Narratives
Textual and Representational
Carvings/Carved
Representations of Food
Cookbooks
Documentary Analysis
Food Production and
the Origins of Writing
in Mesopotamia
Recipes
Representational
Models of Food
and Food Production
Rock Art
Tools/Utensils,
Decorated
Wall Paintings/Murals
Zooarchaeological
Animal Domestication
Animal Husbandry
and Herding
Bone Fat Extraction
Butchery
Meat
Zooarchaeology
Diet and Subsistence
Agricultural/
Horticultural Sites
Agriculture, Origins of
Agriculture, Procurement,
Processing, and Storage
Ancient Clam Gardens
Animal Domestication
Animal Husbandry
and Herding
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xv
508
511
515
531
536
538
540
149
360
89
115
142
211
429
430
439
505
531
25
27
67
81
309
559
4
6
18
24
25
27
Archaeology of Cooking
Archaeology of Household
Food Production
Bone Fat Extraction
Broad Spectrum Revolution
Butchery
Cannibalism
Consumption
Cooperative Hunting
Cultivation
Digestion and
Human Evolution
Famine
Fire and the Development
of Cooking
Fire and the Development
of Cooking Technology
Fire-Based Cooking Features
Fishing
Food as a Commodity
Food Preservation
Food Production and
the Formation of
Complex Societies
Food Sharing
Food Storage
Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of
Foraging
Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence
Industrialization of Food and
Food Production
Informal Economic
Exchange
Irrigation/Hydraulic
Engineering
Lactase Persistence
and Dairying
Manuring and Soil
Enrichment Practices
Markets/Exchange
Mesoamerican ArchaicPeriod Diet
Mesolithic Diet
Native American
Ethnobotany
xv
32
33
67
79
81
87
113
122
126
136
155
163
165
168
172
203
206
209
215
217
219
226
257
264
266
272
283
301
304
311
312
334
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xvi
Neanderthal Diet
Neolithic Package
Paleoindian Diet
Paleolithic Diet
Plant Domestication
Plant Husbandry
Plant Processing
Secondary Products
Revolution
Sedentism and
Domestication
Slave Diet, on Slave Ships
Slave Diet, on
Southern Plantations
Slave Diet, on West
Indian Plantations
Subsistence Models
Sustainability
Teeth, Diet, and
Human Evolution
Trade Routes
Water
Water Supply and Storage
Foodstuffs
Bean/Common Bean
Bread
Cereals
Barley
Maize
Millets
Rice
Rye
Sorghum
Wheat
Chili Peppers
Condiments
Fish/Shellfish
Fruits
Fungi
Greens/Herbs
Honey and Nectar
Insects
Legumes and Pulses
Meat
Cattle
Chicken
Marine Mammals
Pig
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xvi
T H E M AT I C C O N T E N T S
336
338
376
377
407
409
410
451
454
461
463
465
485
489
497
519
534
534
45
70
94
44
296
321
436
444
469
544
99
112
171
229
231
244
255
271
291
309
93
98
303
406
Sheep/Goat
Milk and Dairy Products
Nuts
Oil-Bearing Seed Plants
Olive Oil
Root Crops/Tubers
Manioc/Cassava
Potato
Sweet Potato
Taro
Yam
Salt
Spices
Curry
Squash/Gourds
Bottle Gourd
Sucrose
Umami/Glutamates
Vegetables
Yeast
Foodways
Agriculture, Procurement,
Processing, and Storage
Archaeology of Cooking
Archaeology of Household
Food Production
Butchery
Commensality
Consumption
Creole Cuisines/Foodways
Diaspora Foodways
Feasting
Fire and the Development of
Cooking Technology
Food and Dining as Social
Display
Food and Identity
Food and Ritual
Food and Status
Food Appropriation and
Culinary Imperialism
Food as a Commodity
Food as Sensory Experience
Food Preservation
Food Sharing
Food Storage
Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of
457
320
343
349
358
441
298
415
491
493
556
447
473
128
474
69
487
522
528
557
18
32
33
81
109
113
123
133
157
165
184
189
197
199
201
203
205
206
215
217
219
6/30/15 2:43 PM
T H E M AT I C C O N T E N T S
Foodways
Foodways and Gender Roles
Foodways and Religious
Practices
Foraging
Household Archaeology
Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence
Immigrant Foodways
Informal Economic
Exchange
Markets/Exchange
Material Culture Analysis
Middens and Other Trash
Deposits
Philistine Foodways
Plant Processing
Preferences, Avoidances,
Prohibitions, Taboos
Stores/Markets
Issues
Agriculture, Origins of
Cannibalism
Consumption
Diaspora Foodways
Famine
Fire and the Development
of Cooking
Food and Capitalism
Food and Colonialism
Food and Conflict
Food and Gender
Food and Identity
Food and Inequality
Food and Politics
Food and Power
Food and Status
Food Appropriation and
Culinary Imperialism
Food as a Commodity
Food as Sensory Experience
Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of
Globalization
Industrialization of Food
and Food Production
Meat
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xvii
221
222
224
226
256
257
262
266
304
306
316
402
410
418
482
6
87
113
133
155
163
174
180
182
187
189
191
193
195
199
201
203
205
219
235
264
309
Preferences, Avoidances,
Prohibitions, Taboos
Sustainability
Methods of
Analysis/Approaches
Agricultural Features,
Identification
and Analysis
Archaeobotany
Architectural Analysis
Bioarchaeological Analysis
Biomolecular Analysis
Dental Analysis
DNA Analysis
Documentary Analysis
Ethnoarchaeology
Experimental Archaeology
Flotation
Gas Chromatography/
Gas Chromatography–
Mass Spectrometry
Gut Analysis
High Performance Liquid
Chromatography
Household Archaeology
Infrared Spectroscopy/
Fourier Transform
Infrared Spectroscopy
Landscape and
Environmental
Reconstruction
Manures and Other
Fertilizers, Identification
and Analysis
Material Culture Analysis
mtDNA Analysis
Multi- and Interdisciplinary
Approaches
Oral and Folk Narratives
Paleodemography
Paleodietary Analysis
Paleofecal Analysis
Paleonutrition
Paleopathology
Palynology
xvii
418
489
2
29
37
46
61
130
141
142
146
150
173
233
246
252
256
267
286
300
306
328
329
360
371
373
375
379
385
398
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xviii
T H E M AT I C C O N T E N T S
Parasitological Analysis
Phytolith Analysis
Radiocarbon Dating
Residue Analysis, Blood
Residue Analysis,
Dairy Products
Residue Analysis, Starch
Residue Analysis, Tartaric
Acid
Residue Analysis,
Theobromine
RNA Analysis
Scanning Electron
Microscopy
Soil Microtechniques
Spatial Analysis and
Visualization Techniques
Stable Isotope Analysis
Subsistence Models
Trace Element Analysis in
Human Diet
Use-Wear Analysis, Lithics
Use-Wear Analysis, Metal
Use-Wear or Use-Alteration
Analysis, Pottery
Zooarchaeology
Movement/Exchange of
Plants, Animals, Technology,
and Ideas
Columbian Exchange
Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of
Informal Economic
Exchange
Markets/Exchange
Old World Globalization
and Food Exchanges
Pacific Oceanic Exchange
Pre–Silk Road Agricultural
Exchange (Central Asia)
Trade Routes
Plants
Cereals
Barley
Maize
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xviii
400
404
428
432
432
433
434
435
438
450
467
470
478
485
518
523
525
526
559
104
219
266
304
350
365
420
519
94
44
296
Rice
Rye
Sorghum
Wheat
Chili Peppers
Coffee
Fruits
Fungi
Greens/Herbs
Legumes and Pulses
Bean/Common Bean
Manioc/Cassava
Millets
Native American
Ethnobotany
Nuts
Oil-Bearing Seed Plants
Psychoactive Plants
Coca
Quids
Tobacco
Root Crops/Tubers
Potato
Sweet Potato
Taro
Yam
Spices
Curry
Squash/Gourds
Bottle Gourd
Sucrose
Tea
Vegetables
Weeds
Wild Progenitors of
Domesticated Plants
Procurement, Processing,
and Storage
Agave Distillation
Agriculture, Procurement,
Processing, and Storage
Amphorae
Animal Husbandry
and Herding
Archaeology of Cooking
Archaeology of Household
Food Production
436
444
469
544
99
103
229
231
244
291
45
298
321
334
343
349
422
102
425
501
441
415
491
493
556
473
128
474
69
487
496
528
542
546
1
2
23
27
32
33
6/30/15 2:43 PM
T H E M AT I C C O N T E N T S
Bakeries
Bedrock Features
Bone Fat Extraction
Breweries
Brewing/Malting
Butchery
Clay Cooking Balls
Cooking Vessels, Ceramic
Cooking Vessels, Metal
Cooking Vessels,
Other Materials
Cultivation
Distillation
Factories
Fermentation
Fire and the Development
of Cooking Technology
Fire-Based Cooking Features
Fishing
Food as a Commodity
Food Preservation
Food Storage
Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of
Foodways
Foraging
Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence
Industrialization of Food
and Food Production
Informal Economic
Exchange
Insecticides/Repellents
Manuring and Soil
Enrichment Practices
Markets/Exchange
Milling
Nixtamalization
Ovens and Stoves
Plant Husbandry
Plant Processing
Spent Grain as Animal Feed
Stores/Markets
Subsistence Models
Taverns/Inns
Trade Routes
Water Supply and Storage
Weeds
Wineries
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xix
42
45
67
75
78
81
100
116
118
121
126
138
153
161
165
168
172
203
206
217
219
221
226
257
264
266
270
301
304
323
342
362
409
410
473
482
485
494
519
534
542
551
Site Types
Agricultural/
Horticultural Sites
Ancient Clam Gardens
Bakeries
Bogs
Breweries
Domestic Sites
Factories
Latrines and Sewer Systems
Middens and Other
Trash Deposits
Military Sites
Mortuary Complexes
Rockshelters/Caves
Shell Middens
Shipwrecks
Storage Facilities
Stores/Markets
Taverns/Inns
Wineries
Work Camps
Sites
Areni (Armenia)
Çatalhöyük (Turkey)
Conchopata (Peru)
Dhra’ (Jordan)
Feddersen Wierde (Germany)
Franchthi Cave (Greece)
Gao (Mali)
Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov (Israel)
Göbekli Tepe (Turkey)
Gordion (Turkey)
Gran Dolina (Spain)
Guilá Naquitz (Mexico)
Haithabu/Hedeby (Germany)
Hazor (Israel)
Herculaneum and
Pompeii (Italy)
Hilazon Tachtit (Israel)
Jamestown, Virginia
(United States)
Jerimalai Cave (East Timor)
Joya de Cerén (El Salvador)
Kabah, Maya Royal
Kitchen (Mexico)
Lake Villages (Europe)
Ñanchoc Valley (Peru)
xix
4
24
42
64
75
144
153
288
316
318
326
440
458
459
481
482
494
551
554
40
91
111
132
159
228
232
234
238
239
241
245
247
248
249
253
276
277
277
280
284
332
6/30/15 2:43 PM
xx
T H E M AT I C C O N T E N T S
Niah Caves (Malaysia)
Oedenburg (France)
Ohalo II (Israel)
Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)
Paisley Caves, Oregon
(United States)
Palace of Nestor (Greece)
Poplar Forest, Virginia
(United States)
Quseir al-Qadim (Egypt)
San Genesio, Medieval
Tavern Site (San
Miniato, Pisa) (Italy)
Sardis, Ritual Egg Deposit
(Turkey)
Star Carr (England)
Subeixi Cemeteries (China)
Tehuacán Valley (Mexico)
Tel Reḥov (Israel)
Wonderwerk Cave
(South Africa)
York (England)
Theories
Agriculture, Origins of
Animal Domestication
Broad Spectrum Revolution
Commensality
Consumption
Cooperative Hunting
Creolization
Cultivation
Digestion and Human
Evolution
Feasting
Fire and the Development
of Cooking
Food and Capitalism
Food and Colonialism
Food and Conflict
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xx
340
344
347
356
369
370
414
426
448
449
479
484
499
499
552
558
6
25
79
109
113
122
125
126
136
157
163
174
180
182
Food and Dining as
Social Display
Food and Gender
Food and Identity
Food and Inequality
Food and Politics
Food and Power
Food and Ritual
Food and Status
Food Appropriation and
Culinary Imperialism
Food as a Commodity
Food as Sensory Experience
Food Production and
the Formation of
Complex Societies
Food Sharing
Food Storage
Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of
Foodways and Gender Roles
Foodways and
Religious Practices
Globalization
Informal Economic
Exchange
Innovation and Risk
Markets/Exchange
Neolithic Package
Plant Domestication
Plant Husbandry
Preferences, Avoidances,
Prohibitions, Taboos
Secondary Products
Revolution
Sedentism and Domestication
Subsistence Models
Teeth, Diet, and Human
Evolution
184
187
189
191
193
195
197
199
201
203
205
209
215
217
219
222
224
235
266
268
304
338
407
409
418
451
454
485
497
6/30/15 2:43 PM
F I G U RCEOSNATNE D
N TTA
S BLES
FIGURES
Map
1
Archaeological sites featured in individual encyclopedia entries.
Robinson Projection, WGS 1984.
xxix
Wooden hoe and winnowing fan from early Egyptian agricultural tool
assemblages.
20
Images of Seller of Chili, Seller of Wheat, and Seller of Tamales from the
Florentine Codex.
35
Distribution of sodium across room floors in Casa Z, Xaltocan,
Mexico.
36
Grape stems, pips, and skins from the wine-pressing installation at
Areni, Armenia.
40
5
Bioarchaeological lines of evidence.
49
6
Proceedings of the Floridians in Deliberating on Important Affairs by
Theodor de Bry (1591).
63
Beakers in which residues associated with the black drink were
identified. From the Greater Cahokia area (AD 1050–1250).
64
Wooden butter keg and contents from the Gilltown Bog, Hodgestown,
County Kildare, Ireland.
66
9
Late Iron Age bread from Bad Nauheim, Hesse, Germany.
75
10
Evidence of household brewing from Conchopata, Peru.
76
11
Brewery in the Wari civic-ceremonial center at Cerro Baúl, Peru, AD
600-1000.
77
Classic-period Maya cacao vessel, Río Azul, Petén, Guatemala, AD
460–480.
86
Banquet Scene from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal, Nineveh, Iraq,
ca. 645 BC.
89
2
3
4
7
8
12
13
xxi
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxi
6/30/15 2:43 PM
xxii
14
F I G U R E S A N D TA B L E S
Detail of panel of outer coffin of Djehutynakht, Deir el-Bersha, Egypt,
2010–1961 BC.
90
Fired clay cooking balls from Escalera al Cielo (AD 800–950), Yucatán,
Mexico.
101
16
Ottoman-era coffee cups from the site of Hanot Taggarim, Israel.
103
17
Giant jars and urns for brewing and serving chicha, from Conchopata,
Peru.
112
Bronze cooking vessels from the tomb of Fuhao, Yin Dynasty (13th
century BC) and the site of Beidi, Wuguan Village (13th–11th century
BC), Anyang City, Henan Province.
119
Ceramic and bronze kitchen range models from the East and West
Han Dynasties (202 BC–AD 220).
120
20
Ethnoarchaeological study of cooking in Uzbekistan.
147
21
Experimental test of a special type of hearth associated with the
Philistine culture, Israel.
151
Archaeobotanical evidence from the sites of Feddersen Wierde on the
North Sea (first century BC to fourth–fifth centuries AD) and the
Viking Age site of Haithabu, Germany.
160
23
Working model for the onset of various heat-based cooking methods.
167
24
Examples of generic cook-stone facilities.
169
25
Consumption patterns reveal the transition between communal and
individual dining in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean.
186
An open bulla (hollow clay sphere) and two calculi, used to represent
quantitatively commodities sold or on loan in mid-fourth millennium
BC Mesopotamia.
211
Tablets from Mesopotamia with accounts for barley and emmer (ca.
3200–3000 BC), wine (ca. 3350–3200 BC), and fish (ca. 3200–3000
BC).
213
Fragments of couscousières, or steamers, and ceramic tripod cookstoves
from the early 11th to late 14th centuries AD, Gao, Mali, are evidence
of the antiquity of Songhai culinary practices.
233
Left: The earliest depiction of maize in Africa by Pieter de Marees
(1602). Right: Maize rouletting, a decorative technique, has been used
as a chronometric marker at archaeological sites in Africa.
237
Stratigraphic profile of the deposits and levels at the Gran Dolina cave
site, Spain.
242
15
18
19
22
26
27
28
29
30
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxii
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F I G U R E S A N D TA B L E S
31
xxiii
A sign on Herculaneum’s Decumanus Maximus provides prices for
four different types of wine served at an adjacent tavern.
250
32
A carbonized loaf of bread and a bowl of figs from Herculaneum, Italy.
251
33
Evidence for the earliest known communal meals from the cave of
Hilazon Tachtit, Israel.
254
Satellite image of an ancient buried raised field (chinampa) farming
system in Lake Xaltocan, north of present-day Mexico City.
273
Maize plant from an agricultural field south of the village of Joya de
Cerén, El Salvador.
278
Hypothetical reconstruction of food preparation areas at the Maya
Royal Kitchen at Kabah, Mexico.
281
Imprint of a wheat ear on the bottom of a ceramic pot from a late
Neolithic circum-Alpine, pile-dwelling settlement (3384–3370 BC),
Switzerland.
285
Broken pottery, charcoal, and faunal remains among the preserved
posts of a Neolithic pile-dwelling at the site of Riedmatt, Canton Zug,
Switzerland (3230 cal BC).
285
Plan of the sewer system and water drainage channels at the
archaeological site of Herculaneum. Inset: The sewer under
Herculaneum’s street known as Cardo III.
289
40
Reconstruction of the public latrine in Herculaneum’s Central Baths.
290
41
Evidence of plant consumption in the Mesolithic diet includes the sea
beet root and bulbs of ramsons.
314
Quern stone for milling, found during excavations of the Bar Hill Fort
along the Antonine Wall, Scotland (AD 142–180).
324
Scatterplot analysis of plants found in the Native American
Ethnobotany (NAE) database showing the probability of a particular
plant’s use as a food or for other, nonfood purposes.
335
Artist’s reconstruction of feeding behavior by early Homo in Olduvai
Gorge.
357
Oil presses from Tel Hazor, Israel, eighth century BC, and Tell Tweini,
Syria, Iron Age II–III.
358
Iron Age IIA Aegean-style cooking jug and Canaanite-style cooking
pot from Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel.
403
47
Native potato harvest in Chopcca, Huancavelica, Peru.
417
48
Left: A modern herder’s yurt in eastern Kazakhstan. Right: Barley grain
from Tuzusai, Kazakhstan, ca. 410–150 BC.
421
34
35
36
37
38
39
42
43
44
45
46
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxiii
6/30/15 2:43 PM
xxiv
49
F I G U R E S A N D TA B L E S
Quids of yucca leaves from the American Southwest (~1,000–2,000
BP).
426
Black pepper, cardamom, ginger, and lime from Quseir al-Qadim, a
Roman and medieval port of trade on the Red Sea, Egypt.
427
Model bakery and brewery from the tomb of Meketre, Middle
Kingdom, Egypt.
431
Rock painting of a barramundi, northwest Arnhem Land, Northern
Territory of Australia.
440
53
Ritual egg deposits from Sardis, Turkey (AD 70–80).
449
54
Amphora with traces of aDNA from Corcyra on the island of Corfu
(third century BC).
460
Moche ceramic bottle in the form of a squash, north coast of Peru,
AD 100–800.
477
56
Photomicrographs of archaeological starch granules.
480
57
Desiccated foodstuffs from the Subeixi Cemeteries, China (500–300
cal BC).
484
58
The apiary at Tel Reḥov, Israel (ca. 900 BC).
500
59
Artist’s reconstruction of the apiary at Tel Reḥov.
501
60
Maya flask with traces of nicotine and a glyph identifying the vessel’s
function as a tobacco leaf container (AD 700).
503
Steatite (soapstone) pipe from the Red Elderberry Site, California (AD
860).
504
Red figure askos with strainer from a well in the ancient Athenian
Agora, Greece.
506
Viking-period metal utensils from Coppergate, York, England. Top: A
patched and riveted iron vessel, possibly a frying pan. Bottom: Doubleended spoons made of iron with tin plating.
510
Viking-period lathe-turned wooden cups and bowls from Coppergate,
York, England.
512
Bone straw-tip strainer from a Middle Bronze Age II cemetery, Gesher,
Israel.
514
Threshing sledges with flint inserts have been used to process
harvested grain stalks for millennia.
517
50
51
52
55
61
62
63
64
65
66
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxiv
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F I G U R E S A N D TA B L E S
67
68
69
70
71
xxv
Preserved vegetable remains from Mons Claudianus and Mons
Porphyrites, both Roman quarry settlements in the Eastern Desert of
Egypt, and Quseir al-Qadim, a Roman and medieval port of trade on
the Red Sea, Egypt.
529
Top: Detail of the San Bartolo mural depicting ancestral couple with
food and drink from the gods, Maya Late Preclassic period (first
century BC). Bottom: Detail of figures serving and drinking atole,
or maize gruel, from Calakmul mural, Maya Classic period (seventh
century AD).
532
Antler and bone harpoon heads for seal hunting from the Late Bronze
Age site of Asva, Estonia (900–500 BC).
537
Top: Grape harvest and wine making depicted in the tomb of Nakht
at Thebes, 18th Dynasty (1539–1292 BC). Bottom: Wine amphora
from the tomb of Tutankhamun.
549
Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa, contains one of the oldest and
longest occupation sequences known to date, as well as the earliest
evidence of in situ fire.
552
TA B L E S
1
2
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxv
Operational sequences and corresponding terminology for some
historical and archaeological cereal products.
72
Some common methods applied in the analysis of ancient bread finds.
73
6/30/15 2:43 PM
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxvi
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Abbreviations
aDNA
AMS
BSR
14
C
cDNA
cf.
CIEP
CT
DEM
DISH
DNA
EBA
EDX
ESA
FCR
FTIR
GC/C/IRMS
GC/GC-MS
GIS
HBE
HPLC
ICP-AES
ICP-MS
INAA
kcal
LAB
LBA
LC-MS/MS
LEH
LiDAR
LP
LSA
micro-CT
MNI
MRI
ancient DNA
accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating
Broad Spectrum Revolution
Carbon-14 or radiocarbon
complementary DNA
confer or compare (taxonomic nomenclature)
crossover immunoelectrophoresis
computed tomography
digital elevation model
diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis
deoxyribonucleic acid
Early Bronze Age
energy dispersive X-ray analysis
Early Stone Age
fire-cracked rock
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
gas chromatography–combustion–isotope ratio mass spectrometry
gas chromatography/gas chromatography–mass spectrometry
geographic information system
human behavioral ecology
high performance liquid chromatography
inductively coupled plasma–atomic emission spectroscopy
inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometric analysis
instrumental neutron activation analysis
kilocalories
lactic acid bacteria
Late Bronze Age
liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry
linear enamel hypoplasias
light detection and ranging
lactase persistence
Late Stone Age
micro-computed tomography or microtomography
minimum number of individuals
magnetic resonance imaging
xxvii
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxvii
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xxviii
MSA
mtDNA
n=
NAA
NGS
NISP
PCR
PPNA
PPNB
pXRF
qPCR
RNA
ROV
RT-PCR
SAGE
SEM
sp./spp.
USO
var.
VHR
VLM
WTSS
XRF
A B B R E V I AT I O N S
Middle Stone Age
mitochondrial DNA
number equals
neutron activation analysis
next generation sequencing
number of identified specimens
polymerase chain reaction
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
portable X-ray fluorescence
quantitative polymerase chain reaction
ribonucleic acid
remotely operated vehicle
reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction
serial analysis of gene expression
scanning electron microscopy
one or several species unknown or unspecified (taxonomic nomenclature)
underground storage organ
variety (taxonomic nomenclature)
very high resolution satellite imagery
visible-light microscopy
whole transcriptome shotgun sequencing
X-ray fluorescence
D AT E S
BP
cal AD
cal BC
cal BP
cal KYA
KYA
MYA
before present
calibrated years AD
calibrated years BC
calibrated years BP
thousand years ago calibrated
thousand years ago
million years ago
SYMBOLS
ca.
~
<
>
±
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxviii
circa
similar to
less than
greater than
plus or minus
6/30/15 2:43 PM
Introduction
An egg. A ceramic bowl. A stone pestle. Charred grains of wheat. Seemingly ordinary
objects that nonetheless have profound implications for understanding past human culture
and society. Food procurement is essential to human survival, and changes to diet have
been intimately connected with human evolutionary and social development. Ancient
populations developed a multitude of strategies (of which food production, or agriculture,
is only the most recent) to procure, process, and consume foods for their subsistence. But
food is more than diet and nutrition. Food and foodways are central to cultural practice,
social organization, and a range of intersecting identities and belief systems.
In editing the first reference work devoted to the fundamental connection between
food and archaeology, our chief goal has been to assemble into two volumes entries that
succinctly encapsulate current scientific knowledge about the archaeology of food. The
encyclopedia’s 284 entries, contributed by 236 archaeologists and scholars from across the
globe, are a reflection of the interest in and breadth of food-related inquiries in our field.
The encyclopedia spans diverse geographical and temporal contexts, as well as an array of
topics related to the archaeological study of food, including eras, places, cultural groups,
specific foodstuffs, landmark sites, analytical techniques, methodology, pioneers in the
field, innovations, theories, issues, controversies, and more. Entries such as Bioarchaeological
Analysis or Food and Capitalism provide broad overviews of research using examples from
different sites, cultures, or eras. More narrowly focused entries, for example, on specific
analytical techniques, and site-focused entries provide greater detail.
Because the archaeological study of food is a dynamic and growing area of interest,
the encyclopedia also features recent discoveries alongside the results of decades of research that have shaped the course of debate on issues such as the origins of agriculture,
the role of technological advances in human development, and the role of food and
foodways in creating identity or communicating meaning. Many entries are explicitly
multi- and interdisciplinary in content and approach, a reflection not only of the intersection of food and foodways with many aspects of daily life, but also of the value of
blending scientific and humanistic analyses to understand both the content and context
of food consumption in the past.
The entries in the encyclopedia are of necessity brief. They are not intended to provide comprehensive discussions but rather to offer summaries that will allow the reader to
gain a broad overview of the nature and importance of the research related to a particular
xxix
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxix
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xxx
INTRODUCTION
topic, key research questions, types of evidence, types of sites, and methods of analysis.
Further, each entry directs interested readers to the relevant literature through the recommendation of key publications on each topic.The recommended readings will provide
an entry point into the vast body of work that has been published on each topic, and
readers are encouraged to use this tool to learn more about a particular area of interest.
This encyclopedia is timely, as it reflects not only increased interest in past diet and
foodways within archaeology but also the coalescence of a wide range of disciplines,
including food studies, that are bringing food to the forefront of academic study. The
reasons for this rising interest are many—from the acknowledgment of food as a legitimate and vastly important topic of academic study, to public fascination with food
and cuisine. Attention to food and foodways, both scholarly and popular, acknowledges
food’s centrality to our daily lives and affirms the need to understand the choices humans make and have made about food, diet, and subsistence, and why they make the
choices they do. It also reflects current concerns about the effects of globalization, the
loss of biodiversity, and the need for sustainability and food security. The archaeological
evidence of past food consumption is surprisingly rich, and archaeologists have much
to contribute to a dialogue on these important issues.
We hope that this encyclopedia will serve as a reference for scholars and students
in archaeology, food studies, and related disciplines, as well as an introduction to the
archaeology of food for culinary historians, food historians, food writers, and food
and archaeology enthusiasts. By synthesizing and summarizing the vast archaeological
literature about food and foodways in the past, the encyclopedia provides an exciting,
broad-ranging, and useful introduction to this fascinating field of study. We hope that
it also serves to develop awareness of the importance of this research for contemporary
food-related issues and interests.
We thank Andrea Kendrick and Leanne Silverman, our editors at Rowman & Littlefield, for their support. We also thank Wendi Schnaufer, now of University of Alabama
Press, who initiated this project. Most of all, we thank our many contributors who responded with enthusiasm to our invitations and who have prepared their entries with
such care. It has been a tremendous pleasure to work with so many of our colleagues.The
connections we have forged with these scholars serve to emphasize the global relevance
of food-related studies as well as the interdisciplinary nature of such research. We are excited to be able to offer these two volumes as a testament to our mutual interest in and
curiosity about the archaeology of food.
Karen Bescherer Metheny
Mary C. Beaudry
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxx
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15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxxi
6/30/15 2:43 PM
Featured archaeological sites. Robinson Projection, WGS 1984. Data source: Natural Earth (naturalearthdata.com). Map by Laura E.
Masur. Key: United States: (1) Paisley Caves, Oregon; (2) Poplar Forest, Virginia; (3) Jamestown, Virginia. Mexico: (4) Guilá Naquitz;
(5) Tehuacán Valley; (6) Kabah. El Salvador: (7) Joya de Cerén. Peru: (8) Conchopata; (9) Ñanchoc Valley. England: (10) York; (11)
Star Carr. Spain: (12) Gran Dolina. France: (13) Oedenburg. Germany: (14) Feddersen Wierde; (15) Haithabu. Italy: (16) San Genesio,
Medieval Tavern Site (San Miniato, Pisa); (17) Herculaneum and Pompeii. Greece: (18) Franchthi Cave; (19) Palace of Nestor. Turkey: (20)
Çatalhöyük; (21) Göbekli Tepe; (22) Sardis; (23) Gordion. Israel: (24) Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov; (25) Hazor; (26) Hilazon Tachtit; (27) Ohalo
II; (28) Tel Reh.ov. Jordan: (29) Dhra’. Armenia: (30) Areni. Mali: (31) Gao. Tanzania: (32) Olduvai Gorge. Egypt: (33) Quseir al-Qadim.
South Africa: (34) Wonderwerk Cave. China: (35) Subeixi Cemeteries. Malaysia: (36) Niah Caves. East Timor: (37) Jerimalai Cave.
15_112-Metheny_V1.indb xxxii
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A
A G AV E D I S T I L L AT I O N
Distilled beverages made of Agave species (family Agavaceae), including the famous tequila, are generically named mezcals in Mexico, its center of origin and diversification.
Mezcal means “baked agave” in Náhuatl, the language of the Aztecs, in clear reference to
the raw material used to produce these spirits, which are part of traditional Mesoamerican
foodways and whose production before European contact remains controversial. Archaeological evidence indicates that agaves (called magueyes in Spanish) have been pit-cooked
for eating in Mesoamerica since at least 9000 BC, because their stems and attached leaf
bases are rich in carbohydrates easily converted to sugars by heat. Upon their arrival in
Mexico, the Spanish wrote that native peoples produced agave “wine.” Textual sources are
not clear as to whether these references are to fermented or distilled beverages, because
the Spanish used the same word for both and did not describe the process. It has been
hypothesized that Capacha vessels, found in funerary contexts from the Early Formative
(1500–1000 BC) in Colima state, western Mexico, and catch bowls associated with them,
could be used to produce mezcals. Experimental trials using vessel replicas, techniques,
and materials available in this region during this period, including the fermented juice
extracted from the pit-cooked stems and leaf bases, successfully produced mezcal. These
results are compatible with numerous archaeological findings that indicate the importance
of agaves in the region beginning in the Formative period. Further, these experiments
suggest that the Capacha-type Mesoamerican still could have originated from pots used
to cook beans or from steamer pots also used in that period, because of their suitability
for the process of water evaporation and condensation. Average vessel sizes, their archaeological context, and the ethanol yields of the replicas suggest that, if used as stills, they
were used to produce a prestige good for ceremonial contexts that were highly relevant
culturally and socially. Future chemical analyses of vessels may support this hypothesis.
See also Distillation; Distilled Spirits; Experimental Archaeology
Further Reading
Serra, Mari Carmen, and Carlos A. Lazcano. 2010. The Drink Mescal: Its Origin and Ritual Uses.
In Pre-Columbian Foodways, edited by John E. Staller and Michael Carrasco, 137–56. New York:
Springer.
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Zizumbo-Villarreal, Daniel, Fernando González-Zozaya, Angeles Olay-Barrientos, et al. 2009. Distillation in Western Mesoamerica before European Contact. Economic Botany 63:413–26.
■ PAT R I C I A C O L U N G A - G A R C Í A M A R Í N
AND DANIEL ZIZUMBO-VILLARREAL
A G R I C U LT U R A L F E AT U R E S , I D E N T I F I C AT I O N A N D A N A LY S I S
For much of the history of archaeology, research on agricultural spaces was conducted
through very indirect means. Population estimates of habitation sites were combined
with assessments of the productivity of broader regions. The identification of actual agricultural features was rare, unless obvious features such as terraces, field boundary walls,
canals, and dams were preserved. The ability of archaeologists to document farming
spaces has improved in the past several decades with the addition of new micro- and
macro-level techniques.
Ironically, botanical data have limited utility in identifying farming spaces. Macrofloral remains, for instance, often do not preserve unless carbonized, and the large parts of
cultivated plants—seeds, fruits, and so on—are typically removed from fields. Microfloral
plant remains are more useful. Pollen sequences record regional changes in vegetation
over time, providing proxies of human impact on the environment through such activities
as agriculture. A decrease in arboreal taxa in conjunction with a rise in early successional
species (and charcoal) commonly indicates agriculture in a previously forested landscape.
Generally, however, pollen records offer limited information on the specific range of species cultivated or the physical locations of past farming; domesticated species are almost
always underrepresented. Increasingly, archaeologists are using phytoliths to record human
environmental impact, the range of plants cultivated, and actual agricultural spaces and
techniques. Phytoliths are produced when plants absorb soluble silica from groundwater,
which is deposited in intra- and extracellular spaces in the plant body. Phytoliths are deposited in soil where the plants died, making them useful indicators of past agricultural
loci. Phytoliths have been used to identify particular farming strategies, such as irrigation.
Researchers discovered that phytoliths of domesticated grasses such as wheat and emmer
produce more silicified cells in irrigated versus dry-farming contexts, for example. This
discovery allowed archaeobotanists to document irrigation at Chalcolithic sites in Jordan.
Soil chemistry helps to identify agricultural spaces and even the possible crops cultivated. The identification of high phosphate levels has enabled researchers to locate habitation sites, middens, and farming loci. Ancient farming affects the amount of phosphorus
in soils. In some cases, agriculture can be detected by the relative depletion of phosphorus
compared to surrounding soils because crops remove phosphorus from the system. In
other cases, agriculture can be detected by a relative increase in phosphorous if ancient
farmers used organic amendments to enhance soil fertility. Carbon isotopic analysis also
has been used to identify specific crop taxa. Archaeologists working in the Maya lowlands
of Belize and Guatemala, for instance, recorded soils in artificially constructed terraces
with high carbon isotope signatures, suggesting the cultivation of C4 plants such as maize.
The ability to locate and document agricultural features has increased considerably
with advances in remote sensing technologies. Satellite imagery, both public and com-
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mercial, has been an important source of information.The Landsat (land satellite) program
has been in operation since 1972. Eight missions have been launched, the most recent in
2013. Each satellite has different sensor platforms that target distinct parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. Different bands are useful for accentuating specific landscape features,
including ancient agricultural systems. The resolution of Landsat data is often too coarse
to identify small features, however. Commercial satellite systems, such as Quickbird and
Ikonos, offer higher-resolution, multispectral imagery. Archaeologists working in central
Mexico used Quickbird data to document large pre-Aztec raised field systems. VHR
satellite data are more expensive than public data but are increasingly accessible via nocost applications. Google Earth utilizes VHR commercial data, for example, providing a
powerful tool for the archaeological study of landscapes.
The use of high-resolution topographic data to identify archaeological features has
exploded, particularly LiDAR (light detection and ranging). LiDAR instruments are
mounted on low-flying aircraft and scan the surface with light pulses, producing precise
three-dimensional models of entire landscapes. By using hundreds of thousands of pulses,
vegetation and other elements can be subtracted from the data, offering the potential to
produce digital elevation models of bare ground surfaces. This capacity has made LiDAR
very attractive to archaeologists working in heavily forested areas. In the dense Cambodian
jungle, for instance, archaeologists used LiDAR data to map the ancient city of Angkor and
its surrounding water management system.The expense of this technique limits its potential
to replace less costly alternatives such as satellite data or on-the-ground survey, however.
See also Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Archaeobotany; Irrigation/Hydraulic
Engineering; Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Manures and Other
Fertilizers, Identification and Analysis; Manuring and Soil Enrichment Practices;
Palynology; Phytolith Analysis; Soil Microtechniques; Stable Isotope Analysis
Further Reading
Chase, Arlen F., Diane Z. Chase, Christopher T. Fisher, et al. 2012. Geospatial Revolution and Remote
Sensing LiDAR in Mesoamerican Archaeology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
109(32):12916–21.
Evans, Damian, Christophe Pottier, Roland Fletcher, et al. 2007. A Comprehensive Archaeological Map
of the World’s Largest Preindustrial Settlement Complex at Angkor, Cambodia. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences USA 104(36):14277–82.
Lasaponara, Rosa, and Nicola Masini. 2007. Detection of Archaeological Crop Marks by Using Satellite
Quickbird Multispectral Imagery. Journal of Archaeological Science 34(2):214–21.
Miller, Naomi F., and Kathryn L. Gleason, eds. 1994. The Archaeology of Garden and Field. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Morehart, Christopher T. 2012. Mapping Ancient Chinampa Landscapes in the Basin of Mexico: A
Remote Sensing and GIS Approach. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(7):2541–51.
Nichols, Deborah L. 1988. Infrared Aerial Photography and Prehispanic Irrigation at Teotihuacan: The
Tlajinga Canals. Journal of Field Archaeology 15(1):17–27.
Parcack, Sarah H. 2009. Satellite Remote Sensing for Archaeology. London: Routledge.
Pluckhahn, Thomas J., and Victor D. Thompson. 2012. Integrating LiDAR Data and Conventional
Mapping of the Fort Center Site in South-Central Florida: A Comparative Approach. Journal of
Field Archaeology 37(4):289–301.
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Ur, Jason A. 2003. CORONA Satellite Photography and Ancient Road Networks: A Northern Mesopotamian Case Study. Antiquity 77(295):102–15.
■ C H R I S T O P H E R T. M O R E H A R T
A G R I C U LT U R A L / H O R T I C U LT U R A L S I T E S
Ancient societies employed a wide variety of productive technologies and agricultural
techniques to produce food for consumption and trade. Agricultural technologies may
be classified in broad categories based upon types of plant foods grown, proximity to
the household, amount of labor invested in cultivation and harvesting, and the presence of permanent architecture. These categories, including distant outfields, gardens,
modified wetlands, terraces, and orchards and vineyards, in no way represent all types of
agricultural technologies, nor do they exist in isolation from one another, but the use of
such categories allows us to investigate the different ways that societies and households
organize production.
Large outfields are perhaps the most difficult to identify in the archaeological record;
unlike more permanent agricultural constructions such as terraces, they leave few physical
traces, and their distance from settlements makes them difficult to locate through other
means. Architectural remains, such as field boundaries and irrigation canals, ceramic and
lithic artifacts, as well as archaeobotanical and soil chemical traces, can provisionally identify the locations of large outfields, however. Sites throughout Mesopotamia and China
have provided archaeobotanical remains of wheat, barley, rice, and millet in quantities that
suggest the presence of large fields. In the United Kingdom, the Berkshire Downs contain
the remains of late Neolithic and Roman fields, identified through the presence of eroded
soils and distinct faunal and floral assemblages.The Amazon Basin contains extensive areas
of terra preta do indio or Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE): anthropogenic regions of highly
fertile soil created through the purposeful application of burned material and organic
remains that some researchers estimate may cover as much as 20 percent of the region.
The extensive irrigation networks of the Hohokam in the southwestern United States,
constructed in the early first millennium AD, encompass hundreds of kilometers of large
canals and small feeder channels.
Gardens, distinct from outfields in their smaller size and proximity to households, are
used for a wide variety of cultigens including vegetables, medicinals, and ornamentals.
Formal gardens generally adhere to a rigid plan, are meticulously maintained, may include
significant architectural elements, and, while some may include food plants, are generally
focused on aesthetic concerns rather than subsistence requirements. Informal gardens,
such as dooryard gardens and kitchen gardens, provide for more immediate household
needs, and aesthetics may be of little concern. As a result, informal gardens are generally
more difficult to detect as they change form and size over time and usually contain little
permanent architecture.Volcanic eruptions have preserved features beneath a heavy layer
of ash at Joya de Cerén in El Salvador and Pompeii, Italy, however, leaving identifiable
traces of planting holes, raised earthen ridges, and the cultivated plants themselves. And
at Chunchucmil in Mexico and Chan in Belize, as well as many other ancient Maya
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sites, chemical signatures and the presence of household organics indicate the presence
of household gardens.
Swamps and marshy areas provide reliable water and rich organic material, yet the
perennially wet soil is unsuitable for cultivation, so ancient farmers fashioned mounds or
ridges of soil into dry, elevated beds, creating a patchwork of dry mounds or ridges surrounded by water-filled canals. In New Guinea at the site of Kuk Swamp, researchers have
located 116 hectares of mounds, ditches, and postholes that date to the very beginnings of
agriculture, ca. 10,000 BP. In central Mexico, beginning in the early first millennium AD,
the swampy areas skirting the lakes of the Basin of Mexico were transformed into cultivated raised fields called chinampas. During the Aztec Empire, chinampas were expanded
to provide surplus crops as well as fish, waterfowl, and other aquatic resources from the
surrounding canals. Extensive raised fields in the Lake Titicaca basin in the highlands of
Bolivia, first constructed over 3,000 years ago, covered over 120,000 hectares during the
Tiwanaku Empire. The Andean highlands are too cold for most crops, but are ideal for
potatoes, and the heat retained by the water-filled ditches adjacent to the raised ridges
protected the crops from the below-freezing nighttime temperatures.
Terracing leaves a lasting mark on the landscape through the construction of permanent walls on hillsides to create level planting surfaces, slow erosion, and retain water.
Terraces are therefore some of the most visible archaeological remains of ancient agricultural practices. Some are quite large and clearly the result of thousands of hours of construction, such as the state-managed Inca terraces in the Andean highlands. Others, such
as those found in the Guatemalan highlands, are more modest in size and are cultivated
on a smaller scale. The rice terraces on the island of Luzon in the Philippine archipelago,
a UNESCO World Heritage Site, were first constructed over 2,000 years ago and are still
farmed today by the Ifugao. Other agriculturally productive centers have also maintained
terraces in production for centuries, including Mediterranean Europe, many Southeast
Asian countries, and the highlands of Peru and Bolivia.
Orchards and vineyards contain long-lived perennial trees and vines, rather than the
annuals and short-lived perennials of gardens and outfields, and therefore are cultivated for
generations.Winemaking has a long history in Europe; the remains of vineyards have been
recovered within the walls of Pompeii, and waterlogged grape seeds, dating to the first
century AD, were recovered at the Etruscan site of Cetamura del Chianti in the Tuscany
region of Italy. Cultivation techniques of date palm orchards are also described in cuneiform tablets from the ancient Babylonian sites of Umma and Nippur ca. 2400 BC. The
Maya cultivated orchards with different varieties of fruit trees, including mamey, avocado,
guava, and cacao. To the Maya, these orchards were sacred places where their ancestors
dwelled. Carvings on the sides of the sarcophagus of Pakal, the ninth-century AD ruler of
Palenque, depict his ancestors rising out of the ground in the form of different fruit trees.
The agricultural methods discussed here represent only a small portion of the variety
that existed. In reality, agricultural systems were, and are, complex, multifaceted systems
with few clear boundaries that separate them. In many cases, for example, terraces are
more akin to gardens, and orchards and vineyards may be present in outfields as well as
gardens. The diversity of agricultural technologies developed throughout the ancient
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world reflects the different environments and social structures of the societies in which
they were practiced; as such, they are a tribute to the human ability to create a living and
thrive in any environment.
See also Agricultural Features, Identification and Analysis; Herculaneum and
Pompeii; Irrigation/Hydraulic Engineering; Joya de Cerén; Manures and Other
Fertilizers, Identification and Analysis; Soil Microtechniques
Further Reading
Denham, Timothy P., Jose Iriarte, and Luc Vrydaghs, eds. 2007. Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and
Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Killion, Thomas W., ed. 1992. Gardens of Prehistory: The Archaeology of Settlement Agriculture in Greater
Mesoamerica. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Marcus, Joyce, and Charles Stanish, eds. 2006. Agricultural Strategies. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of
Archaeology, UCLA.
Miller, Naomi F., and Kathryn L. Gleason, eds. 1994. The Archaeology of Garden and Field. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
■ A N D R E W R . W YA T T
A G R I C U LT U R E , O R I G I N S O F
The emergence of agriculture is, along with the origins of civilization, the most described
and debated event or process in prehistory. The debate can generally be divided into
major approaches associated with different time periods. Theories on agricultural origins
have changed with the emergence of new analytical technologies and the enormous expansion of available cases, but also reflect major changes in our thinking.
Early Approaches to the Problem of Domestication
The Victorian era was a period of marked belief in the reality of progress and in a simplistic, pseudo-evolutionary model of cultural development and improvement toward
civilization. In anthropology and archaeology, relatively little thought was given to the
analysis of agricultural origins per se. Rather, attention focused on its importance for
defining the first major transition in the very nature of human society. In the words of
Lewis Henry Morgan, mobile “savagery,” a term he roughly equated with hunting and
gathering societies that used wild resources (now referred to as Paleolithic and Mesolithic
in the Old World and by comparable terms in the New World), evolved to “barbarism,”
represented by large settled communities dependent on agriculture in what is now referred to as the Neolithic period. This stage or level in turn led to civilization, defined
by large settlements of dense populations; cities; perhaps codified record keeping, written
language, and law; long-distance trade; marked specialization of labor; social classes; monumental architecture; fixed geographic boundaries rather than flexible ethnic boundaries;
multicultural populations; and centralized government by force.
This simplistic model was later criticized and expanded by V. Gordon Childe, who
emphasized culture and process in definitions of groups and cultural change in a con-
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text of climate change. Childe, Carl Sauer, and others focused increasingly on where
and how agriculture emerged, but there was generally little concern with exactly how
agriculture was defined.
In the 1950s, newly developed radiocarbon (14C) dating techniques permitted greater
definition of time and temporal sequence, and demonstrated that cultivation first occurred in the millennia after about 12,000 BP, although at different times in different
places; in the second half of the 20th century, many archaeologists shifted their focus to
defining and dissecting “agriculture” more accurately in its own right.
Archaeologists still conceptualized farming as a unitary entity of several facets, however, and the “discovery” of farming was considered in fairly simple terms, occurring as an
“event,” with relatively little attention to process or to individual pieces. The assumption
was that the discovery of agriculture was too complex, too unlikely, for it to have been
invented independently in more than a very few places and at a very few times; agriculture had diffused to other regions from these points of origin. Modeled on the ideas of
Carl Sauer, Childe, and Robert Braidwood, this assumption led people to search for the
places where the discovery of agriculture first occurred for the honor of identifying the
place. Choices varied in number from one to eleven or more but typically included one
or more regions within the Fertile Crescent of the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys and
surrounding regions, the Nile Valley, the Indus Valley, China, Peru, and Mexico. These
regions produced different core cultigens: wheat, barley, and pulses in the Middle East;
millet and rice in South, East, or Southeast Asia; maize, beans, and squashes in the New
World. Some theories were offered to explain how it may have occurred, such as by the
concentration of people and domesticates in confined regions such as oases (Childe); or
by the observation of potential cultigens growing from human refuse (Edgar Anderson’s
dump-heap hypothesis); or by the arrival of “volunteers” (i.e., plants appearing on their
own) in disturbed habitats near human habitation. But little attention was given to the
areas outside these obvious hearths or to the problem of why dependence on agricultural
economies emerged, or why it occurred so late in human prehistory, other than to say
that people had not been prepared for its advent earlier.There was no need to discuss why.
Agriculture was a discovery or invention whose advantages were so salient that it would
obviously have been adopted as soon as the knowledge spread.
Domestication as a Complex Process
Beginning in the 1960s, perception and analysis of the parts of the whole process of
domestication and the transition to agriculture have become common, and analysis of
the consequences of the individual components of this process, and their interactions, has
been undertaken. A partial list of such components includes inadvertent disturbance and
then intentional disturbance of an environment (fire, clearance, weeding, water management); seeding, often inadvertent or ritualistic at first, then deliberate planting; harvest;
food storage; sedentism; new ways to cook food using pottery; food processing (e.g., by
grindstone, mano and metate, or mortar and pestle); movement of desired species out of
their natural habitats; human and natural phenotype manipulation and selection among
varieties; inadvertent genetic manipulation of food species; actual dependence on cultigens for the bulk of the diet; increased population density; population aggregation; cre-
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ation of surpluses, emergent social complexity, and ranking of social participants; limited
private ownership; formal leadership without power; the florescence of specialists and
specialized items; long-distance trade; and increased free time and improvements in life,
longevity, and fertility (or so it was thought). Debates emerged about sequence and causal
relationships among the components of this transition that were ultimately found to have
been different in different regions for both ecological and cultural reasons. The discussion
has continued because archaeological sequences, techniques, and competing theories continue to evolve. But it became clear that such pieces required no great unitary “discovery”
in individual hearths, but rather that its various components were widely understood and
used as needed. Definitions of these patterns were carried out by the analysis of macroscopic plant and animal remains, including charcoal, pollen analysis, identification of
functions of tools of various kinds, intra- and extra-site settlement patterns, and studies
of the local topography and the physical and chemical characteristics of soil and water.
The idea that the transition to agriculture required no great conceptual breakthrough
was also supported by the realization that the concept of plant cultivation may well have
been applied to utilitarian crops and to a variety of ritual, specialized nonsubsistence
items, including intoxicants, long before it was used to grow food staples. The key process, therefore, was not the early development of cultivation or domestication but the
increasing dependence of human populations on domesticated crops as staples—a process
that often occurred very gradually and often took millennia before the process was “complete” for the majority of human populations. The delay in its adoption suggested that
individual societies may have resisted the transition to agriculture or used it as needed as
a supplement to, rather than replacement for, foraging economies.
In the last few decades, a number of new analytical techniques have been used to
advance our knowledge of emergent agricultural practices and the domestication of
plants and animals. The number of archaeological excavations focused on the origins of
agriculture has increased significantly, representing both a broader geographical range and
a more intensive analysis of individual sequences. Analyses of the health and nutrition of
prehistoric populations have been undertaken. And many of the studies place a new emphasis on quantitative methods in analyzing various foraging and agricultural techniques,
and their mix in individual economies. A number of key research questions, outlined
below, have emerged as a result of this new focus on agriculture’s complexities.
In addition, studies of DNA, phytoliths, starch grains, and ice cores have been added
to the arsenal of available techniques of analysis. Phytolith and starch particle analyses
allow for recognition of the emergence of domesticated crops such as roots and tubers
that are otherwise invisible in the archaeological record, and demonstrate the importance of regions such as the Amazon Basin, tropical Africa, Southeast Asia, and New
Guinea that previously were ignored. Analysis of deep-sea ice cores has added to the
precision of paleo-climate analysis. DNA analysis contributes to our understanding of
relationships—or lack of relationships—between cultigens and putative ancestors and
among the cultigens themselves.
Analyses of aDNA (ancient DNA) in human skeletons have begun to help tease out
the movement and social definition and ethnic or class distinctions of human groups
involved in regional political units. The potential of these techniques to help determine
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whether, for example, agriculture spread by diffusion or by actual movement of people in
any particular region and whether the new economy set up new social structures based
on ethnic or genetic differences is obviously of great importance, but these techniques
are only in their infancy.
Multiple Independent Centers of Domestication?
Given what we now know about the evolution of domestication, it seems highly unlikely
that the concept had to diffuse from a few original centers as once assumed. Whether
particularly desirable specific crops such as wheat, maize, or rice diffused is another issue.
However, if these particularly desirable crops themselves spread to new regions, it seems
unlikely that such regions would then have domesticated their own less desirable species
as staples. The local domestications probably occurred first.
There is a gradient of schools of thought about whether the origins of domestication
(or what facets) diffused from a very few centers as discussed above (as once thought to
be very probable), to a gradually expanding list of cultigens and locations, as described by
Graeme Barker, to a possibly enormous distribution of independent “inventions” or centers of adoption, though the independence of some is debated. Certainly the worldwide
distribution of different domesticates is enormous. The question is how many of these
were domesticated prior to or following the arrival of new domestic crops from outside.
The trend to recognize an increasing number of centers of domestication is in keeping
with the realization that new subsistence techniques did not have to be “discovered” but
rather called into use independent of diffusion of the main crops or the ideas from the
established “centers” such as the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East or Mexico.
We know from historical studies that an enormous array of plant species, on different
continents with differing ecologies and distributions of wild species, were already under
cultivation in various parts of the world at the time of Columbus. Some species or genera
of key crops may have been domesticated more than once in different regions. Squashes
and beans, for example, seem to have been domesticated more than once in the New
World. Yams and many types of millet seem to have been domesticated several times.
Domestication-based economies using wheat, barley, and legumes may have arisen several
times independently in areas of the Middle East, and wheat possibly also in Turkmenistan
in central Asia. Rice may have been domesticated at least twice, once (or more) in India
and once (or more) in China. In East, South, and Southeast Asia, there may have been several separate centers of domestication for buckwheat, sugarcane, wild rice, various types
of millet, roots and tubers, various gram species (loosely related to mung beans), sesame,
and pandanus. In Melanesia, several crops may have been domesticated independently,
including bananas, taro, pandanus, and sago palms. In Australia, often thought to be a last
bastion of pure foraging, incipient stages of crop management, including moving, burning,
and cultivation of roots and rhizomes, had developed prior to European contact. Barker
speculates that real sedentary farming sites may have been the first victims of European
conquest. In island Melanesia, yams and breadfruit were domesticated. In Africa a number
of crops were domesticated in at least three different locations, well south and west of
centers of domestication in the Middle East and across the Sahara: African rice, African
millets, fonio, sorghum, teff , ensete, pennisetum, polygonia, groundnuts, okra, and yams.
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Even Europe, generally thought to have gained agriculture by movement or diffusion
from the Middle East, may have had independent centers of domestication in the western
Mediterranean and the Balkans.
In the New World, as many as 100 species of plants may have been under cultivation
at the time of European contact, the legacy of several centers: Peru, possibly Central
America, Mexico, the Amazon Basin, the eastern part of the United States, and possibly
the southwestern part of the United States (and perhaps subcenters within these). Crops
included are maize; many types of squashes; at least two types of beans; yams; cocoyams;
several kinds of peppers; sweet potatoes; tree crops including avocado and guava; and
numerous small-seeded plants including marsh elder, sumpweed, sunflowers, goosefoot,
amaranths, knotweed, maygrass, and quinoa. Wild teosinte under cultivation gradually
became domestic maize.
In short, an enormous number of species were domesticated in many different regions.
How many of these episodes of domestication were independent of diffusion from the
earlier-defined main centers is debated.
H o w F a s t We r e t h e N e w E c o n o m i e s A d o p t e d ?
Quantitative analyses of post–Neolithic Revolution economies have raised the question of
the rapidity with which cultivated crops actually replaced wild ones in the food economy
and diet rather than contributing only a fraction to the diet. In many, perhaps most, contexts, the replacement of wild resources by cultigens was very gradual. Societies with only
partial replacement have been referred to as “transitional economies” (or low-level food
producers)—as if they were inevitably headed somewhere. In many regions, such as the
Levant and eastern North America, domesticates may have been added only to fill nutritional or seasonal gaps in the diet and only much later relied on as staples. The very word
“transitional” is in dispute because the transition period has often been thousands of years,
actually lasting far longer than the subsequent dependence on agriculture in many regions.
W h y We r e D o m e s t i c a t i o n - B a s e d E c o n o m i e s A d o p t e d ?
Recently, scholars have focused more of their attention on addressing the question of
why domestication-based subsistence economies were adopted at all. One possibility,
proposed by David Rindos, is that domestication was actually not a function so much
of human intent but rather a kind of mutual, domestication-based symbiosis between
species, human and cultigen. However, this “domestication,” while involving significant
morphological and genetic changes to the plants (and animals), refers not to human
genes but only to the “domestication” of human behaviors, although plastic change
(e.g., diminished stature) did occur and the disease load was altered. A significant exception was the sickle cell allele that appeared from mutations that were selected for more
than once in areas where the most deadly (falciparum) malaria became common, itself
a result of the application of new farming techniques in the African rainforest. (The
thalassemia alleles and genetic G6PD deficiency around the Mediterranean follow the
same pattern.) Symbiosis, or the mutual benefit and dependence of two or more species,
is clearly involved in the human management of cultigens. The problem with a model
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that focuses only on coevolution without human intent is that it was one species, ours,
that formed so many new symbiotic relations with many different species in a variety
of regions, but in a short time span and in common contexts, implying that human
intention was a significant catalyst for the new arrangements.
Another possibility is that it was the pull (enticement) not of new techniques (those
were already understood) but of new environmental conditions that spurred this transition, as described by Peter Richerson, Robert Boyd, and Robert Bettinger. We know,
from oxygen isotopes (and some contaminants) stratified by age in ice cores, that the
end of the Pleistocene Ice Age resulted not only in warmer conditions but also in stable
conditions (as opposed to the marked temperature spikes that occurred in the Pleistocene when, as a result, a stable farming regime may have been impossible). In addition,
the concentration of CO2 increased significantly worldwide. All three effects might have
made cultivation more attractive.
On the other hand, there is significant evidence that climate amelioration may not be
a sufficient explanation. It has become evident that dependence on cultivation and sedentism is not an efficient way to make a living. In addition, cultivation and sedentism do
not provide a healthy, nutritious, or risk-free economy and may in fact have been poorer
choices than the mobile hunter-gatherer economies that preceded them in all these ways.
Whatever the “pull” or enticement of the new conditions, there must also have been a
push of some sort to force people to make an undesirable economic change.The main and
only advantage of agriculture is that it produces a very high number of calories per acre
or hectare, so it seems probable that the “push” was the need to produce more calories
in less space, that is, to find a new balance between a population and its consumption
habits and the existing supply of food. Human populations who have yet to reach their
own limits were pushing the carrying capacity of their chosen economies, for any one or
all of three reasons: because human populations were increasing in density; because social
institutions were increasing the demand for food; or because available resources, such as
large game animals, were declining (from human predation or environmental change).
The concept, generally labeled population pressure, was described by Mark Nathan Cohen,
among others. The post-Pleistocene environment, whatever its effects on the feasibility
of farming, clearly reduced the resource base for foragers at the same time that human
populations may have been increasing.
The social issues involved in the “push” may have effectively increased demand in a
different manner, because the risk avoidance that characterizes mobile subsistence had to
be replaced among sedentary groups by social risk-avoidance strategies. Brian Hayden has
suggested that “big men” (individuals gradually gaining increasing roles as leaders) may
have enhanced their status through control or management of centralized storage. Food
storage not only mitigated risk in a crisis by buffering against food losses, but also served
as a means of establishing feasting-based networks of communities that could buffer one
another. These actions would lead to more complex social organization in growing communities in which interpersonal relationships and face-to-face interactions became ever
less effective.The “incidental” enrichment of the big man, at least in prestige terms, would
have presaged centralized political organization. The need to provide excess production
for feasting would have effectively stimulated increased demand.
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The “big man” concept has been offered to explain the origins of agriculture in many
parts of the world. But it is not an independent factor. Big men appear quite regularly
in the same context, that is, very late in the “push” sequence, among semi-sedentary or
sedentary groups, a fact that requires a very general explanation of its own. They are
themselves very late products of the push itself.
H ow E f f i c i e n t A re Ag r i c u l t u ra l Fo o d Eco n o m i e s?
Recent work in a relatively new field, human behavioral ecology (HBE), has added
significant supporting data for the idea that agriculture was in fact a strategy by which
hunter-gatherers, facing the increasingly difficult task of subsisting on insufficient wild
resources, supplemented and gradually replaced these resources by assisting or growing
their own. Among its contributions, HBE has focused on measuring the efficiency of
various economic strategies, in terms of food produced related to labor costs—in short,
the efficiency of an hour’s work. Measured costs are divided into two parts: the costs of locating and obtaining resources (search time), and the costs of processing them and storing
them for use. HBE also refers to the concept of niche-breadth, or the array of resources
exploited. It also refers to the ranking of resources in terms of the ease with which they
can be exploited; the highest-ranked resources, those most efficient to exploit, would be
the first to be exploited in a relatively focused or narrow-spectrum economy. The wider
array of lowest-ranking resources, no matter their availability, would not be used until the
higher-ranking resources were exhausted.
The results, based on ethnographic observation of various foraging techniques among
a very wide range of modern foragers around the world, are quite striking. Medium to
large game animals (necessarily supplemented by choice vegetable foods because a purely
meat diet is inadequate) are by far the most efficient resources to exploit as long as their
occurrence is sufficiently frequent to avoid excessive search time. The efficiency results
from the fact that meat of such animals occurs in large, calorie-rich packages that require
very little processing. Such animals reproduce and mature slowly, however, such that these
populations can be reduced by human predation or ecological change with relative ease.
(Such animals became scarcer, increasing both search time required and travel costs, or
were driven to extinction throughout much of the world at the end of the Pleistocene
period.) Diets heavily reliant on large game and selected plant resources, notably fruit,
would have to be modified in the direction of less desirable but faster-reproducing and,
therefore, more stable species. Next, a human population would consume smaller animals
and second-choice plants, generally less desired or more difficult to obtain. But efficiency
would decline because the smaller organisms would require both search and preparation
to be repeated many times in small packages to obtain the same output as one large animal. The emergence of low-return broad-spectrum economies provided the context in
which (almost?) all patterns of cultivation and domestication occurred.
Small seeds such as cereals are very inefficient to exploit, even among vegetable resources, because of very high processing costs. As such, they would be exploited only
when higher-ranked resources were depleted. In a sequence of economic choices, agricultural crops would be among the last resource used and would “kick in” only when
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all better foraging resources approached exhaustion and became increasingly difficult
to exploit. It has even been demonstrated by Kenneth Russell with reference to wheat
in the Middle East (one of the preferred, larger cereal seeds) that wild cereals and, even
more so, domestic cereals are so difficult to exploit that rather than being domesticated
or “discovered” once, they probably came in and out of use repeatedly, depending on the
availability of higher-ranked resources. Less desirable and less easily exploited cereals such
as teosinte or quinoa would have “kicked in” only far later in the sequence of declining
efficiency. We also know that the adoption of cereals would have involved a significant
drop in the quality of the diet, including reduced availability of whole proteins from
meat sources. Cereals provide a much inferior diet compared to higher-ranked meat and
vegetables in nutritional terms, and they are generally far less desirable as food (in taste
or cultural terms) than meat and fresh vegetable resources.
There may have been other factors working against the adoption of agricultural
economies. One factor would have been cultural conservatism and inertia inherent in
the reorganization of entire sociological and cultural systems. Hunter-gatherers may have
been very reluctant to embrace the lifestyle changes and new socioeconomic systems
inherent in a shift to sedentary farming.
Another factor would have been future discounting, that is, a preference for immediate
consumption, future consumption being devalued. A foraged resource to be consumed
immediately would be preferable psychologically to one that might not be consumed
until the following season. Moreover, fresher resources are generally more palatable. In
addition, the real value of the stored crop would have declined significantly over time,
given very substantial storage losses from primitive storage facilities such as clay pots, bins,
and inground storage pits. Such facilities are prone to rot, insects, and rodent penetration.
And of course there would have been interceding risks of natural crop failures or loss of
stored foodstuffs to human predation. (Foragers have very few stored resources, hence
nothing to appropriate, and they are notoriously difficult to conquer. They simply move.)
Why, then, would foragers adopt a more risk-prone strategy?
There are, however, potential factors that could have reduced the slope of declining
efficiency. Resources that can be exploited during what is otherwise “down time,” when
no other activities are undertaken, can be exploited despite their low inherent ranking
because their acquisition and processing do not interfere or compete with other activities.
The development of new technologies may also have helped the manipulation of otherwise low-ranking resources if they significantly lowered the costs of those resources. The
costs of low-ranked resources might also be reduced if the desired plants grew in dense
stands (as wild wheat does), greatly reducing search time, or if these resources could be
processed collectively with the efficiency possible in large-scale work. Whether or not
these efficiencies are sufficient to change the ranking and alter the sequence of foraging
techniques would depend on the relative role of search time and processing time in the
cost of the resource. If large game could be found with relative ease, however, or if processing costs of the secondary resources were too high, even such dense stands of plants
would have been ignored.The generally late emergence of seed use suggests that the latter
was more often the case.
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The Risks of Farming
Contrary to common opinion, sedentary farming may also involve (and be perceived
as involving) increased risks despite the possible value of using surplus to hedge against
crop failure in the following year. This may have been part of the reason for the
emergence of feasting as a risk-avoidance strategy by creating interdependent security
among communities.
There are also risks in a food-producing economy itself. Repeated tilling or irrigation
can result in the declining quality of soils. An economy focused too heavily on one or
a few crops is riskier than one with a broad economic base. In broad-based foraging, it
is very unlikely that all resources will fail at once, and there are commonly secondary
backup resources. Foragers also can more easily move away from specific areas where, for
any reason, food supplies are short.
Of course, significant enough ecological disaster might theoretically damage the whole
range of foraged resources, or extend too far for mobility to be an option, but then cultigens and domesticates would have been of little help. Agricultural populations, because of
their size and sedentism, and the partial replacement of wild resources in the environment
around them, cannot so easily fall back on other resources. Moreover, domesticated plants
are far more prone to failure than are wild resources. Domesticates typically have had their
chemical defenses (which may, for example, be distasteful) or physical defenses (thorns
or thick seed coats) bred out of them, leaving them more vulnerable to pests and disease.
They often have lost the ability to propagate without human aid. Domesticates are often
moved to new ecological regimes for which they are not adapted and in which they may
ultimately fail. In contrast, wild plants have typically survived whatever the environment
could (and can) throw at them over the history of their local survival. Also, diseases are
density-dependent in plants as they are in people. Wild resources are typically scattered
and mixed, protecting them from disease. Creating dense concentrations of individual
crops (to the extent that early food producers actually did it) would add to the risk of
crop blight from species-specific microbes.
What is striking about prehistoric subsistence patterns in many, even most, parts of
the world is that they roughly mimic the predictions of HBE theory. The evolution of
prehistoric, preagricultural Mesolithic or Archaic economies among hunter-gatherers
commonly involves a gradual decline in the appearance of high-ranking, relatively large
animals and the gradual increase of broad-spectrum or inefficient, large niche-breadth
foraging. In prehistory, then, efficiency of foraging was declining and agriculture appeared
at or near the end of this sequence. Cereals and starchy tubers are not particularly nutritious or easily exploited foods, but they can feed a lot of people per unit of land.
Issues of Health
New information from skeletal pathology, ethnographic parallels, and uniformitarian
“retrodiction” from contemporary patterns allows us to examine and compare the health
and nutrition of various populations. A pattern of declining health would have been both
common and salient. Comparisons of forager and farmer health show, for example, that
iron or vitamin B12 intake declined more often than not, producing increased rates of ane-
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mia (often visible on the skull), as might be predicted from contemporary knowledge. The
anemia would have been the result of many factors. Meat is the best source of heme iron,
the most readily usable form. As meat consumption declined, so too would the availability
of heme iron. The problem was exacerbated by the new reliance on iron-blocking cereals
or leafy vegetables, or by new diseases of sedentism such as hookworm. The latter are tiny
worms, and their effect depends on the number infecting the host. They essentially eat
human blood from the inside and survive most readily, as do most human infections, in
dense, sedentary human populations.The worms are defecated on the ground and reenter
human beings via their feet. The more people, the greater likelihood that the worms can
find new hosts and the higher the infestation is likely to be. Since transmission of the
parasite is delayed because the life cycle of the worms demands a period of development
in the soil prior to infecting a new host, the parasite load of any individual would also
increase because of the greater likelihood that an individual would step on a contaminated
spot (no longer obvious by the time worms had reached the infective stage). Mobile
populations move away, decreasing the risk of new infection.
The frequency of general infection, particularly periostitis (a roughening of bone
surfaces), also commonly increased, as would be predicted from epidemiological knowledge. Linear enamel hypoplasia, lesions on tooth surfaces that represent episodes of severe
childhood stress that can be counted, generally became more common with the adoption
of farming, although the meaning of these quantitative patterns has been debated.
Fertility
On the other hand, one (positive?) result of the switch to agricultural subsistence seems
to have been increased fertility in human populations, judging from both archaeological
and ethnographic data. This is the result of, among other things, the greater potential for
fat storage in women with richer (but not better) diets. Foragers, while generally qualitatively well nourished, are conspicuously lean, because of limited caloric intake rather
than any other nutrient deficiency.
Greater energy and fat supplies among sedentary farming women would also result
from the reduced energy drain of transporting a baby while foraging, collecting, or hunting. (Note that in the modern world, highly trained female athletes such as gymnasts
often have delayed menarche, hence a reduction of their number of fertile years and
irregular or absent menstrual cycles because of their activity.) In a sedentary economy,
breastfeeding might also decline because of the availability of new weaning foods and
because a woman would be able briefly to leave her baby behind with another caregiver.
A reduction in breastfeeding could lead to greater energy and fat supplies in childbearing
women. Breastfeeding also stimulates a complex hormone system that inhibits ovulation.
A decline in breastfeeding (nature’s best contraceptive, and a powerful one) would also
produce shorter inter-birth intervals, increasing a woman’s potential for reproduction,
possibly increasing her Darwinian fitness.
There may also have been new social or political incentives associated with the transition to agriculture. Hunter-gatherers have a negative feedback loop with regard to fertility because additional mouths mean more work or less-choice food. Farmers can more
easily expand their calorie supply, and, given the risks of food production (particularly
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those posed by other groups), they have an incentive to increase fertility and community
size. Increased fertility may also have been a “pull” or incentive toward farming because
it increased individual Darwinian fitness (successful reproduction) even in the face of declining health. (We know from ethnographic studies that the two can occur together.) It
seems reasonable to assume that increasing fertility was a salient outcome, but the salience
of increasing Darwinian fitness to promote change is a harder proposition to defend.
Another disincentive would be the very salient decline in women’s health. The question is whether perception of increasing fertility (and fitness) could offset both perception
of declining health and that of the declining availability of preferred foods and efficiencies. If on balance the incentive of increasing fertility and fitness was powerful enough,
it should have occurred, given the sense that agricultural techniques were understood
long before they were fully employed, earlier in the sequence, well before the sequence
of diminishing returns had progressed so far.
All this assumes, of course, that neither the newborn babies nor their mothers died in
disproportionate numbers. But increased fertility clearly came at a high cost, not only in
maternal sickness but also in death, a fact that can be demonstrated quite readily. Shorter
birth intervals, essential to the increased fertility, tend to increase infant mortality since
they necessitate weaning an infant early or putting a nursing baby on the (filthy) ground
and into competition with a growing fetus. The child loses the balanced nutrition of
mother’s milk. It would also lose transmission of maternal antibodies at the same time
that it was probably put on the ground—a primary source of infection, particularly in
newly sedentary communities with higher population densities permitted by the new
economies. Infantile diarrhea consequent to putting the child on the ground is a very
significant source of child mortality even now in many developing countries.
Population Growth Rates
Population growth rates probably did increase with the adoption of farming, at least for
a time. But by calculating the possible rate of population growth (using a standard compound interest formula) between a commonly estimated ±ten million people at 10,000
BP (at the dawn of farming) to a widely estimated 500 million at the time of Columbus,
we can determine by simple mathematics that the growth rate would still have been very
little above zero. That in turn means that fertility and mortality must have continued to
equal out almost perfectly. If fertility increased, as it clearly did, then on average, mortality
must also have increased and life expectancy declined in the long run, although increased
mortality may have followed the increased fertility by some period of time, and not all
groups would necessarily have such balanced demographics. Rather, groups might cancel
out each other’s patterns.
Summary
The origins of agriculture ultimately must be understood at the specific or regional level,
but also in a broader context. The relative importance of the two is widely debated. Because of local ecology, potential cultigens, and even cultural variations, the development
of farming occurred at different rates and in different sequences in regions too numerous
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to describe. Empirically minded, region-focused archaeologists tend to read this pattern
as refuting any general model, as argued, for example, by Bruce Smith. Yet the different
trajectories of emergent agriculture in various regions across the globe still show commonalities in time and context that demand explanation. In any science, a proposed explanation must match the distribution of the phenomenon it purports to explain. Cause and
effect must be correlated. One cannot explain a global pattern with purely local variables.
The fact that agriculture emerged or was adopted in so many places at roughly the
same time (in the very long span of prehistoric time) can most probably be explained by
the broad climate shifts at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age. The fact that the adoption
of domesticate-based economies repeatedly occurred in the same context also demands an
explanation of equal distribution. That it emerged universally in low- and declining-efficiency, broad-spectrum foraging economies suggests a very widespread, increasing imbalance between a human population and the remaining available wild resources, requiring
economic changes toward the processing of less efficient and less desirable food resources.
In other words, whatever the regional variables, the common pattern reflects a “push”
for more resources. To what extent this was due to growing population, social factors, or
degrading resources remains debated.
There is a very long-standing debate in anthropology on the value of general versus
specific explanations. In fact, neither is sufficient without the other. We are left with
a conundrum. There are both enormous parallels demanding general explanation and
numerous cases that challenge them unless they can be explained away as exceptional
because they occur in exceptional circumstances. The issue remains unresolved.
See also Animal Domestication; Broad Spectrum Revolution; Columbian Exchange;
Cultivation; Food Production and the Formation of Complex Societies; Food
Technology and Ideas about Food, Spread of; Foraging; Innovation and Risk;
Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Neolithic Package; Old World
Globalization and Food Exchanges; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleonutrition; Paleopathology; Plant Domestication; Radiocarbon Dating; Sedentism and Domestication; Subsistence Models; Wild Progenitors of Domesticated Plants
Further Reading
Anderson, Edgar. 1952. Plants, Man and Life. Boston: Little, Brown.
Barker, Graeme. 2006. The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory:Why Did Foragers Become Farmers? Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Braidwood, Robert J. 1960. The Agricultural Revolution. Scientific American 203(3):130–38.
Childe, V. Gordon. 1951. Man Makes Himself. New York: New American Library.
Cohen, Mark Nathan. 1977. The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
———. 1989. Health and the Rise of Civilization. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Current Anthropology. 2009. Special Section: Rethinking the Origins of Agriculture. Current Anthropology
50(5):590–712.
Flannery, Kent V. 1973. The Origins of Agriculture. Annual Review of Anthropology 2(1):271–310.
Kennett, Douglas J., and Bruce Winterhalder, eds. 2006. Human Behavioral Ecology and the Transition to
Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Piperno, Dolores R., and Deborah M. Pearsall. 1998. The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics.
San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Richerson, Peter J., Robert Boyd, and Robert L. Bettinger. 2001. Was Agriculture Impossible in the
Pleistocene but Mandatory in the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis. American Antiquity
66(3):387–411.
Rindos, David. 1984. The Origins of Agriculture: An Evolutionary Perspective. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Russell, Kenneth W. 1988. After Eden: The Behavioral Ecology of Early Food Production in the Near East and
North Africa. BAR International Series 391. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.
Sauer, Carl O. 1952. Agricultural Origins and Dispersals: The Domestication of Animals and Foodstuffs. New
York: American Geographical Society.
Smith, Bruce D. 1998. The Emergence of Agriculture. New York: Scientific American Library.
———, ed. 2011. Subsistence Economies of Indigenous North American Societies: A Handbook. Washington,
DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press.
Steckel, Richard H., and Jerome C. Rose, eds. 2002. The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the
Western Hemisphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zeder, Melinda, and Bruce D. Smith. 2009. A Conversation on Agricultural Origins: Talking Past Each
Other in a Crowded Room. Current Anthropology 50(5):681–90.
■ M A R K N AT H A N C O H E N
A G R I C U LT U R E , P R O C U R E M E N T, P R O C E S S I N G , A N D S T O R A G E
Agriculture is a form of subsistence in which humans primarily raise domesticated plants
or animals for food and secondary products rather than procuring them from the wild.
Agriculture developed independently and spread in many regions around the world. As
a result, a great diversity of agricultural strategies emerged to maintain and intensify production across a wide range of ecological settings and for a variety of social and political
purposes. In order to grasp the multitude of past agricultural practices, archaeologists
employ numerous methods from landscape reconstruction to examination of microscopic
plant remains.Various scales of agricultural practice are discussed in this entry, along with
the range of methodological approaches and evidence available to archaeologists interested in studying ancient farming.
Before discussing the archaeological indicators of ancient agricultural practices, it is
important to note the centrality of ethnoarchaeological and experimental research to
our understanding of ancient agricultural practices. Whether it is the particular striations
plants and soil make on stone tools, the weedy plant species associated with irrigated
fields, or the pH levels of a fertilized field, archaeologists must first establish these parameters using modern-day analogs before it is possible to identify them in the archaeological
record. Such research underpins the examples discussed below.
Landscape
Among the most traditional approaches to the archaeological study of agriculture is the
documentation of ancient field and water management systems. At this largest scale, there
are a variety of landscape modifications that farmers implemented to create productive
planting surfaces for their crops, add or remove water from these surfaces, as well as protect
them from damages such as erosion or intruders (animals, theft, etc.).
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Simple, dryland farming plots carved into the earth by digging and plowing can be
difficult for archaeologists to detect, especially in areas that continue to be used by farmers
today. There have been a few special cases, however, where ancient furrows have been
uncovered through excavation. One of the most ancient examples of mounded fields and
drainage ditches is from Kuk Swamp, New Guinea, where three phases of such features
date between 6,950 and 6,440 cal BP.
Fields that result in more significant modifications to local topography, such as terracing, raised fields, or pond fields, are easier for archaeologists to detect. Such systems can be
found using traditional archaeological methods of pedestrian survey and aerial photography. A classic example of such a study is that by William Denevan in the Llanos de Moxos
of Bolivia where he employed aerial photographs taken by the Bolivian government and
petroleum companies to document and describe expansive systems of ancient raised fields
and causeways previously unknown to archaeologists.
Irrigation systems including large canals that divert water from major streams and
carry it to fields can also be preserved. Massive networks of canals that in some cases carried water from one valley to another have been documented in the Pacific river valleys of
northern Peru where the early states of the Moche and Chimú developed. Pedestrian and
aerial surveys, as well as detailed mapping and geomorphological studies, permitted Dillehay and Kolata not only to describe these major irrigation systems in the Jequetepeque
Valley, but also to identify severe damage caused by El Niño–induced flooding events.
The ability to discover and document what are often very extensive landscape modifications has improved exponentially with newer technologies such as satellite imagery
and LiDAR. These techniques allow archaeologists to survey the earth’s surface from the
comfort of their office desk and examine possible patterns through the use of different
photographic filters. While basic mapping with a Total Station is available to most archaeological projects today, it can take multiple field seasons to map out large field and
irrigation systems. Although currently quite costly, LiDAR not only provides an opportunity to filter through dense vegetation to find underlying landscape modifications, but
researchers can create digital elevation models (DEM) from the data in just a few hours.
These data can direct archaeologists to sites for further investigation, but can also be integrated into a geographic information system (GIS) for spatial and statistical analyses of
field densities and change over time. Researchers working on the leeward Kohala coast of
Hawai‘i Island have recently applied this approach to track the development and intensity
of ancient field and irrigation systems on the island.
Field
In addition to the broader modifications to the landscape, ancient farmers used a variety
of techniques and strategies not only to produce food but also to keep the fields productive, and to maintain soil fertility and stability. Archaeologists have improved their ability
to learn about such practices through analysis of agricultural implements as well as soil
micromorphology and chemistry. Archaeobotany in field contexts as well as in habitational areas provides direct insight into the crops that were cultivated.
Archaeologists have a long tradition of examining the remains of agricultural implements such as sickles, hoes, and ards to track the types of technologies employed in
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Figure 1. Early agricultural tool assemblages included plows, hoes, sickles, sieves, and winnowing
fans. Left: Wooden hoe, Deir el-Bahri, Egypt. Possibly New Kingdom. The rope was used to
adjust the two wooden blades. Right: Winnowing fan, Thebes, Egypt. New Kingdom. 1550–1069
BC. Wooden fans were used to blow away husks during grain processing. Photographs © The
Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.
plowing and harvesting, and in some cases are able to infer the presence and intensity of
field preparation and maintenance. The tools can be lithic, metal, and, in unique preservation conditions, wood or other organic material (figure 1). Archaeologists can study
the form and shape of the tools to determine their function (cutting, digging). They
can also incorporate microscopic use-wear analyses on the worked edges of stone and
metal tools and can examine or extract microbotanical residues left on tool surfaces. In
a classic example from the Near East, for example, archaeologists demonstrated that flint
sickle blades have a distinctive gloss, providing early evidence of wild grass harvesting by
Natufian hunter-gatherers. Based on changes in overall form and use-wear striations on
flint sickles from Tell Muyribet and Tell Halula (Syria), Ibañez and colleagues argue that
later Neolithic farmers harvested ripe domesticated cereals closer to the ground in order
to also use the straw. They also argue that pieces of limestone with use-wear along one
edge were employed as hoes for tilling.
In the cases where archaeologists excavate ancient fields, a host of analyses can be
conducted to understand some of the techniques farmers used to maintain soil productivity, such as multi-cropping, crop rotation, and fallow cycles, but especially fertilization. Farmers can add a range of materials to soils to increase their productive quality,
including kitchen waste, ceramic sherds, animal dung, and plants. These materials can be
worked manually into the soil through tilling, but burning is often used to convert and
integrate the nutrients into the soil. While ceramic sherds and plant remains recovered
from archaeological fields might indicate fertilization, the most productive methods to
detect soil enhancement involve chemical, stratigraphic, and microstratigraphic analyses of
the soils. At the Late Woodland site of Hulbert Creek in Wisconsin (USA), for example,
Holliday and Gartner detected higher phosphate values and highly degraded ash particles
in thin-section samples on the surfaces of ancient ridge fields compared to sterile and
control samples. Based on these findings, they argue that ancient farmers maintained soil
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fertility by burning crop stubble and through the application of organic-rich deposits
from the canals running between the raised fields.
C r o p s a n d We e d s
An essential element to field management involves the selection of crops and the ways
that farmers deal with other wild plant species that inhabit the fields (weeds). Researchers
employ a host of archaeobotanical methods to investigate these practices. Such analyses
can be conducted on soils from ancient fields themselves, but plant remains from settlement refuse also provide insight.
Examination of both macrobotanical and microbotanical remains from archaeological
sites is the best way to identify the full range of species and varieties of crops that ancient
farmers employed. Identifiable and diagnostic parts of herbaceous, seed-producing and
woody, fruit-producing species are commonly preserved in archaeological soils. In very
dry or waterlogged conditions, whole plants may be preserved, but in most archaeological sites the surviving remains are carbonized fragments recovered through flotation and
sieving. Many of these species also produce microfossils, particularly phytoliths and starch
grains. Fragments of fleshy or tuberous crops are occasionally preserved, but they are less
common because of their high water content. Microbotanical analyses are often essential
to detect these species. An example of using both types of analyses to capture the diversity
of ancient cropping strategies comes from the site of Loma Salvatierra, Bolivia, where
study of macrobotanical remains, phytoliths, and starch grains revealed the cultivation of
maize, squash, peanuts, cotton, manioc, and yams. This range of grain, tree, and tuber crop
species could not have been detected with any single analytical method.
In addition to the crops themselves, farmers must manage the wild species that enter
the fields and present competition for the crops. Farmers will remove them as they grow
but also eliminate them when they process the crop. The study of archaeological weed
assemblages has also been a useful tool for archaeologists who aim to understand field
management strategies. For example, archaeobotanists working in the Near East and
Europe have identified the composition of certain weed flora associated with irrigation,
manuring, and crop rotation/fallow cycles.
Home
Although much agricultural work takes place out in the fields, homes are also important
loci for the final stages of farming: processing, storage, and, finally, preparation for food
or other uses. Grain crops must go through various stages of processing before they can
be served as food. Ethnographic examples have provided useful data for understanding
and identifying processing technologies in the archaeological record. The initial stages
of threshing have been identified in Greece and Cyprus through microscopic analysis
of blades used in threshing sledges. At Çatalhöyük, Turkey, threshing surfaces or floors
located on flat surfaces between the houses and fields were identified based on high
quantities of chaff and processing fragments.
Insights into agricultural activities inside the house can be seen at the unique site of
Joya de Cerén, El Salvador, where a community was buried by a volcanic eruption around
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A G R I C U LT U R E , P R O C U R E M E N T, P R O C E S S I N G , A N D S T O R A G E
AD 630. A study of Household 1 not only revealed the remains of gardens and milpa
(raised-bed fields) adjacent to the residential buildings, but the array of ceramic vessels,
ground stone, chipped stone tools and debitage, plant remains, and other artifacts helped
the archaeologists identify rooms where agricultural products such as maize and agave
were processed, stored, and cooked.
Most house contexts are not as well preserved as those at Cerén, but archaeologists
employ a suite of geomorphological and archaeobotanical analyses to identify crop
processing and preparation activities from domestic spaces. Sulas and Madella have
integrated soil micromorphology, soil chemistry, and phytolith analysis of domestic activity areas in Swahili stonehouses at Songo Mnara, Tanzania. Absence of inflorescence
phytoliths (silica bodies produced in the flowering head of a plant) in both open areas
near the houses and inside suggests that the residents stored cleaned grain in the house
and likely processed the crops out in the field, not near or in the house. A room that
had concentrations of plant and animals remains as well as high calcium and strontium
indicated an area of food storage/processing.
The archaeobotanical study of crops and weeds assemblages also presents opportunities to understand crop processing. Hillman’s classic 1973 study attempted to identify
processing versus consumption contexts by ratios of chaff and weeds to crop seed. Subsequently other investigators have examined such assemblages and have argued that such
mixed assemblages possibly reflect different types of food preparation. The context in
which such assemblages are encountered can help differentiate between activities.
Finally, various bioarchaeological analyses of human remains can reveal the types of
agricultural activities carried out by individuals within a community. At the site of Abu
Hurerya in Iraq, female skeletons showed increased stress on knees from kneeling and on
joints from grinding, suggesting that they took on the majority of the work to process
grains as this community transitioned to an agricultural lifestyle.
While individual families kept stores of food in their homes, storage and redistribution
of agricultural products often played a fundamental role in the development of ancient
polities.The study of larger-scale storage facilities such as those constructed on ridges and
promontories throughout the Andes by the Inca Empire can reveal the influence of the
state on agricultural production.
Summary
Using a suite of old and new methods and techniques, archaeologists can investigate a
range of archaeological evidence that reflects the multiple scales at which agricultural
production took place in the past. This allows archaeologists to discuss and describe the
farming systems themselves, but also to articulate these activities with other aspects of
ancient community life on the landscape and in the home.
See also Agricultural Features, Identification and Analysis; Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Animal Husbandry and Herding; Archaeobotany; Archaeology of
Household Food Production; Architectural Analysis; Butchery; Domestic Sites;
Ethnoarchaeology; Ethnographic Sources; Experimental Archaeology; Food
Preservation; Food Storage; Irrigation/Hydraulic Engineering; Joya de Cerén; Ma-
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23
nures and Other Fertilizers, Identification and Analysis; Plant Processing; Soil
Microtechniques; Spatial Analysis and Visualization Techniques; Storage Facilities;
Tools/Utensils, Metal; Tools/Utensils, Organic Materials; Tools/Utensils, Stone;
Use-Wear Analysis, Lithics; Use-Wear Analysis, Metal
Further Reading
Anderson, Patricia C., ed. 1999. The Prehistory of Agriculture: New Experimental and Ethnographic Approaches. Institute of Archaeology Monograph 40. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles.
Atalay, Sonya, and Christine A. Hastorf. 2006. Food, Meals, and Daily Activities: Food Habitus at Neolithic Çatalhöyük. American Antiquity 71(2):283–319.
Beaudry-Corbett, Marilyn, Scott E. Simmons, and David B. Tucker. 2002. Ancient Home and Garden:
The View from Household 1 at Cerén. In Before the Volcano Erupted: The Ancient Cerén Village in
Central America, edited by Payson Sheets, 45–57. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Denham, T. P., S. G. Haberle, C. Lentfer, et al. 2003. Origins of Agriculture at Kuk Swamp in the Highlands of New Guinea. Science 301(5630):189–93.
Holliday, Vance T., and William G. Gartner. 2007. Methods of Soil P Analysis in Archaeology. Journal of
Archaeological Science 34(2):301–33.
Jones, Glynis, and Paul Halstead. 1995. Maslins, Mixtures, and Monocrops: On the Interpretation of
Archaeobotanical Crop Samples of Heterogeneous Composition. Journal of Archaeological Science
22(1):103–14.
Ladefoged, Thegn N., Mark D. McCoy, Gregory P. Asner, et al. 2011. Agricultural Potential and Actualized Development in Hawai‘i: An Airborne LiDAR Survey of the Leeward Kohala Field System
(Hawai‘i Island). Journal of Archaeological Science 38(12):3605–19.
Meeks, N. D., G. de G. Sieveking, M. S. Tite, and J. Cook. 1982. Gloss and Use-Wear Traces on Flint
Sickles and Similar Phenomena. Journal of Archaeological Science 9(4):317–40.
Miller, Naomi F., and Kathryn L. Gleason, eds. 1994. The Archaeology of Garden and Field. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
Molleson, Theya I. 2000. The People of Abu Hureyra. In Village on the Euphrates: From Foraging to
Farming at Abu Hureyra, edited by A. M. T. Moore, G. C. Hilliman, and A. J. Legge, 301–24. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Netting, Robert McC. 1993. Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Sulas, Federica, and Marco Madella. 2012. Archaeology at the Micro-Scale: Micromorphology and Soil
Phytoliths at a Swahili Stonetown. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 4(2):145–59.
■ MARIA C. BRUNO
AMPHORAE
Amphorae are ceramic vessels used to store and trade different goods, and food in particular. Many civilizations, in different periods, have used amphorae, mainly in the Mediterranean, Near East, and Europe, but also for transoceanic shipment after the opening of trade
routes to the Americas. Amphorae were often coated on the interior with organic substances such as pine resin, pitch, or beeswax to create waterproof containers; these coatings
also were used to give flavor to the contents, in particular, wines. To preserve the contents
for long-distance trade, amphorae were closed with ceramic, stone, or cork stoppers that
were sealed with pitch or lime. Amphorae were often made in specific forms intended
for particular foods or liquids, for example, wine, oil, or fish sauces, and to accommodate
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ANCIENT CLAM GARDENS
sea or river transport. Different forms also were made in specific production areas (e.g.,
Dressel 20 amphorae usually carried oil from Baetica), although imitations also existed.
Some amphorae, mainly those from shipwrecks, have been found with their original
contents preserved, including wine, fish, animal bones, and fruit stones. In some cases tituli
picti or stamps reveal information on the food producer or the capacity and content of the
jar. Written sources also have provided information on the different products exported
from specific areas. Organic residue analysis has been used since the 1970s to better understand the contents of these vessels, but only recently has this method been applied in a
more systematic way. In some cases these analyses have confirmed the data extracted from
archaeological and historical sources; in others, they have hinted at issues such as the reuse
of the vessels or the trade of substances previously unsuspected (such as oils different from
olive oil). Recently, ancient DNA was successfully extracted from the interior of amphorae,
providing another source of evidence. A systematic approach using archaeometric studies is
needed, however, to better understand the contents of the amphorae, their provenance, and
the complexities and significance of ancient trade and exchange.
See also Archaeobotany; Biomolecular Analysis; Condiments; DNA Analysis; Material Culture Analysis; Olive Oil; Shipwrecks; Trade Routes; Umami/Glutamates;
Wine
Further Reading
Bernal Casasola, D. 2004. Ánforas de transporte y contenidos. A propósito de la problemática de algunos
envases de los ss. II y I a.C. In Las industrias alfareras y conserveras fenicio-púnicas de la Bahía de Cádiz,
321–78. Actas de los XVI Encuentros de Historia y Arqueología. Córdoba: Publicaciones Obra
Social y Cultural CajaSur, Ayuntamiento de San Fernando, Fundación de Cultura.
Garnier, N., T. Silvino, and D. Bernal Casasola. 2011. The Identification of the Content of Amphorae:
Oils, Salsamenta and Pitch. French Society for the Study of Archaeological Ceramics from Gallia Proceedings
of the Congress SFECAG (Arles, June 2011), 397–416. Marseille: SFECAG.
Peacock, D. P. S., and D. F. Williams. 1986. Amphorae and the Roman Economy: An Introductory Guide.
London: Longman.
■ ALESSANDRA PECCI
A N C I E N T C L A M G A R D E N S ( N O R T H W E S T C O A S T,
NORTH AMERICA)
The practice of building and maintaining clam gardens is part of a suite of management
techniques employed by Northwest Coast First Peoples to enhance food production
and increase food security. These features were made by constructing rock walls at the
low-tide line of sheltered, soft-sediment embayments, transforming sloping clam beaches
into more level terraces. Traditional knowledge holders share that clam productivity also
was enhanced by thinning clams, aerating substrate, adding shell hash and pebbles, and
removing predators. The region’s immense, deeply stratified shell middens are testimony
to both the long-term and widespread importance of clams in ancient diets. Clam gardens have been recorded from Alaska (USA) through British Columbia (Canada) and
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25
into Washington State (USA). In our ecological study, we quantified the productivity
of ancient clam gardens on Quadra Island, British Columbia, using field surveys and
an in situ transplant experiment. We measured how bivalve communities and beach
morphology differ between clam gardens and nonwalled clam beaches. Specifically, we
examined whether clam gardens have higher clam densities, biomass, and growth rates,
and if so, which physical characteristics best explain these differences. We conclude that
clam gardens increased clam production. Transplanted littleneck clams grew nearly two
times faster in clam gardens relative to nonwalled clam beaches, and smaller-sized clams
were more likely to survive. Surveyed clam gardens had four times the number of butter
clams and two times the number of littleneck clams compared to nonwalled clam beaches.
Finally, results from our transplant experiment confirmed that by reducing the slope of
the beach, clam garden terraces expanded ideal clam habitat at tidal heights that provide
optimal conditions for clam growth and survival.
See also Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Experimental Archaeology; Fish/Shellfish; Oral and Folk Narratives; Shell Middens; Sustainability
Further Reading
Groesbeck, Amy S., Kirsten Rowell, Dana Lepofsky, and Anne K. Salomon. 2014. Ancient Clam Gardens
Increased Shellfish Production: Adaptive Strategies from the Past Can Inform Food Security Today.
PLoS ONE 9(3):e91235. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0091235.
Lepofsky, Dana, and Megan E. Caldwell. 2013. Indigenous Marine Resource Management on the
Northwest Coast of North America. Ecological Processes 2:1–12.
Szimanski, Aaron, director. 2005. Ancient Sea Gardens: Mystery of the Pacific Northwest. Produced by David
J. Woods and Diane Woods. Toronto: aquaCULTURE Pictures Inc. Film.
■ AMY S. GROESBECK, KIRSTEN ROWELL,
D A N A L E P O F S K Y, A N D A N N E K . S A L O M O N
A N I M A L D O M E S T I C AT I O N
Domestication is the process wherein humans take increasing control over the lifeways of
other organisms for their own purposes.Through a coevolutionary process, behaviors and
morphologies in nonhuman animals that evolved under conditions of natural selection
are replaced by those adapted to survival and reproduction under increasingly anthropogenic circumstances. For past human populations, delayed returns replaced immediate
returns, as a portion of the herd was maintained and protected until the next reproductive
season in order to ensure a next generation. Importantly, the organisms involved had to be
suitable both for anthropogenic adaptations and for providing products that were deemed
useful by humans. The successes are the domestic animals that came to provide humans
with primary and secondary products.To understand when, where, how, and why domestications of a very limited number of organisms took place is to understand how humans
came to secure resources sufficiently reliable, predictable, and accessible to provide support
for the increasingly populous and socially complex polities that developed following the
end of the Early Holocene Younger Dryas climatic event (i.e., from ca. 11,600 cal BP).
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A N I M A L D O M E S T I C AT I O N
The study of animal domestication depends upon the description, characterization,
and interpretation of archaeological remains and the contexts in which they are found.
The primary sources of information are bones and teeth that were discarded as refuse,
deposited as offerings, or otherwise preserved in archaeological sites. Additional sources
include site or landscape features associated with the exploitation of animals or their products, representations depicting animals and human-animal interactions, meat or milk lipids
preserved in the walls of ceramic vessels, and animal dung. Information from the study
of animal bones and teeth includes relative frequencies of the different kinds of animals
exploited (assemblage composition); sex and approximate age at death (demographics);
range of sizes and proportions (morphology); diet, disease, pathologies, and abnormalities
(condition); and genetics. Since domestication involved processes of change over time in
human–animal relationships, these kinds of data need to be evaluated along chronological transects in geographical areas where the progenitors of domestic forms are known
or suspected to have occurred and, for comparison, in areas outside of those zones of
distribution (zoogeography). The processes of domestication varied from species to species because of differing animal physiologies and behaviors related to feeding, breeding,
birthing, response to predators, preferred social space, territoriality, and other factors.
Thus the study of animal domestication is best carried out species by species, taking into
consideration variability among populations.
Most domestic animals originated in the Old World, principally in southwest Asia
(sheep, goats, taurine cattle, pigs, dromedaries, cats), but also in central Asia (Bactrian
camels, horses), South/Southeast Asia (zebu cattle, water buff alo, mithun, Bali cattle), East
Asia (pigs, silkworms, yaks, ducks, chickens), and Africa (taurine cattle, donkeys, guinea
fowl). New World domestic forms are principally from South America (llamas, alpacas,
guinea pigs, Muscovy ducks) and Mexico (turkeys, rabbits?). The locus (or loci) of dog
domestication in Eurasia during the Late Pleistocene is contested.
Given the long history of zooarchaeological studies in western Eurasia, the domestication processes for sheep, goats, taurine cattle, and pigs are best known. There are
particular difficulties in dealing with the first two, because the similar sizes and shapes of
their bones can make it challenging to differentiate them in often fragmentary archaeological assemblages, with the additional complication that their wild forms overlapped
in regional distribution. In the 20th century, researchers interpreted bone measurement
(metric) and morphological studies as indications that with domestication, after ca. 9,500
cal BP, both animals became smaller than their wild relatives, and size diminution likely
occurred quickly and was a valid marker for the onset of domestication for these animals.
With the new millennium, however, research suggests the process of domestication was
more complex. A reevaluation of a goat-dominated assemblage left at the ca. 10,000 cal
BP settlement of Ganj Dareh in northwest Iran showed a kill-off (slaughter) pattern of
young males and older females consistent with manipulation of an animal population
to ensure that females would live to reproduce. When the bone metrics were compared
with those of goats from a much earlier nearby site, however, no differences were found,
suggesting that there had been no size diminution of animals at Ganj Dareh and thus
such metrics may not provide evidence for the beginnings of domestication. A similar
scenario was found for goats and sheep at the site of Asikli Höyük in central Anatolia in
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ANIMAL HUSBANDRY AND HERDING
27
levels dating to 10,200 cal BP and earlier; additionally, sheep/goat dung concentrations
indicated animal penning.
Work on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus also revealed that by ca. 10,200 cal
BP pigs, sheep, goats, and cattle were transported across open water, released to live off
the land, and subsequently harvested. Equally surprising, archaeological evidence indicated that the first pigs were carried to Cyprus about 2,000 years earlier and the stock
replenished periodically thereafter. Thus it has become clear that late Pleistocene/early
Holocene hunter-gatherers interacted with animals in ways that were considerably less
straightforward than previously supposed.
Traditional ideas about the changing human–animal relationships that are termed
“domestication” need reevaluation. Research requires a nuanced approach that examines
those relationships using as many lines of evidence as possible and does not depend upon
only a single marker. Human–animal relationships varied greatly through prehistory depending on parameters of place and time. Human hunters had detailed knowledge of the
behavior of their prey that allowed them increasingly to manipulate the behavior of the
latter—and to be shaped by their changing interactions with those animals.
See also Animal Husbandry and Herding; Butchery; Cattle; Chicken; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Manures and Other Fertilizers, Identification and Analysis;
Meat; Milk and Dairy Products; Pig; Residue Analysis, Dairy Products; Secondary
Products Revolution; Sheep/Goat; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Marshall, Fiona B., Keith Dobney, Tim Denham, and José M. Capriles. 2014. Evaluating the Roles of
Directed Breeding and Gene Flow in Animal Domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences USA 111(17):6153–58.
Meadow, Richard H. 1989. Osteological Evidence for the Process of Animal Domestication. In The
Walking Larder: Patterns of Domestication, Pastoralism, and Predation, edited by Juliet Clutton-Brock,
80–90. London: Unwin Hyman.
Stiner, Mary C., Hijlke Buitenhuis, Güneş Duru¸ et al. 2014. A Forager-Herder Trade-Off, from
Broad-Spectrum Hunting to Sheep Management at Aşikli Höyük, Turkey. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences USA 111(23):8404–9.
Vigne, Jean-Denis, Isabelle Carrère, François Briois, and Jean Guilaine. 2011. The Early Process of
Mammal Domestication in the Near East. Current Anthropology 52(S4):S255–71.
Zeder, Melinda A., and Brian Hesse. 2000. The Initial Domestication of Goats (Capra hircus) in the
Zagros Mountains 10,000 Years Ago. Science 287(5461):2254–57.
■ RICHARD H. MEADOW
ANIMAL HUSBANDRY AND HERDING
At the end of the Pleistocene, 12,000 years ago, people throughout the world accelerated
their relationship with food resources to increase diet efficiency. This ultimately included
domestication of animals. The relationship people have with their domestic stock is complex. Domesticated animals provide for easier access to meat, but animals must be kept safe
from predators and epizootic diseases, and access to water and forage plants throughout
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ANIMAL HUSBANDRY AND HERDING
the year must be ensured. Herding also has a strong social function, allowing owners to
participate in social networks such as marriage alliances.
Herders, or pastoral people, live in ecological zones that may have reasonable rainfall
and vegetation cover but are often considered to be marginal for farming activities.
Such areas may require that the herders be mobile and move their camps to take advantage of seasonal pasture for their animals. Since not all areas will necessarily offer
the same vegetation types to all the animals in a herd, opportunistic use of different
ecological zones for breeding and milk production can help to maximize returns. Larger
stock may be sent with young men to cattle camps in one area, while small stock might
be sent to different camps in another, or kept around the homestead to be looked after
by women and older people.
Among pastoralists, such as the Tuareg of the Sahel in West Africa, milk is usually the
main food resource. This can be drunk raw, or soured to mix with grains as porridge.
In East Africa, among the Maasai, blood drawn from large stock is also used. Grains
may be cultivated or harvested wild and stored and used to tide over the lean periods
when there is little vegetation and milk yields are low. While meat is important, it often
plays a secondary role to milk/blood and grains, as herders are reluctant to slaughter
their animals, except for ceremonial occasions such as burials or marriage ceremonies,
but will eat an animal that has died. Among mixed herds, small stock is most likely to
be the main meat source.
Herd sizes vary, but a minimum number of animals is needed for an independent family to succeed in breeding, milking, and meat off-take. Among sheepherders, such as those
in Iran and Afghanistan, this would be a minimum of 60 animals. The selective timing of
two breeding periods is another way of making sure milk is available for most of the year.
In East Africa, the distribution of tsetse flies, the vector for trypanosomiasis (sleeping
sickness), which is fatal to cattle, seemed to be controlled by pastoralists until the flies
spread after the rinderpest epidemic at the end of the 19th century. Animal grazing diminished, allowing the fly’s habitat to expand. Herdsmen understood they had to keep
their animals away from epizootic disease carriers and had basic veterinary skills, like
crude inoculation, as well as traditional pharmacopeia to look after their animals. Though
ethnographic studies show extensive indigenous knowledge systems, colonists refused to
accept that African herdsmen knew a great deal about the adaptation of their herds to
the environment. The settlers brought in European breeds, which were poorly adapted
compared with African breeds.
Because herding societies are often mobile, their material possessions have to be
lightweight and portable, so made from wood or leather. This means they might leave
few traces of their passing. While the bones of domestic animals have constituted the
primary line of evidence for herding activities in the past, other methods of analysis
have been used recently to identify these ephemeral sites. Kraals, or animal enclosures,
can be identified using stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes. At KSF5 in South Africa,
vitrified dung was identified. Elsewhere, phytoliths and pollens also testify to where
animals were kept together.
In analyzing faunal remains, the separation of wild from domestic animals is often quite
contentious, and it is only with large samples that the domestication process might be
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A R C H A E O B O TA N Y
seen. The presence of many more females of productive age in a sample from the Zagros
Mountains in southwest Asia is considered an indicator of animal husbandry. Even with
modern analytical techniques, such as DNA, there can still be dispute and no consensus.
Seasonal mobility, or transhumance, among mobile herders means food varies throughout the year. The rainy season means better milk production and more movement across
the group’s range, with transhumant orbits of different groups coinciding for social and
ceremonial purposes. The dry season may be a period of hunger during which herders
are reduced to a diet of famine foods. When the rains fail, starvation of both people and
animals periodically occurs.
See also Animal Domestication; Archaeobotany; Manures and Other Fertilizers,
Identification and Analysis; Secondary Products Revolution; Soil Microtechniques; Stable Isotope Analysis; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Carrion, Jose S., Louis Scott, Tom Huffman, and Cobus Dreyer. 2001. Pollen Analysis of Iron Age Cow
Dung in Southern Africa. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 9(4):239–49.
Dahl, Gudrun, and Anders Hjort. 1976. Having Herds: Pastoral Herd Growth and Household Economy.
Stockholm: Department of Anthropology, University of Stockholm.
Ejobi, F., R. D. Mosha, S. Ndege, and D. Kamoga. 2007. Ethno-Veterinary Medical Practices of the Lake
Victoria Basin: A Bioprospection. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances 6(2):257–61.
Fauvelle-Aymar, F. X., K. Sadr, F. Bon, and D. Gronenborn. 2007. The Visibility and Invisibility of Herder’s Kraals in Southern Africa, with Reference to a Possible Early Contact Period Khoekhoe Kraal
at KSF 5, Western Cape. Journal of African Archaeology 4(2):253–71.
Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane. 2013. Animal Genetics and African Archaeology: Why It Matters. African
Archaeological Review 30(1):1–20.
Smith, Andrew B. 2005. African Herders: Emergence of Pastoral Traditions.Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Smith, Susan E. 1980. The Environmental Adaptation of Nomads in the West African Sahel: A Key to
Understanding Prehistoric Pastoralists. In The Sahara and the Nile, edited by Martin A. J. Williams
and Hughes Faure, 467–87. Rotterdam: Balkema.
Zeder, Melinda A., and Brian Hesse. 2000. The Initial Domestication of Goats (Capra hircus) in the
Zagros Mountains 10,000 Years Ago. Science 287(5461):2254–57.
■ ANDREW B. SMITH
ANTLER
See Tools/Utensils, Organic Materials; Weapons, Bone/Antler/Ivory
A P I C U LT U R E
See Honey and Nectar; Tel ReḤov
A R C H A E O B O TA N Y
Archaeobotany or paleoethnobotany, the study of archaeological plant remains, is an
important method used to reconstruct ancient plant food consumption and food produc-
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A R C H A E O B O TA N Y
tion. As a standard method in modern excavations, a context-related sampling program
can contribute to our understanding of the multidimensional character of food systems.
More generally, archaeobotany is a method to investigate the part of an economy based
on plant resources, as well as human–environment interaction, sometimes by integrating
off-site archaeobotanical data from natural sediments, for example, in lakes or bogs. Plant
remains are fragile and are subject to taphonomic processes that vary by geographic region
and type of archaeological site. Preservation bias is an ongoing concern. Advances in the
analysis and identification of plant remains have significantly improved our knowledge of
plant usage in the past, however. Using phytoliths and starch grains extracted from dental
calculus at the Paleolithic site of Shanidar III (Iraq), archaeobotanists recently demonstrated that Neanderthals prepared wild barley and other plants for consumption more
than 44,000 years ago.
The Swiss paleobotanist Oswald Heer (1809–1883) was the first to investigate plant
remains from an archaeological excavation. For more than 100 years, the primary interest
in plant remains centered on the evolutionary history of crop species. Archaeobotany’s
establishment as an academic discipline during the 1960s coincided with the refinement
of radiocarbon dating and calibration curves. Growing interest in the role of plants in
the development of ancient human societies led to more systematic archaeobotanical
sampling at archaeological sites. Today archaeobotanical research is heavily focused on the
origins of agriculture, and advances in wild and domesticated cereal identification are particularly noteworthy, but other topics of interest include the diet of pre-agrarian societies
and agricultural production and its development in relation to environmental change.
Plant remains in archaeological sites are most commonly preserved as charred seeds
and chaff and extracted by flotation. These remains represent leftovers and plant resources
that often have been accidentally burned, either through contact with fire in relation to
household activities (e.g., through roasting of hulled cereals before threshing or exposure
to the hearth fire) or through fire within the settlement that sometimes burned large
storage units. Without further knowledge of the archaeological context, archaeobotanical
remains only indirectly reflect ancient people’s diet, and using their proportions to reconstruct the composition of past diet will provide a biased perspective of the food preferences of a site’s inhabitants. Archaeobotanists sometimes use ethnographic examples to
interpret the role of plant species that are not commonly in use today, but the only direct
way to know what ancient people have eaten is through the study of stomach contents
and coprolites. Plant remains from these contexts are often preserved uncharred and are
highly fragmented and difficult to quantify, but nonetheless allow a more detailed identification of species that have been consumed. Archaeobotanical data have been recovered
from coprolites at sites such as Mammoth Cave in Kentucky (USA), where the use of
Asteraceae/Cichoriaceae, Liliaceae, and Chenopodiaceae for human diet was suggested.
Significant amounts of data are available from cesspits from central European Roman
and medieval towns or from gut contents of the central European bog bodies, such as
the Tyrolean Iceman or the Grauballe Man, and those from South American sites such
as Tarapaca in Chile.
Ancient diet is indirectly reflected in food preparation and storage. Wild plants from
pre-agrarian contexts are generally interpreted as collected resources and in the case of
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fruits, nuts, and tubers as food plants. Wild progenitor species of modern crops in aceramic Neolithic sites are also generally considered as food plants. Seeds and chaff remains
associated with installations such as storage pits or silos, hearths, and grinding stones or
plant parts such as phytoliths and starch grains on agricultural tools provide evidence of
consumed plant species. Large-scale systematic sampling of occupation layers enables archaeologists to identify activity zones of food production. In agricultural societies, crops
indicate the cultivated components of diet and, together with their associated weeds, may
inform on crop-processing stages and methods. Threshing, winnowing, and sieving can
be identified by the presence of different weed categories, defined by size and weight
differences. In rare cases, trade of food plants can be investigated with archaeobotanical
methods (e.g., the sites of Berenike and Quseir al-Qadim in Egypt).While the occurrence
of single weed species of nonregional origin cannot answer the question of whether trade
was systematically practiced, large-scale storage of exotic crops is a positive indicator for
long-distance economic relations. Social status is reflected in the presence of exotic or
imported plants in cesspits.
Archaeobotany also contributes to the study of social aspects of food consumption,
including the role of food in social relations, consumption habits of specific groups according to socially perceived norms, and ritual contexts. In general, the archaeobotanical
assemblage of ritual contexts differs in composition from contemporary household finds.
Roman-period burials, for example, often contain accumulations of complete fruits, a
characteristic of the funerary ritual.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Dental Analysis; Feddersen Wierde; Flotation;
Foraging; Gut Analysis; Haithabu/Hedeby; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Iceman;
Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Macroremains; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleofecal Analysis; Palynology; Phytolith Analysis; Plant Processing; Plants;
Quseir al-Qadim; Radiocarbon Dating; Residue Analysis, Starch
Further Reading
Hastorf, Christine A. 1999. Recent Research in Paleoethnobotany. Journal of Archaeological Research
7(1):55–103.
Henry, Amanda G., Alison S. Brooks, and Dolores R. Piperno. 2011. Microfossils in Calculus Demonstrate Consumption of Plants and Cooked Foods in Neanderthal Diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and
II, Belgium). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108(2):486–91.
Jacomet, Stefanie, and Angela Kreuz. 1999. Archäobotanik: Aufgaben, Methoden und Ergebnisse vegetationsund agrargeschichtlicher Forschung. Stuttgart: Ulmer.
Mason, Sarah L. R., and Jon G. Hather, eds. 2002. Hunter-Gatherers Archaeobotany: Perspectives from the
Northern Temperate Zone. London: Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Palmer, Carol, and Marijke van der Veen. 2002. Archaeobotany and the Social Context of Food. Acta
Palaeobotanica 42(2):195–202.
Van der Veen, Marijke. 2011. Consumption, Trade and Innovation: Exploring the Botanical Remains from the
Roman and Islamic Ports at Quseir al-Qadim, Egypt. Journal of African Archaeology Monograph 6.
Frankfurt: Africa Magna Verlag.
■ SIMONE RIEHL
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ARCHAEOLOGY OF COOKING
ARCHAEOLOGY OF COOKING
Cooking is an important food preparation process that makes both edible and potentially
edible items into food with the application of heat. Food preparation is a general term
that involves all food processing. Preparing food requires the physical or chemical alteration of organic materials into culturally acceptable food. Examples of food preparation
processes include butchering, fermentation, pickling, grinding, milling, drying, and salting.
Cooking, as a thermal food preparation technique, also changes food items physically and
chemically. Heat can be applied directly, or heated containers can be insulated to create a
slow cooking process that saves fuel and allows cooks to step away from the food preparation area. Foods can be cooked with dry heat (e.g., roasting, grilling, toasting, smoking, parching, broiling, frying, or baking), moist heat (e.g., boiling, braising, steaming, or
stewing), or a combination of the two (e.g., some barbecuing techniques). The treatment
of food with heat requires specialized labor, fuel, specific tools, and designated spaces.
These requirements leave recoverable traces for archaeologists to study and analyze in a
variety of contexts around the world and through time. Since cooking is a central task
in human life, it is connected to broader aspects of social, cultural, economic, religious,
environmental, and political processes.
The archaeological study of cooking takes into account the many reasons why humans cook food. Some of the reasons are purely functional, such as making food safe to
eat. Food items that might contain potentially toxic substances can be safe to consume
after the application of heat. Cooking eggs or meat can reduce the chance of poisoning
from salmonella. Thermal food preparation can increase the number of items that are
edible. Cooking grains helps to make them soft and easier to chew, and it also chemically breaks down complex carbohydrates, making the grains easier to digest. Heating
edibles can also make them last longer so they can be stored, increasing the amount
of food available. A significant reason why humans cook food, however, is social and
cultural. It is the ability to manipulate the taste, smell, texture, and look of foods for
special or daily meals that provides insight into the past. This creative act of cooking involves choices that can indicate identity, cultural preferences, economic considerations,
and political or religious decisions. The techniques used to cook, tools involved in the
processes, and social spaces used to cook reveal a great deal of information about the
people who cooked and ate food in the past.
To study cooking as a social activity, archaeologists first look for evidence of heat
application, alongside other material items that were involved in cooking, and how each
piece of evidence is associated in context. In rare cases, preserved cooked meals and the
kitchens they were cooked in are discovered in situ, as at the site of Roman Pompeii in
Italy. More commonly, a cooking installation such as a hearth, fire pit, or oven is a valuable
indication of the act of cooking and where cooking took place. Charcoal and organic
charred food remains are also recognizable evidence of the application of heat to food.
Containers used for cooking are also valuable evidence. For example, ceramic pots with
blackened bottoms, metal cookware with peeling layers, and discoloration on the bottom
or sides can indicate cooking. Heat marks, burn marks, or blackened residue adhering to
a container can all be signs of cooking. Other cooking tools that have been identified
archaeologically are clay balls and rocks. Rocks that have been cracked by fire (FCR) can
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33
indicate their use for cooking purposes. Rocks were used to conduct heat inside either
hearths or fire pits, or could be heated and placed inside a container to heat the contents.
Similarly, clay balls were heated in a fire and dropped into a ceramic pot, dug-out pit, or
basket full of food and liquid for boiling. An example of this technique was discovered at
the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey.
In addition to these visible markers in the archaeological record, evidence for cooking
also can be found by examining microscopic data. The analysis of plant remains using
the techniques of paleoethnobotany (including pollen and phytoliths) can identify plants
that were cooked and the spatial patterning of cooking surfaces. The chemical analysis
of organic residue, either on cookware or in soil, can provide details about the different
ingredients combined to create dishes or the places where cooks worked. In addition,
micromorphology of sediments can be used to determine the locations of cooking spaces
where cookery markers are absent to the naked eye.
Archaeologists have always been interested in foodways, but the specific act of cooking
has only recently become a focus of archaeological inquiry. Previously, cooking was seen
as an underwhelming or inconsequential act relegated to domestic work, especially women’s work. Seemingly divorced from the public sphere, cooking was viewed as separate
from complex political and economic relationships that are considered anthropologically
and historically important. Today, archaeological work has revealed that cooking is related
in complex and varied ways to issues of gender, age, work, technology, politics, economics,
environment, culture, and social differentiation.
See also Archaeobotany; Clay Cooking Balls; Cooking Vessels, Ceramic; Cooking
Vessels, Metal; Cooking Vessels, Other Materials; Fire and the Development of
Cooking; Fire and the Development of Cooking Technology; Fire-Based Cooking
Features; Food and Gender; Food and Identity; Herculaneum and Pompeii; Ovens
and Stoves; Plant Processing; Residue Analysis, Dairy Products; Residue Analysis,
Starch; Soil Microtechniques; Use-Wear or Use-Alteration Analysis, Pottery
Further Reading
Graff, Sarah R., and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, eds. 2012. The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological
Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Wandsnider, LuAnn. 1997. The Roasted and the Boiled: Food Composition and Heat Treatment with
Special Emphasis on Pit-Hearth Cooking. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16(1):1–48.
■ SARAH R. GRAFF
ARCHAEOLOGY OF HOUSEHOLD FOOD PRODUCTION
Household production is recognized as an important factor in the development of ancient
economic systems in complex societies. Archaeological studies of production tend to focus
on durable goods such as stone tools, pottery, stone jewelry, shell ornaments, and metal
objects, where production debris can be identified and the movement of finished products
traced over long distances. However, the production of food commodities at the household
level was also important to economic development and domestic economies.Yet food pro-
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duction is difficult to document archaeologically since food remains are often perishable.
Moreover, households frequently engaged only in part-time or seasonal production of foods,
making it difficult to differentiate surplus from subsistence production. Despite these difficulties, archaeologists have made important contributions toward understanding the ways
household food production contributes to systems of exchange and economic development.
Foods were important commodities in prehistory. For example, olive oil produced in
many parts of the Mediterranean, including Bronze Age Greece, may have been oriented
primarily toward market exchange rather than household subsistence. Although not
typically considered items of prestige, many foods were considered luxury commodities.
Throughout the Mediterranean world and Roman Europe, pomegranates, rice, chickpeas,
and black pepper were likely luxuries. In ancient Mesoamerica, chocolate, consumed as a
beverage, was restricted to the elites and military, and cacao beans were so highly valued
that they were used as a currency in Aztec society. Ordinary foods were also important
commodities. For example, in central Mexico, salt, a dietary necessity, may have been
produced intermittently by households in lakeside production stations.
In Aztec Mexico, large urban marketplaces offered a wide diversity of commodities
for sale, many of which were foods produced by ordinary households. The Franciscan
friar Bernardino de Sahagún described commoners selling a wide array of prepared and
unprepared foods in Aztec markets, including maize, beans, tomatoes, chili peppers, tortillas, and tamales, among other foods (figure 2). He wrote of foods prepared in a variety
of ways and with an infinite number of possible ingredients, such as tamales made with
turkey, frogs, axolotl, cactus, mushrooms, chili, rabbit, or gopher. As food products were
important commodities in Aztec markets, identifying the production of foods in domestic
contexts would be central to understanding household economies and broader systems
of exchange in ancient Mexico.
The Early Postclassic (AD 900–1250) community of Xaltocan, Mexico, provides an
interesting case study as the production of foods for exchange has been documented
archaeologically. Xaltocan was an island located in the middle of Lake Xaltocan in the
northern Basin of Mexico and hence was involved in the extraction and processing of
many lake resources. Archaeologists employed multiple lines of evidence, including microartifacts (tiny remnants from human activities), soil chemistry (residues from human
activities that become incorporated and absorbed into floor sediments), and traditional
macroartifacts, to identify food production activities. For example, in Casa Z at Xaltocan,
high densities of small white fish scales, recovered from microartifact samples from room
floors, overlapped spatially with high sodium signatures identified through inductively
coupled plasma–atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES) analysis of floor soil samples
(figure 3). Fish destined for the market were scaled and dried with salt for preservation.
Thus, the spatial correlation of fish scales with sodium residues indicated that this household was processing and salting fish. In addition to fish processing, the production of tortillas is indicated by concentrations of calcium in another room of Casa Z. In pre-Hispanic
Mexico, calcium hydroxide, or slaked lime, was used to soften corn kernels for making
nixtamal, used in making tortillas and other foods; thus, concentrations of calcium reflect
the spilling of the calcium hydroxide solution during processing. High calcium signatures
correlated with high ratios of comals (griddles) used for making tortillas and toasting foods.
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ARCHAEOLOGY OF HOUSEHOLD FOOD PRODUCTION
35
Figure 2. Seller of Chili, Seller of Wheat, Seller of Tamales. Images from
the Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain by
Bernardino de Sahagún, Book 10. Courtesy of the University of Utah Press.
In Xaltocan, each household specialized in the production of different types of goods,
and production debris is variable from one house to the next, suggesting that foods were
not being produced for household subsistence but rather extended beyond the immediate needs of the household. For example, in Casa Y, the household heavily exploited
waterfowl, while in Casa G, activities focused on hunting rabbits. It is likely that food
production at the household level was intermittent or seasonal, taking place during the
dry season when people were not heavily engaged in agriculture. Xaltocan’s island location would have facilitated part-time food production by providing abundant, locally
available resources: people could catch fish, hunt waterfowl, and gather insects without
venturing far from their homes. Xaltocamecas would have been able to easily transport
goods to various markets by canoe. This case study shows that household production of
food products was central to the growth of Xaltocan’s economy and political power, and
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ARCHAEOLOGY OF HOUSEHOLD FOOD PRODUCTION
Figure 3. Distribution of sodium across room floors in Casa Z, Xaltocan, Mexico.
High concentrations of sodium reveal the salting of fish for market by members
of the household. Map by Kristin de Lucia.
demonstrates the importance of identifying the production of foods in the archaeological record and the necessity of considering domestically produced food products in the
development of economic models.
See also Architectural Analysis; Domestic Sites; Household Archaeology; Informal
Economic Exchange; Markets/Exchange; Nixtamalization; Salt; Soil Microtechniques; Spatial Analysis and Visualization Techniques
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Further Reading
Bakels, Corrie, and Stefanie Jacomet. 2003. Access to Luxury Foods in Central Europe during the Roman Period: The Archaeobotanical Evidence. World Archaeology 34(3):542–57.
De León, Jason P. 2009. Rethinking the Organization of Aztec Salt Production: A Domestic Perspective.
Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 19(1):45–57.
De Lucia, Kristin. 2013. Domestic Economies and Regional Transition: Household Multicrafting and
Lake Exploitation in Pre-Aztec Central Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32(4):353–67.
Hamilakis,Yannis. 1999. Food Technologies/Technologies of the Body:The Social Context of Wine and
Oil Production and Consumption in Bronze Age Crete. World Archaeology 31(1):38–54.
Pingarrón, Luis Alberto Barba, Raúl Ernesto García Chávez, Elizabeth Mejía, and Mireya Martínez.
1999. Determinación de áreas de actividad en una unidad habitacional del Clásico en Azcapotzalco,
D.F. Anales de Antropología 33:69–89.
Rodríguez-Alegría, Enrique, John K. Millhauser, and Wesley D. Stoner. 2013. Trade, Tribute, and Neutron Activation: The Colonial Political Economy of Xaltocan, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological
Archaeology 32(4):397–414.
Ward, Cheryl. 2003. Pomegranates in Eastern Mediterranean Contexts during the Late Bronze Age.
World Archaeology 34(3):529–41.
■ KRISTIN DE LUCIA
A R C H I T E C T U R A L A N A LY S I S
Structural remains provide evidence for the location of various activities associated
with food storage, food processing, and food consumption. At many archaeological
sites, such remains consist of only the footings of the walls, or their imprint in the
soil, indicating the ground plans of these buildings. Exceptions are buildings that have
experienced catastrophic destruction, burial, and preservation, sometimes to roof level.
Further exceptions are buildings that continue to be used, even to the present day, but
provide evidence of former uses.
Analyses of structural remains to identify food-related activities are usually based on
the numbers and sizes of spaces within each building, their relationships to each other,
and evidence for built-in features, such as hearths for cooking. At many archaeological
sites, especially prehistoric ones, many buildings have only one identifiable space. Nevertheless, such remains are variously identified as dwellings, storage areas, and public or
ceremonial buildings, often on the basis of their relative size within the settlement. It is
widely assumed that larger buildings would have been public spaces or communal storage
areas and smaller buildings would have been either houses or more private storage areas.
These assumptions have often led to debates, however—for example, about whether a
large building was a formal, ceremonial area, or a utilitarian storage area. One can expect
some type of food storage, food processing, or food consumption to have taken place in
any of these buildings, but exactly what types of food-related activities is often speculative.
Parts of the structure of such single-room buildings sometimes give clues as to their
use. Particularly important is evidence for a hearth, often an area with traces of burning
to indicate where cooking took place and used to distinguish a dwelling from a storage
building. This area can be sunken into the floor of the building, level with the floor, or a
raised area of stone, fireproof baked clay, or brick. Hearths may be found in the center of
the space or against a wall. If the latter, they may show traces of burning on nearby walls.
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A R C H I T E C T U R A L A N A LY S I S
For example, hearths have been identified in the small, round, stone-built structures at
the Neolithic site of Khirokitia, Cyprus, and used to reinterpret these buildings, originally
thought to have been beehive storage buildings, as houses. In later periods, however, such
hearths are not necessarily evidence for cooking food as they may have been used for
industrial purposes such as metalworking or pottery production, or perhaps for social
gatherings, with or without food, as might be the case with megarons of Mycenaean
palaces (as at Tiryns and Mycenae in the Greek Peloponnese). Other remains within these
buildings (e.g., material culture and bioarchaeological remains) must also be analyzed to
assess whether or not these were cooking hearths for food processing.
Further structural features can provide evidence that a single-roomed building was
used for food storage. These can include buttresses along the walls that indicate supports
for a raised floor for the storage of foodstuffs, particularly in granaries. This feature can
be found in Roman military sites (e.g.,Vindolanda in Britain) and used to identify large
buildings as food-storage areas. It is difficult to identify structural remains for food consumption in single-roomed buildings, but if cooking hearths are present, one might infer
that eating and drinking took place in these spaces.
In buildings with many differentiated spaces, one can expect to find evidence of different food-related activities in different areas. Again, features such as hearths can be used
to identify cooking areas. In addition, relationships between these areas can assist with
further identifications. For example, small rooms located off a room with a hearth may
have been used for food storage, but also may have had other functions such as latrines or
waste disposal areas. Evidence for drainage may help refine this identification. It is very
difficult to identify food-consumption areas from ground plans. It is often assumed that
the largest and most decorated rooms in a building were used for formal dining (e.g.,
so-called androns in Greek houses). Again, this assumption needs to be validated through
other evidence such as material culture remains.
Where sites have been catastrophically destroyed, it is often easier to identify the locations of food-related activities. Two examples buried by volcanoes are the Bronze Age
site of Akrotiri on the island of Thera in Greece (destroyed in the mid-second millennium
BC), and the Joya de Cerén site in El Salvador (destroyed ca. AD 630). At Akrotiri the
walls of multiroomed buildings are sometimes preserved to the second floor. Most of
these were houses of a fairly flexible design, and therefore the spaces within them are of
indeterminate use. Some, however, have rooms with benches into which are embedded
large ceramic jars (pithoi) containing foodstuffs, and so are identifiable as food-storage
areas. One atypical building, with elaborate decoration and with such a storeroom, has
been identified as a communal building for special, possibly ritual, functions. At Cerén,
storehouses were distinguishable from dwellings by the presence of clay platforms.
More famous sites destroyed by a catastrophic event are Herculaneum and Pompeii
(Italy). Extant structural remains at both sites include complete buildings, sometimes with
remains of their roofs. Food-related features and spaces have been identified in houses
but also in public areas. Most significant are large brick ovens that are used to identify
bakeries, and their associated stone mills, used to mill flour on-site. Shops lining the streets
of Pompeii have vending counters into which are set large ceramic jars (dolia), identified
as food containers. Some shops also have hearths, probably to cook food. Many have
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connecting small rooms, likely used to store foodstuffs that were sold along the street
front. The remains of benches and small built tables in one room in the Villa of Julia Felix
in Pompeii have been used to identify it as a restaurant. Within multiroomed Pompeian
houses, these same types of features are used to identify specific space as kitchens and
cooking areas. In the House of Julius Polybius, a small kitchen with an intact roof and a
ceramic smoke ventilator has survived within a utilitarian courtyard. In some cases, holes
for wooden shelving have survived in extant walls. While it is probable that some of this
shelving was for domestic food storage, this cannot be assumed based on this evidence
alone. Some buildings in and around Pompeii also provide structural evidence for the
bulk production and storage of produce in the form of large jars (dolia), again set into
courtyards (in House I, VI, 26, and the Villa of Pisenella at Boscoreale). Also at Pompeii,
and perhaps uniquely, the structural evidence gives a very strong indication that rooms
were used for eating and drinking. Besides the layout, location, and decoration of such
rooms, this evidence consists of recesses into the walls, probably for the sides or the ends
of dining couches on which people would have reclined to dine.
In some cases, particularly at more recent sites, structural remains may have been built
into later buildings and therefore continue to be used. Standing buildings analysis can
find traces of some of the earlier uses of the spaces in these buildings, including evidence
such as large former ovens and flues that would indicate the location of the kitchen. Large
formal dining halls can be traced through their massive structural remains, and often the
greater use of architectural detailing and decoration.
Thus, there are a number of structural or architectural features at archaeological sites
that can give insights into the locations for various food practices. The identification of
many of these buildings and spaces as locations of food-related activities without supporting material cultural, zooarchaeological, or ethnographic evidence can often be very
subjective, however. Additionally, not all food practices leave structural remains, such as
outdoor and public feasting.
See also Domestic Sites; Food Storage; Herculaneum and Pompeii; Household Archaeology; Joya de Cerén; Ovens and Stoves; Spatial Analysis and Visualization
Techniques; Stores/Markets; Taverns/Inns
Further Reading
Allison, Penelope M. 2001. Using the Material and the Written Sources: Turn of the Millennium Approaches to Roman Domestic Space. American Journal of Archaeology 105(2):181–208.
———. 2004. Pompeian Households: Analysis of the Material Culture. Monograph 42. Los Angeles: Cotsen
Institute of Archaeology, UCLA.
Ellis, Steven J. R. 2004. The Distribution of Bars at Pompeii: Archaeological, Spatial and Viewshed
Analyses. Journal of Roman Archaeology 17:371–84.
McKee, Brian R. 1999. Household Archaeology and Cultural Transformation Processes: Examples from
the Cerén Site, El Salvador. In The Archaeology of Household Activities, edited by Penelope M. Allison,
30–42. London: Routledge.
Palyvou, Clairy. 2005. Akrotiri Thera: An Architecture of Affluence 3,500 Years Old. Philadelphia: INSTAP
Academic Press.
■ PENELOPE M. ALLISON
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ARENI (ARMENIA)
ARENI (ARMENIA)
The oldest known wine press to date (ca. 4000 BC) was discovered in the Areni-1 cave
complex, a multicomponent site located in the Central Near Eastern highlands at the
southern end of the Lesser Caucasus range. The system of karst caves was formed inside
the left wall of the Arpa River canyon at the point where it opens onto a narrow valley;
multiple strips of fertile land along the banks of the river are covered with vineyards and
orchards. Areni-1 consists of three distinct areas (from north to south): the steep slope of
the talus ascending from the river bank, an external rockshelter, and three cave galleries
extending to a depth of more than 40 meters into the cliff , with caverns and niches
branching from the galleries. First surveyed in the 1970s, the cave complex has been
systematically excavated and studied since 2007.
Evidence of winemaking in the cave dates to the Late Chalcolithic period (ca. 4200–
3500 BC) when the cave was used for complex mortuary rituals. Dozens of secondary
and primary interments, including human sacrifices, have been discovered. A wine-pressing installation was discovered within this mortuary context (figure 4). The remains of
the installation include vats, in situ storage jars, and grape skins, stems, and pips. The
association of the installation with mortuary rituals indicates that the wine produced in
the cave was not intended for regular consumption but for religious ceremonies, and that
winemaking in this area should have had earlier precursors.
Figure 4. Grape stems, pips, and skins recovered from the wine-pressing installation at Areni,
Armenia, seen in the photograph to the left. Photographs courtesy of Gregory E. Areshian.
See also Archaeobotany; Biomolecular Analysis; Food and Ritual; Residue Analysis,
Tartaric Acid; Rockshelters/Caves; Wine; Wineries
Further Reading
Areshian, Gregory E., Boris Gasparyan, Pavel S. Avetisyan, et al. 2012. The Chalcolithic of the Near East
and South-Eastern Europe: Discoveries and New Perspectives from the Cave Complex Areni-1,
Armenia. Antiquity 86(331):115–30.
Areshian, Gregory E., Boris Gasparyan, Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky, et al. 2012. Wine and Death:
The 2010 Excavations Season at the Areni-1 Cave Complex, Armenia. Backdirt: Annual Review of
the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA 2011:65–70.
Barnard, Hans, Alek N. Dooely, Gregory Areshian, et al. 2011. Chemical Evidence for Wine Production
around 4000 BCE in the Late Chalcolithic Near Eastern Highlands. Journal of Archaeological Science
38(5):977–84.
■ GREGORY E. ARESHIAN
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ARENI (ARMENIA)
41
ART
See Carvings/Carved Representations of Food; Representational Models of Food
and Food Production; Rock Art; Wall Paintings/Murals
AV O I D A N C E S
See Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions, Taboos
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B
BAKERIES
The concept of a commercial bakery is certainly not a modern one. Archaeologists have
investigated bakery installations dating back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. These sites
can yield a wealth of information about the communities they served. Evidence about diet,
baking methods, available ingredients, socioeconomic conditions, class structure, and the
social relations of production can be found scattered around the remains of an oven. Because
of their fragile nature, the remains of the breads themselves are rarely preserved unless carbonized, dessicated, or waterlogged.The material culture (e.g., molds, tools) and architecture
(ovens) of bakeries are better represented in the archaeological record. These artifacts are
supplemented by archaeobotanical remains associated with grains used for production and
the fuels used to heat the ovens; chemical analyses of flour, yeast, and other ingredients; textual and representational sources; experimental approaches; and the considerable literature
generated by ethnoarchaeological studies of community ovens and bakeries.
Some of the best-studied bakeries from the ancient world are those associated with
temple and funeral complexes in Egypt. Two state-run bakeries, dating to 4,600 BP,
yielded significant information about the day-to-day life of those responsible for the construction of the pyramids at Giza. Bread molds, sifting tools, and remains of charcoal found
within the bakery site itself provide ample evidence of the type of food produced and
consumed by a community assembled for the purpose of large-scale construction projects.
At this unique site, hieroglyphs on a nearby tomb illustrate methods used for grinding
grain and producing bread and beer. Statues show women grinding grain on a stone in a
home. This could indicate that bread was baked both commercially and within the home;
alternately, it also could suggest that dough was sometimes prepared by individuals and
perhaps baked in a community oven, as seen at the Workmen’s Village at Amarna. It also
has been suggested that this evidence shows that laborers for the state may not have been
slaves or conscripts so much as a combination of peasant workers and artisans living in
thriving settlements close to where they worked.
A second site in Egypt, located during work for the Theban Desert Road Survey, uncovered not just a bakery but an entire community dedicated to the craft. Situated along a
busy caravan route, and dating to 2134 BC, this one-kilometer-long settlement was designed
around large-scale bread production. Archaeologists excavated not just ovens and bread
molds at this location but also the potter’s wheels used to make the molds. Large piles of
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debris on-site indicate that the scale of bread production far exceeded the needs of a small
community. Employing potters on-site was likely a more efficient means of keeping up with
the daily needs of the bakery. Examination of these molds using petrography could yield
clear evidence of the source of the clay used by potters to produce the constant supply of
molds that a bakery of this scale would require. Petrography may tell archaeologists whether
the clay was local or exchanged for goods as parties traveled from the Nile Valley to Darfur
along this specific route. Further research may also indicate whether the grain used to produce the bread was transported as part of the trade route or locally produced.
Perhaps the greatest archaeological evidence a bakery can yield comes from Pompeii
(Italy). When ash fell upon the city, it encased life midstream. As a result, 35 operational
bakeries were frozen in time as they worked to produce goods for the Roman city. All of
the bakeries have ovens attached, and the largest include grain mills. Machines that were
used in the production of bread also were preserved. Mixing and kneading machines,
involving systems of shafts, paddles, and wooden slats, allowed dough to be made more
quickly and with less human labor than bread made by hand. Faunal remains of animals
used to move the machinery were found as they were still tethered when the eruption
occurred. A well-preserved fresco found in the city illustrates a baker at work distributing bread. This fresco is detailed enough to see the tops of a variety of loaves as well as
the clothing of both baker and customer, indicating the economic status of both within
the community. Artwork depicting daily life is often the sole means by which items that
degrade quickly can be examined. As catastrophic events unfolded at Pompeii, however,
loaves of bread were left to char in ovens, leaving archaeologists with solid evidence of
exactly what was produced in the bakeries. Eighty-one carbonized loaves were found in
the ovens of one bakery. The loaves are clearly marked with bakers’ stamps, identifying
the maker and type of bread. Evidence of the volume and type of breads produced is
invaluable to understanding the role that bakeries played in the communities they served.
Studies of the more recent historical period include examinations of bakeries in the
Chesapeake region (USA) following the American Revolution and the changes that occurred in the social relations of production as baking transitioned from an artisanal craft
to a mechanized and increasingly specialized industry. Industrial archaeologists have also
documented the changing technology of bakeries in the 20th century.
See also Bread; Ethnoarchaeology; Experimental Archaeology; Herculaneum and
Pompeii; Milling; Ovens and Stoves; Representational Models of Food and Food
Production; Wall Paintings/Murals; Yeast
Further Reading
Cuddy, Thomas W. 2008. Revolutionary Economies: What Archaeology Reveals about the Birth of American
Capitalism. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
Curtis, Robert. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill.
McLaren, Frances, and John Evans. 2002. The Chemical Identification of Ancient British Bread Flours:
Encountering and Overcoming Some of the Obstacles. In Pain, fours et foyers des temps passés/
Bread, Ovens and Hearths of the Past, edited by Kai Fechner and Marianne Mesnil. Civilisations 49
(1–2):169–182. doi:10.4000/civilisations.1427.
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BARLEY
Parker, Bradley J. 2011. Bread Ovens, Social Networks and Gendered Space: An Ethnoarchaeological
Study of Tandir Ovens in Southeastern Anatolia. American Antiquity 76(4):603–27.
Samuel, Delwen. 2000. Brewing and Baking. In Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, edited by Paul
T. Nicholson and Ian Shaw, 537–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2002. Bread in Archaeology. In Pain, fours et foyers des temps passés/Bread, Ovens and Hearths of
the Past, edited by Kai Fechner and Marianne Mesnil. Civilisations 49:27–36. doi:10.4000/civilisa
tions.1353.
Thurmond, David L. 2006. A Handbook of Food Processing in Classical Rome: For Her Bounty No Winter.
Leiden: Brill.
■ MICHELLE HASTINGS
BARLEY
Barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. vulgare), one of the founder crops of the Near East, was
domesticated from wild barley (Hordeum vulgare ssp. spotaneum) in the 11th millennium
BP. Of the founder crops, barley is the most widespread and grows in the widest range
of environments, showing the most tolerance of dry conditions, poor soils, and salinity.
Barley has been a crucial component of the human diet from the beginnings of human
cultivation and has even been found in the diet of Neanderthals from 50 KYA, possibly
cooked. The principal use of barley has been as an animal feed, secondarily as human
feed and in beer production.
Barley’s success is explained in part by its ecology. The environmental transition of the
Near East from the Pleistocene to the Holocene was of steppe to a Mediterranean biome
with the early Holocene characterized by cold winters and long hot summers linked by
a short spring season. Like the other cereals of the Near Eastern founder crops, barley is
adapted to seasonal drought, with large seeds and a rapid growing season. Of these cereals,
wild barley has the most rapid growing season, which explains a great deal of its robustness
and why it was among the first to be domesticated. Genetic and archaeological evidence
show that barley was domesticated from two distinct stocks from the west and east of the
Near East, respectively. Initially, domesticated barley was of a two-row form, like its wild
ancestor, but six-row forms appeared as early as the tenth millennium BP, the result of a
mutation causing a failure of the central floret to suppress lateral florets. The two-row forms
generally have larger grains, are more robust in harsh environments, and have a greater
proportion of carbohydrates, whereas six-row forms tend to have a richer protein content.
The former are generally preferred in brewing while the latter are preferred for animal feed.
See also Animal Husbandry and Herding; Archaeobotany; Beer; Brewing/Malting;
Cereals; Neolithic Package; Plant Domestication; Spent Grain as Animal Feed;
Wild Progenitors of Domesticated Plants
Further Reading
Willcox, George. 2013. The Roots of Cultivation in Southwestern Asia. Science 341(6141):39–40.
Zohary, Daniel, Maria Hopf, and Ehud Weiss. 2012. Domestication of Plants in the Old World. 4th edition.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
■ ROBIN G. ALLABY
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BEAN/COMMON BEAN
The common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), a legume, was an integral part of Native American
agricultural systems throughout the Western Hemisphere prior to European intrusions.
Other bean species (Phaseolus spp.) were domesticated, but the common bean was most
widely dispersed. It was frequently polycropped with maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) and
squash (Cucurbita spp.), the so-called three sisters of northeastern North America. Genetic evidence indicates that the species evolved in Mesoamerica and spread southward
to Andean South America. Two major domestilocalities have been identified, one in
Mesoamerica, perhaps in west-central Mexico, and the other in Andean South America.
Evidence for this crop’s use comes primarily from macrofossils, typically consisting of
charred seed halves. The recovery of the typical hooked-hair phytoliths from the pods
is less common. Starch grains are sometimes recovered from charred cooking residues
adhering to the interior walls of pottery vessels. The oldest published direct AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) dates on common bean macrofossils are ca. 4,900 BP in the
Peruvian Andes, 2,260 BP in Mexico, 2,200 BP in the southwestern United States, 770
BP in the central North American Plains, and 700 BP in northeastern North America.
Recent microbotanical analyses in the sub-Arctic of Ontario, Canada, indicate bean use
by 500 BP. Mature seeds and immature fruits (pods) were consumed.
See also Archaeobotany; Legumes and Pulses; Macroremains; Phytolith Analysis;
Residue Analysis, Starch; Squash/Gourds
Further Reading
Bitocchi, Elena, Laura Nanni, Elisa Bellucci, et al. 2012. Mesoamerican Origin of the Common Bean
(Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Is Revealed by Sequence Data. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
USA 109(14):E788–E796.
Hart, John P., David L. Asch, C. Margaret Scarry, and Gary W. Crawford. 2002. The Age of the Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in the Northern Eastern Woodlands of North America. Antiquity
76(292):377–85.
Kaplan, Lawrence, and Thomas F. Lynch. 1999. Phaseolus (Fabaceae) in Archaeology: AMS Dates and
Their Significance for Pre-Columbian Agriculture. Economic Botany 53(3):261–72.
Kwak, Myounghai, James A. Kami, and Paul Gepts. 2009. The Putative Mesoamerican Domestication Center of Phaseolus vulgaris Is Located in the Lerma–Santiago Basin of Mexico. Crop Science
49(2):554–63.
■ J O H N P. H A R T
B E D R O C K F E AT U R E S
Bedrock features as defined here include mortars, cupmarks (small round cavities, usually 5–15 centimeters across), basins, slicks (flat polished areas used for grinding and tool
sharpening), and a variety of other cavities hewn into bedrock or created during continuous, repetitive work. They are known from a wide range of sites and cultures on all
settled continents. Ethnographic accounts suggest these features were used predominantly
by women for processing plant foods, meat, bones, and minerals. Their use in symbolic
contexts and as territorial markers is also documented, however.
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BEER
In the Near East, bedrock features first appear at Natufian sites (ca. 15,000–11,600
cal BP) in caves, rockshelters, and open-air contexts across a variety of ecological, topographical, and geological settings. Natufian bedrock features include tiny shallow cavities,
cupmarks, bowls, deep narrow shafts, and wide basins. Similar devices were also made
from boulders and slabs at campsites and cemeteries. At some sites, bedrock features are
quite numerous; at others, there are few or none. Though Natufian specimens are commonly interpreted as pounding/grinding devices, to date no seeds, grains, or nuts have
been found in association. Phytoliths of cereal chaff and other plant parts were found in
deep mortar shafts at Raqefet Cave (Israel) and Qarassa 3 (Syria), however.
In the ensuing Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period (ca. 11,600–10,500 cal BP), bedrock
features were commonly limited to relatively small mortars or cupmarks. At many sites,
cup-marked slabs or boulders were set on the floors of dwelling structures; these are often
associated with small pestles, grinding stones, and finished limestone bowls. The dramatic
shift in types and context of bedrock features during the Natufian–Neolithic transition
broadly corresponds to the shift from hunting and gathering of wild foods to agriculture
and reliance on cereals and legumes.While it is assumed that many Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A bedrock features were used for processing a variety of plant resources,
the morphological and contextual differences imply significant variation in function. The
association between specific bedrock types and wild or domesticated cereals and legumes
has been suggested but never verified. In later periods the number of bedrock features
declined dramatically; examples are known, however, mainly in agricultural contexts.
See also Archaeobotany; Broad Spectrum Revolution; Ethnographic Sources; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Plant Processing
Further Reading
Nadel, Dani, and György Lengyel. 2009. Human-Made Bedrock Holes (Mortars and Cupmarks) as a
Late Natufian Social Phenomenon. Archaeology, Anthropology and Ethnology of Eurasia 37(2):37–48.
Nadel, Dani, and Danny Rosenberg. 2010. New Insights into Late Natufian Bedrock Features (Mortars
and Cupmarks). European Prehistory 7(1):65–87.
Terradas, Xavier, Juan José Ibáñez, Frank Braemer, et al. 2014. Natufian Bedrock Mortars at Qarassa
3: Preliminary Results from an Interdisciplinary Methodology. In Stone Tools in Transition: From
Hunter-Gatherers to Farming Societies in the Near East, edited by Ferran Borrell, Juan José Ibáñez, and
Miquel Molist, 449–64. Barcelona: Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
■ DANI NADEL AND DANNY ROSENBERG
BEER
Beer is a fermented beverage based on cereals or other starchy plants. To date, direct archaeobotanical evidence has been documented for beer brewing using barley, wheat, and
maize. Historical and ethnographic sources indicate the use of a broad range of other
cultigens (including rice, sorghum, millet, rye, oats, manioc, and quinoa), and the preparation of beers mixed with honey, fruit, or other plants added for taste, as a preservative,
or for medicinal or other properties.
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Beer has served as food, intoxicant, and medicine, and as an essential component
of social and ritual exchanges from prehistory through modern times. When shared,
beer can strengthen ties between equals; it can also emphasize or elevate the status of
a generous host (individual or institutional) of a work party or other feasts. In some
societies, it was required for ceremonies and offerings. The kind of beer produced and
consumed (or the drinking of beer as opposed to other beverages, such as wine) may
signal identity and social status.
Given these uses and meanings, archaeological studies have examined the possible
domestication, adoption, or intensification of particular crops for beer production; beer
ingredients and the brewing process; the organization and scale of brewing and political
economy; and contexts of distribution and consumption. These studies rely on a range
of evidence. Texts and artwork may include descriptions and depictions of brewing,
serving, and drinking practices that complement the archaeological record. Archaeological evidence of brewing includes areas, features, facilities, and artifacts related to the
malting, drying, and milling of grain, or to the discard of spent grain. Areas and vessels
for cooking, cooling, and fermentation also have been documented. Botanical evidence
includes malted grain, though examples are rare since malting makes the grains very
fragile. The macro- or microbotanical remains of fruits or other plants added to beer
also may be found. Prehistoric or ancient sites with direct evidence for brewing include
Hierakonpolis and Abydos (Egypt), Eberdingen-Hochdorf (Germany), Roquepertuse
(France), and Cerro Baúl (Peru).
Beer, unlike wine, is difficult to store and, in most cases, must be consumed quickly.
It was not widely traded, and vessels for storage and transport are rare. At the same time,
particular vessel forms or types may have been used for serving and drinking. These (together with vessels used for brewing and fermentation) can be identified through residue
analysis complemented when possible by iconographic or textual evidence. Residues in
vessels used to prepare or serve beer may contain grain fragments (possibly mixed with
chaff) and starch granules that have been altered by malting or cooking, as well as other
beer ingredients or byproducts, such as yeast, lactic acid bacteria, and, in the case of barley beer, calcium oxalate (“beerstone”). Sites where vessels containing beer residues have
been identified include Deir el-Medina and the Workmen’s Village at Amarna (Egypt),
Genó (Spain), and Godin Tepe (Iran).
Experimental and ethnographic studies of beer have aided archaeological analysis and
interpretation, providing insight into brewing ingredients and technology, labor inputs
and organization, and feasting and other consumption practices. Experiments also have
included collaborations with modern craft brewers to re-create ancient beers. These efforts reflect the continuing popularity of beer and a public fascination with its history as
preserved in the archaeological record.
See also Archaeobotany; Barley; Breweries; Brewing/Malting; CHICHA; Commensality; Conchopata; Ethnoarchaeology; Ethnographic Sources; Experimental Archaeology; Feasting; Fermentation; Food and Identity; Food and Ritual; Maize; Spent
Grain as Animal Feed; Wheat
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Further Reading
Dietler, Michael. 2006. Alcohol: Anthropological/Archaeological Perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology 35:229–49.
Hornsey, Ian S. 2012. Alcohol and Its Role in the Evolution of Human Society. Cambridge: RSC Publishing.
McGovern, Patrick E. 2009. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Samuel, Delwyn. 2000. Brewing and Baking. In Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, edited by Paul
T. Nicholson and Ian Shaw, 537–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
■ F R A N C E S M . H AYA S H I D A
B I O A R C H A E O L O G I C A L A N A LY S I S
Although British archaeologist Grahame Clark first used the term bioarchaeology in reference to the study of archaeological animal bones in 1972, it is now broadly defined as the
holistic, multidisciplinary, scientific study of all organic remains (human, plant, and animal)
from archaeological contexts. This entry focuses more narrowly on human remains, particularly skeletal remains, in relation to food as one of the three major evolutionary forces,
the others being disease and environment (figure 5). Debate over the value of studying
human remains arises from the competing value systems of scientists who believe that
bioarchaeological information can benefit the living, and some religious and indigenous
groups who believe it is harmful to both the living and/or the dead.
Bioarchaeology emerged in the 1970s from processual archaeology, which sought an
understanding of the relationships among culture, biology, and environment. This integrated, tripartite approach continues to be fundamental to bioarchaeology and is commonly expressed in the reconstruction of ancient lifeways, predominantly through the
study of disease, diet, and demography. The basic biocultural approach to bioarchaeology
has, however, been increasingly superimposed with social theory, which has brought the
field more in line with current thought in both contemporary sociocultural anthropology and post-processual archaeology. Increased emphasis on archaeological context is also
better integrating bioarchaeology with material culture. Socially based subthemes such as
identity, gender, childhood, ethnicity, landscape, work, inequality, disability, violence, and
embodiment now claim their own subfields of bioarchaeology and reflect the increasing
specialization of the field. Diet is a key interpretive factor in all of these areas of study;
most of these subthemes are patterned by nondietary pathology, and all are situated in the
broader context of cultural and physical environments (figure 5).
Although information on diet, disease, and environment can be gleaned from written
documents, art, cultural artifacts, and plant and animal remains, interpretations of their
effects on human biology and culture can be very inaccurate because they are indirect
forms of information and also can be biased. For example, artistic representations of
foods and food-related activities and written descriptions/recipes can vary by social class,
gender, age, and temporal or locational context. Food preparation and food procurement
artifacts and plant and animal remains enable reconstruction of foods available for consumption (menus) rather than foods actually consumed (meals). Only the human body
can provide direct and bias-free information on diet (through stomach contents, fecal
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Figure 5. Relationships among bioarchaeological lines of evidence for food as an
evolutionary force. Figure by Christine D. White.
analysis, and chemical analysis of its tissues) and nutrition (the physiological response,
which is observed in both the form and pathology of bones and teeth).
Because food is a major selective force in the evolution of humans, the reconstruction
of diet and dietary change throughout human history is necessary for understanding
genetic, physiological, and skeleto-muscular responses to natural and cultural environments. The availability of food is determined most basically by the natural environment,
but subsistence (food procurement), food choices, preparation methods, consumption
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styles (cuisine), and meaning are determined by cultural environments, both technical
and ideological. Long-term adaptations to diet play a significant role in the genetic
makeup of populations (e.g., lactose intolerance, gluten sensitivity, glucose-6-phosphate
dehydrogenase [G6PD] deficiency) and in human physiological requirements (e.g., our
long breastfeeding period, our need for the right balance of essential versus nonessential amino acids). The kinds of labor required to hunt, gather, grow, and process food
influence bone shape. The types and quantities of consumed foods affect body height
and the shape of the face, dentition, and skull. For example, the skeleton of a traditional
Inuit will look much different than that of any agriculturalist because of the different
chewing forces required to process their respective diets of raw meat versus vegetables
and ground grains. Thus bioarchaeology plays a significant role in our understanding
of interpopulational biological variability.
Humans are “what they eat” in all biologically adaptive domains (genetic, physiological, chemical, and morphological). This fact, combined with the role of culture in
subsistence behavior and cuisine, enables the human body to reflect the interaction of
culture and biology. For example, the biological body can be used to reconstruct the
evolution of pathogens; the spread of disease; responses to changing natural, physical, and
built landscapes; reasons for variation in growth, development, demography, and genetics;
life histories of stress; dietary change and geographic relocations; and forensically useful
individual and ethnic identities. It can even be used indirectly to reconstruct ancient
physical environments, such as changing plant communities, and climate change, such as
temperatures, rainfall, and aridity. The biological embodiment of culture also transforms
the human body into a kind of material culture that can be used to reconstruct social
behavior and organization and political and economic interaction within and among
groups. Bioarchaeology even enters the currently popular realm of phenomenology
when the combination of isotopic data with endocrinological data (segmental analysis of
isotopes and cortisol from hair) enables the reconstruction of the timing and severity of
stress relative to diet change or relocations. For example, the hair of Nazca individuals has
demonstrated that different kinds of movement across the landscape (e.g., seasonal versus
permanent) are associated with different levels of stress.
Lines of Evidence
The scale of bioarchaeological evidence can range from the individual level (life history
or discrete periods of illness or diet), which is the foundation of forensic or war-dead
identification, to the population level (demography), in which patterns of diet and disease
by age, sex, and status are used to infer differential adaptability or treatment over time and
place, and by population segment. Skeletal material dominates bioarchaeological study,
teeth being preferentially preserved because the mineral structure of enamel is much
more crystalline than that of bone. The natural preservation of soft tissues (hair, skin, nails,
muscle, internal organs) requires either hot/cold and dry climates (e.g., deserts, northern
latitudes, high altitudes), or anaerobic environments (e.g., peat bogs, some sealed tombs).
Although a variety of artificial mummification techniques have been used around the
world, mummies are still relatively rare subjects of study. Nonetheless, most modern medical diagnostic procedures can be used on the body of a mummy and provide much more
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information than the skeleton alone. Although such procedures are invasive, sometimes
destructive, and now avoided if possible, they can provide as much biomedical information as a living human being does. For example, such studies have revealed that the epidemiological profile of ancient Egyptians was similar to that of today’s modern industrial
nations (i.e., dominated by heart and metabolic diseases; cancer was also present but in
lower frequencies). Just as the modern disease profile is strongly linked to diet, so was that
of ancient Egypt. Advanced, noninvasive imaging techniques come close to the medical
standard provided by laparoscopy (internal tissue sampling), enabling three-dimensional
visualization of the entire body. The bioarchaeological need to image mummies has even
driven some advances in medical imaging technology.
More accurate reconstruction of ancient experiences is facilitated by using multiple
lines of evidence such as mortuary treatment, gross morphology, various forms of imaging (e.g., histology, X-ray, laser scanning, CT, and micro-CT), and biochemical analyses
(e.g., isotopic, trace element, cortisol, lipids, DNA). Such specialized technology often
necessitates multidisciplinary research beyond the synthesis of archaeology and biological
anthropology (e.g., earth sciences, medicine, dentistry).
Identifiable Diet-Related Disease: Effects of Menu Limitation,
Food Processing, and Cultural Behavior
Gross morphology is usually the first evidence used to infer paleodiets. Skeletal indicators
of diet may be specific (attributable to a particular cause) or nonspecific (not directly
attributable to a cause, but indicating stress). Bone or dental conditions specifically related
to particular nutrients or food characteristics directly indicate stress caused by nutritional
quality or categories of foods consumed. The only nutrient deficiencies that have characteristic appearances in bone are vitamin C (scurvy), vitamin D (rickets in children, osteomalacia in adults), and iron. Scurvy results in poor collagen synthesis, which is manifest in
the ends of long bones, the skull, and tooth sockets, the latter resulting in tooth loss and
eventually death. The classic example of scurvy is found in sailors who were deprived of
vitamin C for long periods of time while voyaging. Curiously, the Inuit, whose traditional
diet included very few plants, did not suffer from scurvy because vitamin C can be found
in raw meat. Scurvy is, however, found today among the modern Inuit, who now cook
their meat, and among the urban poor.
Iron deficiency produces lesions in specific skeletal locations, particularly in the cranial
vault (porotic hyperostosis) and eye sockets (cribra orbitalia). Observable in gross morphology, anemia also produces a characteristic radiological “hair-on-end” appearance in
the cross-sectional structure of cranial vault bones. It is often the result of a dietary deficiency, for example, in children who were not weaned until after six months, and in adults
who have staple grain diets. It also can result from absorption problems (e.g., co-consumption of substances that bind minerals and prevent their absorption, such as phytic
acid found in the hulls of grains and nuts) or nutrient loss (e.g., from parasitic infection,
especially hookworm, or excessive sweating). Iron deficiency is particularly common in
ancient Maya populations, who lived in a hot tropical environment with many parasites
and subsisted on maize, which is high in phytic acid.
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Vitamin D deficiency or rickets produces poorly mineralized bone throughout the
skeleton, resulting in visible malformation (bowing) of weight-bearing bones in growing
children. The adult form (osteomalacia) is predominant in the pelvic girdle of females,
which can cause difficulty in childbirth. Because it is synthesized through exposure to
ultraviolet rays, the main source of vitamin D for most populations is the sun. Vitamin
D deficiency is therefore more common in populations that live in northern latitudes
and peaked during the industrial 18th century among poor northern European populations when workdays began before sunrise and ended after sunset. There are relatively
few dietary sources of vitamin D, but marine fish constitute a major one. The significant
consumption of marine fish by circumpolar populations like the Inuit, where there are
fewer hours of sunlight, effectively protects them from the deficiency.
Some specific infectious animal diseases, or zoonoses, can be contracted by humans
and can be manifest in bone. For example, brucellosis, a highly infectious bacterial
disease, is acquired by consuming unsterilized milk or meat from infected animals and
causes fever and muscle/joint pain. Brucellosis cannot be transmitted from humans to
humans, so its presence in bone is a strong indication that domestic animals (sheep,
goats, cattle, pigs, horses, dogs) or their products (milk, blood) are part of the human
menu. The earliest likely case comes from the Middle East (Jericho) during the Middle
Bronze Age.Tuberculosis is another, but more serious, zoonotic bacterial disease because
it developed the ability to be transmitted from humans to humans. Believed to have
first appeared 4,000 BP, it is thought to have initially entered the human population
through association with animals and spread rapidly among pastoralists, passing from
animals to humans via the drinking of unpasteurized milk, and then from humans to
humans through the inhalation of infected airborne droplets, a form of transmission that
accelerates infection in crowded living conditions. It became one of the most serious
and persistent global infectious diseases in human history. Twentieth-century antibiotics
helped to bring tuberculosis under control, but the emergence of antibiotic-resistant
strains makes it a continuing threat, particularly among the densely populated urban
poor and, notably, among North American indigenous peoples. Tuberculosis has been
notably present in all three epidemiological transitions (Agricultural Revolution, Industrial Revolution, Newly/Remerging/Antibiotic Resistant Diseases).
The first interface between the individual and diet is the dentition, which makes teeth
our primary food processors. Their surfaces are exposed to the various textures, chemical
combinations, and hard inclusions that comprise our diet, so their integrity is altered in
various ways. The patterning of dental pathology can be used to reconstruct major transitions in subsistence and diet, effects of culture change on diet, and social structure. Dental
health is often an indicator of general health. Pathological conditions such as caries, calculus, attrition, periodontal disease, and trauma might be considered semi-specific indicators
of stress because they are all a result of food consumption, providing information on the
types and characteristics of food consumed (soft or hard, plant or meat, sugary, starchy, or
acidic).They also reveal the degree of preprocessing that occurs before consumption (e.g.,
grinding or milling, and cooking).
Caries is a chronic infectious disease in which enzymes created from sugar by microorganisms destroy enamel and then dentine. It is an age-dependent and diet-depen-
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dent pathology that occurs most frequently during childhood and in the context of
high carbohydrate food consumption. Sugars produce more caries than starches, as do
sticky carbohydrates (e.g., maize, dates) and more refined carbohydrates (e.g., flour). It
is therefore not surprising that the advent of agriculture resulted in a doubling of caries,
followed by further increases with the development of food refinement techniques. In
the absence of effective methods for cleaning teeth, there are also foods that inhibit
the formation of caries. These include foods that are high in phosphorus, calcium, fat,
and vitamin D, and foods that are fibrous and self-cleaning (e.g., carrots, apples). The
location of caries depends on the degree of exposure to caries-producing foods. Therefore, caries often forms opportunistically in locations provided by other pathological
conditions (e.g., root caries is associated with calculus and periodontal disease; attrition
creates caries between the teeth). The frequency of caries varies with culture change
(e.g., a dramatic decrease occurred when maize consumption dropped during the Maya
Classic period collapse) and social structure (e.g., high-status Maya males consumed
more maize because it was ideologically important).
Calculus is a deposit of mineralized plaque on the surface of the tooth. Its presence
is an indicator of high-carbohydrate diets, and although it rarely contains food, it can
contain phytoliths (species-specific forms of silica bodies in plant cells) that can be used
to identify the kinds of plants consumed. Calculus is found on tooth surfaces not subject
to normal wear (e.g., lower inside anterior and upper outside posterior of the mouth),
and the most important dietary factor in its formation is food consistency. Like caries,
the presence of sticky starches favors its formation, so it commonly occurs in maize-dependent populations, particularly those that use some form of alkali processing. For
example, the Maya and Inca used calcium hydroxide from slaked lime or potassium
hydroxide from ash, and North American indigenous peoples used sodium carbonate
from ash. Calculus formed around the gum line promotes periodontal disease, but on
the upper part of the tooth crown it can either promote or inhibit caries depending
on its coverage, degree of consolidation, and depth.
Periodontal disease is an inflammatory response of the bony tissue (alveolus) around
tooth roots. It is caused by mechanical factors (e.g., calculus, food impaction, or extreme
wear) that cause irritation of the gums (gingivitis), which eventually results in the resorption and shrinkage of the underlying bone, directly exposing tooth roots to the oral environment. It can also be caused by dietary deficiency of vitamin C (scurvy). Diagnosing
periodontal disease in skeletons can be difficult, particularly if they are poorly preserved.
The bony margin of tooth sockets is normally extremely fragile, which can create a false
appearance of periodontal disease, and it can also be confused with abscess. Hence it is
wise to look for either a telltale thickening of the bony margin or the presence of caries
in tooth roots. Notably, the latter observation can be made even with a single isolated
tooth. Humans have experienced periodontal disease at least as far back as Homo erectus,
but its incidence increased in relation to the consumption of starchy foods and calculus
associated with agriculture. Females are more susceptible than males because the blood
supply to their gums is affected by the hormonal changes of puberty, menstruation,
pregnancy, and menopause. For example, women show more periodontal disease than
men in a British medieval cemetery (St. Mary Graces, London). Today, the World Health
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Organization estimates periodontal disease is globally widespread, present in 50 percent
of children and to some degree in virtually all adults.
The diagnostic status of tooth wear or attrition is debated. It is considered as both a
pathological condition and a normal consequence of tooth use and aging. The degree
and type of attrition are highly variable from culture to culture and depend not only on
how coarse foods are, but also on whether or not they are ground and with what kind
of stones. Softer stones such as limestone will leave more inclusions in the processed
product and create more tooth wear than harder stones such as granite. The propensity of
agriculturalists to “chew on rocks” along with their cereal limits the use of age-at-death
determinations based on dental attrition and thus necessitates intrapopulation standards.
Therefore, the significance of tooth wear to ancient health/diet profiles is mainly its
degree of severity. Diets of different textures (e.g., meat versus plants, marine/coastal versus terrestrial) can, however, sometimes be differentiated by microscopic analysis of the
surfaces of teeth, particularly those that face the cheek, because the inclusions or rough
nature of the food (e.g., grains of rock or sand, fibrous stalks, pieces of small bones, or
shellfish) make tiny characteristic scratches or pitting in enamel. This micro-wear record
of consumption can be very short, however, because the wear pattern can be overwritten
within several weeks by a change in diet. On a larger scale, observable dental trauma is
also an indirect indicator of diet. Fractured and broken teeth indicate a very coarse diet,
one that contains fairly large inclusions (e.g., plant seeds, pits) or little processing.
The most serious of dental diseases, abscess, can cause systemic skeletal bacterial infection and septicemia, leading to death. Abscess is a secondary pathology that can be related
to any of the above-mentioned pathological conditions, all of which can provide an ingress of bacteria to the inside of the tooth (pulp). Draining through the root, an abscess
destroys the bone surrounding the tooth, sometimes perforating it to allow pus to escape.
Just as the incidence of all other dental pathological conditions increases with the advent
of agriculture, so do abscesses. As examples, increased frequency of abscesses in early agricultural populations is found in the Indus Valley, Mesoamerica, South America, North
America, and Egypt. Even high-status individuals were not exempt from dental pain, as
is demonstrated by the abscessed teeth of the 18th Dynasty pharaoh, Ahmenhotep III.
Nonspecfic Indicators of Diet
Although the cause of most skeletal indicators of stress is not specifically identifiable,
undernutrition and starvation (acute or chronic) can often be inferred from their pattern and timing. During growth and development, episodic stress caused by seasonal or
temporary food shortage is registered as growth defects in teeth as enamel hypoplasia
(transverse grooves or pits in the surface) and in bone as Harris lines (transverse lines of
increased density observable at the ends of long bones in X-rays or by gross morphology
in sectioned bone). Both conditions result from the resumption of growth after a period
of arrest and therefore represent an individual’s survival of a stress event. Because bones
remodel, this record of stress eventually disappears as the individual grows, but enamel
does not remodel so the dental record of stress is permanent. Regularly spaced patterning
in the formation of these lines is a strong indication of seasonal food shortage in both
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humans and animals. For example, Abel, the first australopithecine discovered in Chad,
had enamel hypoplasia that may have indicated seasonal stress. The depth and breadth of
linear enamel hypoplasia are also relative indicators of the severity of stress. Because the
timing of tooth formation and eruption is well known and occurs from about the age
of five months in utero (teeth formed prenatally record mother’s stress) to the late teens,
it is possible to reconstruct the frequency, timing, and severity of stress events during
almost the entire period of growth and development. A common cause of linear enamel
hypoplasia is weaning stress, which can be inferred from the consistent timing of enamel
hypoplasia in populations. The age at which breastfeeding ends is culturally determined
for the most part, and highly variable among populations. For example, the indigenous
peoples of the Western Basin Tradition in Ontario weaned their young before the age
of six months, Iron Age and Roman-period children in England were typically weaned
before the age of one year, and the Maya weaning age was commonly between the ages
of two and four years. If continued beyond six months without supplementation, breastfeeding has negative effects, especially anemia, on infant health. In spite of the health costs,
however, delayed weaning is used as a means of birth control, and the later the weaning
age, the slower the growth of the population. Thus infant feeding patterns have a significant effect on human biomass in general and on the differential growth and ecological
adaptation of specific populations.
Malnutrition, either chronic or seasonal, or chronic infection during the period of
growth and development, also affects body height. Therefore, stature is a general and indirect indicator of stress and is used mainly in population studies. Anomalies in growth
curves relative to population standards (either modern or ancient) can pinpoint ages at
which the stress was greatest, and depressed curves indicate generalized and prolonged
stress. Although females are naturally shorter than males, they are genetically buffered
from growth stress, probably because of their childbearing role. Therefore, reduced sexual
dimorphism resulting from decreased male body height can indicate widespread malnutrition. For example, during the X-Group Period (AD 250–550) in ancient Nubia,
when the level of the Nile was low and agricultural production was difficult, male stature
declined significantly.
Because there is a synergistic relationship between malnutrition and infection, bone
infections such as periostitis, an inflammatory response on the surface of bone, and osteomyelitis, a less common but more serious infection also involving the internal structures, are used as nonspecific indicators of dietary stress. For example, the adoption of
agriculture is associated with an increased incidence of periostitis throughout the world.
Periostitis is often associated with lower social status as well.
The widespread presence of stress (specific and nonspecific) in ancient skeletons has
been viewed for the last two decades as a paradox. Because of the extremely slow remodeling rate of bone, skeletons appearing to have experienced the most stress are thought
of as survivors who might represent the healthier members of a population. Those with
a healthy appearance, however, may actually have been more frail and died from acute
conditions (e.g., smallpox, plague, etc.) that did not have time to leave their mark on the
skeleton. In other words, they were healthy but dead.
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Activity Patterns and Subsistence
The procurement of food (i.e., subsistence) and its processing constituted the majority
of daily activities until the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Because of Wolff ’s law,
which states that bones will remodel in response to functional demand, these activities
also leave their mark on the human skeleton, producing another indirect line of dietary
evidence. Mechanical stress produces bony change at areas of muscle attachment, bones
that are generally more robust or altered in cross-sectional morphology, and modifications
of joints. Differences in the way the body is used for subsistence (e.g., foraging; hunting
with throwing weapons [spears, spear-throwers, bows and arrows, boomerangs, bolas];
boat paddling; planting with a digging stick, shovel, or plow; and bending over for harvest)
as well as processing (e.g., grinding grain in a kneeling position) result in differential muscle and joint use or repetitive strain injury that involves the addition or degeneration of
bone. Major changes in activity patterns are evident in the shift from hunting/gathering
to farming. Gender differences in activity patterns also can be observed. For example,
female skeletons show more evidence of labor associated with food processing and with
carrying heavy loads (water, firewood) on their heads. With the rise of complex society
associated with agriculture and food storage, differential workloads are observable among
segments of populations. These differences enable bioarchaeologists to reconstruct social
structure and inequities (e.g., males versus females; crafts practitioners, slaves, or laborers
versus elite administrators or priests). For example, muscle markings and injuries of slaves
in ancient Egypt and Rome, the Caribbean, and North America bear witness to heavy
labor and physical abuse.
Technological change (e.g., from hunting/gathering to agricultural subsistence) is also
registered in reduced tooth size and number and alteration of tooth form. On an even
larger temporal scale, the form of the entire dental apparatus reflects dietary differences, as
seen in herbivore/omnivore hominid differentiation during hominid evolution. Changes
may occur in facial form (the characteristically human vertical face created by reduced
need to use teeth as the only means of processing food), mandibular/maxillary form, and
molar size and form (e.g., the large molars of robust Australopithecines versus the smaller
molars of gracile australopithecines).
Isotopic Analysis
Although ancient diets can be inferred from skeletons and interpretations may be
strengthened with multiple lines of evidence, such evidence is still indirect. Furthermore,
there must be a biological response that causes visible skeletal alteration, which means that
diet cannot be discerned from the gross morphology of healthy people. Direct evidence
of food consumption (i.e., the meal rather than the menu) can be provided by stomach
or bowel contents, but these are rarely preserved and only represent very short-term
consumption. Isotopic analysis of biological tissues is now widely used because it overcomes this problem. Based on the experimentally demonstrated fact that “we are what we
eat,” it provides direct evidence of diet even in the absence of pathological conditions or
other morphological modifications. Although isotopic analysis cannot be used to identify
specific animal or plant species, it distinguishes among groups of plants and animals, their
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levels in the food chain, and whether they were marine/aquatic or terrestrial. Isotopes of
carbon and nitrogen are most commonly used for diet reconstruction.
Dietary interpretations are based on natural variation in the isotopic compositions
of food web components. Plants form the base of all food webs. Most terrestrial plants
photosynthesize carbon from the atmosphere using two main pathways (C3 [Calvin–
Benson] or C4 [Hatch–Slack]). Atmospheric C13 is discriminated against in C3 pathway
reactions. C3 plants are by far the most common worldwide and include most grains, all
trees, shrubs, leafy plants, fruits, and vegetables. C4 plants are more geographically limited and adapted to hotter climates; domesticated staples include mainly tropical grasses,
e.g., maize, millet, sorghum, and sugarcane. A third plant type (CAM, or Crassulacean
acid metabolism) uses both photosynthetic pathways. Although they could confound
interpretations, CAM plants include cacti and succulents, which are not normally dietarily significant in most regions of the world.
Significant amounts of 12C-rich carbon dioxide have been added to the atmosphere
since the Industrial Revolution because of the wide-scale burning of fossil fuels. Therefore, plants that grew prior to the 19th century have δ13C values that are systematically
1.5‰ (per mil or parts per thousand) higher than those of postindustrial plants.The mean
isotopic composition of modern C3 plants (−26.5‰) is distinct from that of C4 plants
(−11‰), which has enabled documentation of the adoption, timing, and spread of agriculture in various parts of the world. For example, maize was domesticated in Mesoamerica (likely the Central Balsas Valley, Mexico) ca. 10,000 BP. It was adopted throughout
Mesoamerica as the dominant dietary staple and then, ca. 5,000 BP, it spread quickly into
North and South America, eventually moving as far north as southern Manitoba, Alberta,
and Ontario, and south as far as Chile and Argentina.
Nitrogen isotope systematics are more complicated because there are more sources
of nitrogen (and therefore more variability in regional baselines). Nitrogen isotopes also
are more affected by position in the food chain (or trophic level), environment (altitude,
aridity), physiology (pregnancy, breastfeeding), and health (traumas and infections that
cause negative nitrogen balance). Because legumes and blue-green algae fix nitrogen, their
δ15N values are close to 0‰, but the isotopic composition of other terrestrial and marine
plants ranges from 2‰ to 6‰, unless they have been fertilized, in which case they can
be either significantly higher (with use of organic fertilizer, e.g., manure, guano) or lower
(with use of inorganic fertilizer). Values of δ15N normally reflect protein sources and are
measured in protein-bearing tissues in order to determine whether the dominantly consumed protein source is plant versus animal or marine/freshwater versus terrestrial, and
to establish the general trophic level. Because there is an increase in δ15N values of 3–5‰
with each level in the food chain, carnivores have the highest values. Marine/freshwater
carnivores have the highest values because their ecosystems not only have generally higher
δ15N baselines but also many more trophic levels. Nitrogen isotope data are particularly
needed to identify the source of dietary protein in regions where both C4 plants and
marine/freshwater foods are consumed (e.g., coastal Mesoamerica and North America),
because the sources of carbon for marine/freshwater foods are C4-like. The principle of
trophic levels has been used to reconstruct major shifts in protein sources (e.g., marine to
terrestrial resulting from domestication, terrestrial to marine resulting from ideological
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change), coastal–inland trade patterns, socioeconomic and gender status, dairying, and
weaning age (breastfeeding infants are one trophic level higher than their mothers). Nitrogen isotopes also are used to reconstruct animal husbandry practices (e.g., the degree
of state control over camelid herds in Peru) and the use of organic fertilizers (manuring)
in agricultural economies.
The underlying premise of all isotopic reconstructions is that the isotopic compositions of body tissues record those of foods consumed at the time of tissue formation. In
addition to the systematic trophic level offsets, there are systematic tissue-specific differences. Differences in the time it takes for tissues to form or replace themselves create the
basis for reconstructing individual life histories of diet and residence. Adult bone turnover
is very slow. A bulk sample of bone generally represents the average diet of the last 15–25
years. Other tissues represent much shorter time periods (e.g., skin [two weeks] and muscle [one month]), and those that grow incrementally (e.g., hair, nails) record unbroken
sequences of consumption that can be as long as two years or more before death. Hair is
therefore particularly useful for reconstructing seasonality of diet and death, annual cycles
of geographic movement involved in resource access, or any other type of movement
across the landscape. For example, ancient Nubian hair has shown that most people died
in the summer, which is still the most physically and nutritionally stressful time of year
along the Nile, and ancient Peruvian hair records not only coastal–highland rounds but
also pilgrimages. Teeth also are useful for reconstructing detailed records of short-term
environmental change or geographic relocations because they continuously form at wellknown ages from five months in utero to the late teens (as described above). Teeth are
composed of three tissues (enamel, dentine, and cementum), each of which grows incrementally but in different time scales (weekly, daily, annually). Although enamel does not
remodel and therefore permanently retains the record of individual experience, secondary
dentine and a pathological overlay of cementum (hypercementosis) can form in response
to excessive tooth wear or trauma, obscuring the original isotopic composition. Nonetheless, serial sampling of deciduous and permanent enamel can theoretically provide a
longer record of diet for the majority of growth and development than can hair. Because
of the complex curvatures and microscopic size of incremental dental structures, however,
current micro-sampling techniques (micro-drilling and laser ablation) do not yet enable
the record to be as discretely defined as that of hair.
Both bones and teeth are mineralized tissues and therefore contain organic (collagen)
and inorganic (bioapatite structural carbonate) components. Collagen, which is found in
dentine and bone, is a protein, and its carbon isotopic composition (δ13Ccol) reflects the
protein component of the diet, provided the diet contains adequate protein. The difference between δ13C values of collagen and diet is often assumed to be 5‰ (i.e., you are
what you eat plus 5‰), but studies of experimental and wild animals have demonstrated
that the collagen-diet difference can vary from 3‰ to 7‰ depending on the degree of
herbivory and the proportion of C3 and C4 foods consumed.
The inorganic substance (structural carbonate of bioapatite) in enamel and bone
has a carbon isotopic composition (δ13Csc) that normally reflects the whole diet (i.e., a
combination of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins). The difference between δ13C values
of structural carbonate and diet (10–12‰) appears to be less variable than that of col-
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lagen. The difference between δ13Csc and δ13Ccol (Δ13Csc-col), or the carbonate–collagen
spacing, can generally indicate the degree of plant versus meat consumption because
it is assumed that proportions of macronutrients (lipids and carbohydrates particularly)
change with levels in the food chain. For example, because lipids have less 13C than
either carbohydrates or proteins, carnivores (who are assumed to consume more lipids
because of the lipids in the animals they eat) have smaller Δ13Csc-col values than do herbivores (average spacings = 7‰ for herbivores, 5‰ for omnivores, 3–4‰ for carnivores).
The smaller spacings of carnivores become even smaller in the context of marine diets,
which are assumed to be even higher in lipids, hence the seemingly exaggerated carnivory found in marine-resource-dependent coastal populations in Mesoamerica and
southern Africa. By contrast, very large spacings occur when diets are mainly herbivorous and when the carbon in collagen is isotopically distinct from that found in structural carbonate, for example, in North America, where protein consumed by humans
is C3-based (e.g., where wild animals consume wild plants) and carbohydrates/lipids
consumed are C4-based (e.g., where maize is the dominant staple). To differentiate a
trophic level versus a carbon routing cause for large spacings, it is necessary to add the
analysis of nitrogen isotopes. Modeling techniques have also been recently developed
to clarify relative percentages of protein and nonprotein dietary sources (e.g., C3 versus
C4/marine) by using multivariate cluster data (δ13Ccol, δ15Ncol, and δ13Csc) from experimentally fed animals and populations with known diets.
The analysis of organic (collagen) and inorganic (structural carbonate) parts of bone,
carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions, and multiple tissues enables more precise
interpretations of diet, mobility, physical environment, and cultural change. Other
isotopes are being developed to do the same thing. For example, sulphur is becoming
increasingly useful for identifying marine resource consumption, and the isotopic composition of individual amino acids is proving effective in refining dietary interpretations.
The relationship between glycine and phenalynine can differentiate marine from terrestrial resources, and the nonessential amino acids, alanine and glutamate, correlate with
whole diet. The analysis of individual amino acids not only overcomes the problem
of needing both collagen and structural carbonate data to understand whole diet, but
eventually will also enable the measurement of metabolic, physiological, or disease effects on isotopic compositions and therefore allow the differentiation of health-related
effects from food-consumption effects.
Combining isotopic data with lines of evidence from pathology (particularly nonspecific pathology) is becoming an effective means of understanding the cause of the
physical stress experienced (e.g., stature reduction associated with a dietary shift, iron
deficiency associated with overconsumption of maize or infection by marine parasites,
infant morbidity and mortality associated with weaning age, sickness and death associated
with seasonality, or differences in diet and stress associated with gender, age, and status).
Improved sample preparation protocols and advances in mass spectrometry have
facilitated a reduction in the degree of sample destruction. The demand to reduce
destruction, combined with the desire to better access incrementally growing tissues,
has made micro-sampling the way of the future. Micro-sampling techniques currently
comprise various forms of micro-drilling (with manual transfer of the sample into the
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mass spectrometer) or laser ablation (with instrument transfer). There are advantages and
disadvantages to each technique. Problems with the micro-drill include the need for a
larger sampling area than that required by the laser to get sufficient material for the mass
spectrometer, which reduces the resolution; the length of the process; and, for some tissues such as teeth, the likelihood of drilling through more than one increment of growth.
Analytical problems with the laser include the production of a single compound gas that
is not separated by the elements of interest (one needs to know what one is analyzing
in order to interpret the data accurately); the difficulty of controlling the depth of the
burn, which can cross different increments of growth (the ability to sample a spot as small
as ten microns with instruments like the single ion mass spectrometer [SIMS] theoretically enables access to structures like cementum rings, but the problem of knowing the
chemical substance being analyzed remains); and the unexpected length of the process.
Summary
Analytical methods used in the dietary bioarchaeology of the human skeleton enable us to
differentiate between available foods and what was actually consumed in both long- and
short-term time frames, and to understand the biological effects of diet, food procurement,
and food processing. On a larger theoretical scale, the bioarchaeology of food enables our
understanding of how different cultural systems (e.g., technological, social, ideological) not
only adapt to environments but also create them. It is also a powerful means of investigating issues relating to social organization and inequalities; inter- and intrapopulational social,
political, and economic interactions; and individual behavior and agency.
See also Biomolecular Analysis; Dental Analysis; DNA Analysis; Gut Analysis;
Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approaches; Mummies; Paleodemography; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleofecal Analysis;
Paleonutrition; Paleopathology; Stable Isotope Analysis; Teeth, Diet, and Human
Evolution; Trace Element Analysis in Human Diet
Further Reading
Agarwal, Sabrina C., and Bonnie A. Glencross, eds. 2011. Social Bioarchaeology. Blackwell Studies in
Global Archaeology 14. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Ambrose, Stanley H., and M. Anne Katzenberg, eds. 2000. Biogeochemical Approaches to Paleodietary Analysis. Advances in Archaeological and Museum Science 5. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Publishers.
Aufderheide, Arthur C. 2003. The Scientific Study of Mummies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Buikstra, Jane E., and Lane A. Beck, eds. 2006. Bioarchaeology:The Contextual Analysis of Human Remains.
Burlington, MA: Elsevier/Academic Press.
Katzenberg, M. Anne, and Shelley R. Saunders, eds. 2000. Biological Anthropology of the Human Skeleton.
New York: Wiley.
Larsen, Clark Spencer. 1997. Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behavior from the Human Skeleton. Cambridge
Studies in Biological Anthropology 21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lewis, Mary E. 2007. The Bioarchaeology of Children: Perspectives from Bioarchaeological and Forensic Anthropology. Cambridge Studies in Biological Anthropology 50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Martin, Debra L., Ryan P. Harrod, and Ventura R. Perez. 2013. Bioarchaeology: An Integrated Approach to
Working with Human Remains. New York: Springer.
Mays, Simon. 2010. The Archaeology of Human Bones. 2nd edition. London: Routledge.
Pinhasi, Ron, and Jay T. Stock, eds. 2011. Human Bioarchaeology of the Transition to Agriculture. Chichester,
UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
■ CHRISTINE D. WHITE
BIOMARKERS
See Biomolecular Analysis
B I O M O L E C U L A R A N A LY S I S
Biomolecular analysis focuses on the large organic compounds found in living organisms
and sometimes present, usually in a partly degraded state, as ancient biomolecules in the
remains of those organisms after their death. Four types of biomolecules are studied: nucleic acids, proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates.
There are two types of nucleic acid: deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic
acid (RNA).Three features of DNA make this molecule extremely valuable in biomolecular studies. First, DNA can be used to identify at least some of the biological characteristics of an archaeological specimen. A relatively simple analysis of this kind is identification
of the sex of an animal skeleton, which can be used to assess herd structure at prehistoric
farming sites, a preponderance of adult females implying that animals were kept as a
source of milk rather than meat. Characteristics such as the flowering time of prehistoric
varieties of barley and wheat can also be studied, which can help in interpretation of crop
husbandry practices. Second, the DNA of different species can be distinguished, enabling
the identification of fragmentary bones by DNA analysis, and some of the plant components of a human or animal diet found in coprolites. Third, DNA is a record of ancestry,
and so can be used to study the evolutionary relationships between domesticated animals
and their wild progenitors. In this context, ancient DNA studies have been particularly
important in unraveling the wild origins of domesticated animals, including cattle, pigs,
and chickens. RNA molecules are copies of parts of the cell’s DNA and could, theoretically, be used in a similar way to DNA, but RNA molecules are relatively unstable and
not often present in human, animal, or plant remains.
Proteins are the second type of biomolecule studied by archaeologists. Structural
proteins, such as collagen and osteocalcin, that are present in all vertebrate bones are relatively stable and can often be identified in preserved material. Other proteins, usually
ones that are less stable, have more limited distributions. Casein, for example, is found
only in milk and can therefore be used as a marker for the presence of milk residues
in cooking or storage vessels. By showing that certain vessels once contained milk
products, the development of dairying in prehistory can be followed. The blood protein hemoglobin has a slightly different structure in different species, and with modern
material these differences can be used to identify the origin of a bloodstain. Residues
that might be bloodstains have been identified on stone tools, and attempts have been
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made to identify the species that were butchered using those implements by analyzing
the preserved hemoglobin molecules. Control experiments with modern blood, dried
on stone surfaces, have shown that these tests are very unreliable.
Lipids are a diverse group of biomolecules that include fatty acids, some of which are
fats and oils found in animal and plant tissues. Many lipids are found only in a single or
small group of species and so can be used as markers for those species. Analysis of lipids
in organic residues from cooking vessels can therefore identify the type of vegetable or
meat that was being prepared, and similar studies with storage vessels can show if they
were used to hold, for example, a particular type of oil. These studies have revealed a high
content of cabbage in the diets of Roman soldiers in Britain, and the presence of fats and
oils from marine animals on potsherds from coastal Alaskan and Canadian sites.
Finally, carbohydrates are important structural and storage compounds in living organisms, and include starch and cellulose in plants and glycogen in animals. Although
carbohydrates are stable over long periods, it is difficult to obtain useful information from
them. One exception is the examination of starch grains in archaeological deposits and
in calculus preserved on human teeth.Variations in the shapes of these grains indicate the
types of plants that were present at a particular site or in a particular diet.
Most of the methods used to study biomolecules are applicable to just a single type
of compound. DNA and RNA are almost exclusively studied by nucleotide sequencing, which can generate vast amounts of data using modern technology, enabling entire
genomes to be sequenced for extinct animals and plants and for prehistoric versions of
extant species. Analysis of lipid residues extracted from potsherds makes use of various
types of mass spectrometry. One method used to study ancient biomolecules is important
because of its greater breadth.This is stable isotope analysis, in which the ratios of different
isotopes of certain elements (primarily carbon and nitrogen) are measured in proteins
and lipids. Some aspects of diet affect the ratios of these isotopes in bone proteins and in
hair. A diet rich in marine resources can be distinguished from a diet largely made up of
terrestrial animal protein, and a diet that includes maize can be distinguished from one
made up exclusively of other cereals and vegetables.The isotopic ratios also change at each
step of a food chain, enabling top carnivores to be distinguished from lower-level meat
eaters. When infants drink their mother’s milk, they are, in effect, consuming a part of the
parent and are therefore at a trophic level further along the food chain than the mother.
The skeletons of infants who died while still being weaned can therefore be identified by
stable isotope measurements, providing information on the length of the nursing period
in past societies. The range of information that can be obtained by biomolecular analysis
is therefore very broad, from the evolution of species to the lives of individual people.
See also Animal Domestication; Bioarchaeological Analysis; DNA Analysis; Milk
and Dairy Products; mtDNA Analysis; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleofecal Analysis;
Plant Domestication; Residue Analysis, Blood; Residue Analysis, Dairy Products;
Residue Analysis, Starch; RNA Analysis; Stable Isotope Analysis; Starches, Role of
Further Reading
Brown, Terry, and Keri Brown. 2011. Biomolecular Archaeology: An Introduction. Chichester, UK:
Wiley-Blackwell.
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Evershed, Richard P. 2008. Organic Residue Analysis in Archaeology: The Archaeological Biomarker
Revolution. Archaeometry 50(6):895–924.
Lee-Thorp, Julia A. 2008. On Isotopes and Old Bones. Archaeometry 50(6):925–50.
■ TERRY BROWN
B L AC K D R I N K (C ASS I N A )
Black drink is one of many caffeine-containing beverages consumed by people around
the world. Made from the parched leaves and stems of the yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria
Ait.), it was consumed in formal and ceremonial contexts by native societies across the
southeastern United States.The plant’s range is restricted to the southern Atlantic and the
Gulf Coasts although its leaves were traded to interior groups.
Called black drink (or cassina) by Europeans because of its dark color, many native
societies called it “white drink” because of its role in purification (the color white symbolized purity), a principal concern of many southeastern tribes. Ritual consumption of
cassina often induced bouts of vomiting, another method of purification. While holly is
not an emetic, the ingestion of hot liquid can trigger a vomiting reflex. Early historical
accounts detail the ritual brewing and preparation of cassina for consumption by men in
formal and ceremonial contexts such as political negotiations, preparation for war, council
meetings, and society-wide religious events such as the green corn or harvest ceremonies.
Figure 6. Proceedings of the Floridians in Deliberating on Important Affairs. Engraving by
Theodor de Bry (1591) after a watercolor by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues. The image depicts
Timucuan cassina use observed during a French expedition to the New World in the 1560s.
Courtesy of State Archives of Florida.
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BOGS
Figure 7. Beakers from the Greater Cahokia area, dating to AD 1050–1250, in which residues
associated with the black drink were identified. Photograph by Linda Alexander. Courtesy of the
Illinois State Archaeological Survey, University of Illinois.
Cassina consumption is one of the earliest native ritual activities recorded by Europeans.
A stunning example is a mid-16th-century engraving showing Timucuan men drinking
cassina from marine shell cups (figure 6). The connection between cassina and marine shell
drinking cups is historically strong, and the presence of marine shell cups in mounds, burials,
and ritualistic contexts across the eastern United States has been used to postulate cassina
ceremonies in the Archaic period (i.e., several thousand years ago). While such deep time
depth is unproven, recent residue analysis of ceramic beakers from the Cahokia site (figure
7) has demonstrated that cassina was consumed as early as AD 1050 in the central Mississippi
River Valley, several hundred miles beyond the native range of the yaupon holly.
See also Food and Ritual; High Performance Liquid Chromatography
Further Reading
Crown, Patricia L., Thomas E. Emerson, Jiyan Gu, et al. 2012. Ritual Black Drink Consumption at
Cahokia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109(35):13944–49.
Hudson, Charles M., ed. 1979. Black Drink: A Native American Tea. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
■ THOMAS E. EMERSON
BOGS
Bogs, or peatlands, are biogenic landforms that consist of a mat of living vegetation overlying a layer of peat, a deposit of partially decayed or decaying plant material accumulated
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65
over thousands of years. They are characterized by wet, spongy, poorly drained soils that
are low in oxygen and are formed in areas where the rate at which plants are produced
outweighs the rate at which their remains are decomposed by microorganisms. Because
aerobic bacteria and fungi that are normally responsible for organic decomposition are
rare or absent in bogs, the process of biodeterioration is consequently inhibited or even
prevented from occurring. Bogs have historically been exploited for a wide variety of
purposes because of their rich biodiversity. For millennia, peatland mammals, birds, and
wild berries have provided food for human societies. Peat has long been harvested as a
source of fuel and, more recently, as a raw material in peat moss production for the horticultural sector. Bogs also provide a rich archive of cultural, climatic, and environmental
change that is unparalleled on dryland sites. Such repositories of information provide
unique insights into past societies and their environments. Food remains and evidence of
foodways are of particular value.
Bogs are widely distributed in cold, temperate climates. In the Northern Hemisphere,
they are found in North America, Northern Europe, and the Western Siberian Lowlands
of Russia. They also cover extensive areas of the Southern Hemisphere, including Indonesia, tropical South America, New Zealand, and Africa. Two distinct peat types can
be distinguished on the basis of their composition and development: fen peat and bog
peat. Fen peat develops under the influence of groundwater and is therefore reliant on
topographical rather than climatological conditions. It results from the accumulation and
infilling of postglacial lakes or pools by organic debris and, as water depths decrease, is
further colonized by sedges, reeds, and bulrushes. Bog peat, on the other hand, develops in
cases where the water is derived entirely from precipitation (i.e., not from lakes, glaciers,
or groundwater), in which case the bogs are termed ombrotrophic. Bog peat is found in
raised bogs and blanket bogs, and its pH lies between 3.5 and 4.2, creating more acidic
conditions than those found in fen peats, which have a pH of between 7 and 8. Raised
bogs are huge spongelike, dome-shaped masses characterized by thick accumulations of
sphagnum (moss), capable of holding up to twenty times their own weight in water. Blanket bogs are found in highland or mountainous regions and consist of a carpet of peat
extending over large tracts of land.
The low-oxygen, predominantly acidic soils of bogs preserve organic material remarkably well and have allowed a wealth of archaeological material to survive perfectly
intact for thousands of years. Finds of textiles, wooden and leather objects (e.g., cauldrons,
platters, bowls, drinking vessels, and containers), and other organic remains, including
food caches/offerings, are commonplace in the bogs of northwest Europe, for example.
The deliberate deposition of foodstuffs, in particular the burial of butter in bogs (figure
8), is noteworthy in this regard. Bog butter is usually found as a hard, waxy, whitish solid
mass of fatty material either as a lump or within a container or wrapping. Radiocarbon
dates for bog butter found in Ireland and Scotland demonstrate that the earliest occurrences are over two thousand years old and date to the Iron Age. Butter may have been
buried in bogs for a number of reasons. It may have been buried to improve its flavor or
nutritional quality, or else to ensure its long-term preservation. In the case of the latter,
the cold, anaerobic, antiseptic qualities of peat may have been exploited as an archaic
form of refrigeration. The deliberate deposition of butter in bogs as votive offerings for
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Figure 8. The low-oxygen, predominantly acidic soils of bogs preserve organic material
remarkably well. This prehistoric wooden butter keg and its contents were found buried in the
Gilltown Bog, Hodgestown, County Kildare, Ireland. This image is reproduced with the permission
of the National Museum of Ireland.
ritual purposes has also been widely advocated as another explanation. Nonorganic finds
relating to food production, such as beehive querns and rotary querns, have also been
recovered from bogs, providing insight into early cereal production.
Another facet of bog archaeology focuses on the analysis of human remains preserved
in peat and evidence of their ritual deposition. Many hundreds of bog bodies have been
unearthed in the bogs of northwest Europe and are both geographically and chronologically widespread, ranging in date from the Mesolithic period to modern times. Both sexes
and all ages, from children to the elderly, are represented in the archaeological record.
While some of these burials have been interpreted as deliberate, others appear to have
been accidental, the fate of those who drowned in a mire or lost their way. The majority
consist of skeletal remains (bog skeletons), but in quite a number of instances the soft
tissues (hair, skin, nails, and internal organs) are also preserved (bog mummies). Bog bodies
have been the subject of wide-ranging scientific investigations, and much information
has been gleaned from them regarding their age at death, stature, health and well-being,
diet, and the manner in which some were subjected to ritualistic killings before being
disposed of in bogs.
Paleodietary analysis of a strand of hair from Clonycavan Man, an Iron Age bog body
from Ireland, has revealed a predominantly plant-based diet in the months prior to his
death, indicating that he may have been killed in the summer months, when plants were
in abundance. Similar analysis of a fingernail from the Iron Age remains of Oldcroghan
Man, also from Ireland, revealed a protein-based diet in the months preceding his death,
suggesting that he was killed in the winter months when meat consumption was higher.
Analysis of the well-preserved contents of the alimentary tracts of bog bodies has also
revealed much about prehistoric diets. The remarkable preservative qualities of the raised
bog at Oldcroghan, Ireland, allowed reconstruction of the last meal, consisting of cereals
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67
and buttermilk, of Oldcroghan Man. In Denmark, assessment of the last meal consumed
by Tollund Man revealed the remains of cereals and over forty different types of seeds,
a combination interpreted as a type of gruel. In England, evidence from the contents
of Lindow Man’s alimentary tract indicated that mistletoe seeds had deliberately been
ingested prior to his demise.
See also Archaeobotany; Bioarchaeological Analysis; Cooking Vessels, Other Materials; Food and Ritual; Food Preservation; Gut Analysis; Mummies; Offerings and
Grave Goods; Paleodietary Analysis
Further Reading
Van der Sanden, Wijnand. 1996. Through Nature to Eternity: The Bog Bodies of Northwest Europe. Amsterdam: Batavian Lion International.
■ ISABELLA MULHALL
B O N E F AT E X T R A C T I O N
Bone fat is a rich, high-caloric substance that has provided essential energy and nutrients
to hominin diets since the Plio-Pleistocene. The importance of bone fat is especially pronounced in seasonal high-stress environments with limited fat availability. Bone fat takes
two forms—marrow, which is a soft fatty substance stored within the hollow cavities of
mammalian long bones and mandibles; and grease, which is similar in nutritional value
but stored within the interstitial cavities of cancellous bone (bone with porous structure),
especially the vertebral column and long bone epiphyses.
The quantity and composition of bone fat vary by taxon, skeletal element, and
element portion. The yield of a skeletal element is determined by the distribution of
cortical and cancellous tissue; the age, sex, body size, and physical condition of the
animal; and the season of death. Although the composition of bone fat is quite stable,
small differences in the types and concentrations of the fatty acids of which marrow and
grease are composed have been shown to affect the selection of skeletal elements for
fat processing. For example, in his study of the Nunamiut, Binford noted that marrow
from caribou distal limb bones had comparatively higher concentrations of oleic acid.
These elements were preferentially selected for marrow processing by the Nunamiut,
likely because oleic acid has a lower melting point than other fatty acids, making the
marrow softer and thus more palatable.
Bone marrow extraction is widely practiced by foraging and agricultural populations
worldwide. Because it is concentrated within bone cavities, marrow can be extracted
using cold processing techniques—by breaching the bone cavity with a hard hammer,
sometimes using multiple strikes. The marrow can then be removed from the cavity by
poking it out with a stick or similar implement. Grease rendering begins by fracturing
bone using a hammer and anvil to expose the cancellous tissue. Bones are then boiled,
often for periods of up to two to three hours. Boiling liquefies the grease, enabling it to
escape the bone cavity. Once freed, the grease floats to the surface of the water, where
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it is skimmed off for consumption or storage. Bone grease also can be extracted during
cooking by adding bone fragments to stews.
Given the additional time and labor involved in bone boiling, the cost of extracting
grease is significantly greater than marrow. Ethnographic studies attest to the efficiency
of marrow processing, since marrow can be removed rapidly in concentrated form.Variation in processing efficiency is influenced more by marrow content than processing
costs. Grease rendering, on the other hand, is time-consuming and expensive in terms
of fuel, time, and labor. These costs were even higher prior to the invention of ceramic
and metal vessels, when heated stones were added to organic containers to boil water.
Although grease is more costly to process than marrow, its extraction increases the caloric
yield of a given animal carcass. The appearance of grease rendering in the archaeological
record thus represents a significant intensification in carcass processing strategies and has
important implications for human subsistence evolution.
The breakage of bone elements to extract grease and marrow produces signatures
that can be detected in the archaeological record. Marrow extraction requires the
fragmentation of the cortical bone encasing the marrow cavity. It can thus be detected
by examining fracture types and degree of completeness of marrow-bearing element
portions. The intensity of marrow processing can be determined by comparing marrow
yield to the abundance and distribution of impact marks, bone fractures, and fragmentation rates. The identification of the point of no return, represented by the smallest
medullary cavity that a given population is willing to breach to obtain marrow, further
indicates processing intensity.
Bone grease production is more difficult to detect in the archaeological record. Conventional wisdom states that it will be marked by concentrations of small bone fragments,
many of which are broken beyond recognition. Recent experiments, however, suggest that
bones do not have to be fully processed for effective grease extraction to take place. Like
finely comminuted bone (bone that has been reduced in particle size through grinding,
pounding, or hammering), cancellous bone assemblages averaging up to five centimeters
in length may also signify grease production. Regardless of fragment size, cancellous bone
has low mineral density and is more subject to post-depositional attrition by a variety of
taphonomic processes than cortical bone. Detailed taphonomic research exploring the
relationships between density-mediated attrition, rates of fragmentation, and bone grease
yields can potentially tease apart the source of bone breakage. Secondary indicators for
grease exploitation, such as anvils, milling stones, and fire-cracked rock preserve better
and strengthen interpretations of grease exploitation.
The earliest evidence for cold extraction of bone fats appears in the Plio-Pleistocene
when our hominin ancestors first entered the carnivore niche. Percussion fractures, impact
scars, and spiral fractures on Plio-Pleistocene faunas indicate that bone fat may have been
an important resource that attracted hominins to the carnivore niche, given their newfound ability to breach bone with stone tools. Bone grease acquisition is a more recent
development. Nevertheless, a growing body of evidence has pushed the date of its earliest
appearance back to at least 27,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic periods in Europe.
Given its high costs, the onset of grease extraction has powerful implications for human
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subsistence intensification associated with significant climatic change and demographic
expansion at the end of the Pleistocene.
See also Butchery; Çatalhöyük; Ethnoarchaeology; Ethnographic Sources; Experimental Archaeology; Fire and the Development of Cooking; Fire-Based
Cooking Features; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Paleolithic Diet;
Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Brink, Jack W. 1997. Fat Content in Leg Bones of Bison bison and Applications to Archaeology. Journal
of Archaeological Science 24(3):259–74.
Manne, Tiina. 2012. Vale Boi: 10,000 Years of Upper Paleolithic Bone Boiling. In The Menial Art of
Cooking: Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation, edited by Sarah R. Graff and Enrique
Rodriguez-Alegria, 173–99. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Munro, Natalie D., and Guy Bar-Oz. 2005. Gazelle Bone Fat Processing in the Levantine Epipalaeolithic. Journal of Archaeological Science 32(2):223–39.
Outram, Alan K. 2001. A New Approach to Identifying Bone Marrow and Grease Exploitation:Why the
“Indeterminate” Fragments Should Not Be Ignored. Journal of Archaeological Science 28(4):401–10.
Vehik, Susan C. 1977. Bone Fragments and Bone Grease Manufacture: A Review. Plains Anthropologist
22(77):169–82.
■ N ATA L I E D . M U N R O
BONE TOOLS/UTENSILS
See Tools/Utensils, Organic Materials
BONE WEAPONS
See Weapons, Bone/Antler/Ivory
BOTTLE GOURD
Lagenaria siceraria (Cucurbitaceae) is one of the earliest plant domesticates. Archaeological examples date to 10,000 years ago in the Americas and as early as 11,000 BP
in East Asia. Originating in Africa, the worldwide distribution of Lagenaria siceraria has
raised questions about the means of its dispersal and its relationship to known centers
of domestication. The lineage of the bottle gourd in the New World has been a subject
of particular interest. Though early models proposed a transatlantic origin, genetic data
in a 2005 study suggested New World examples were more closely related to Asian
subspecies (L. siceraria ssp. asiatica) than to African lineages (L. siceraria ssp. siceraria). The
study proposed an Arctic route of dispersal via human migration across the Bering land
bridge. However, a recent study applying enhanced DNA recovery techniques to both
archaeological and modern examples confirms that Pre-Columbian bottle gourds are of
African origin. Using ocean current drift models, it is thought the bottle gourd floated
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across the Atlantic to the neotropics where plants became established in the wild and
were eventually domesticated at different times in multiple locations.
While its fruit and seeds are edible, the bottle gourd is frequently dried and used for
containers, tools, and a variety of other, nonfood purposes. Seeds and rind fragments (exocarps) are preserved under arid conditions commonly found in rockshelters and caves, for
example, at Guilá Naquitz, Mexico (8,803 BP), but rind fragments also have been recovered from Quebrada Jaguay (Peru, 8,455 BP), an open-air campsite. Bottle gourd remains
have been recovered from waterlogged contexts as well (e.g., Little Salt Springs, Florida
[USA], 10,015 BP; Torihama, an Early Jōmon shell midden, ca. 6000–4000 BC [Japan]).
The recovery of Lagenaria pollen grains is contributing significantly to our understanding
of this cultigen in early Polynesia and in neotropical environments where plant preservation in archaeological contexts is generally poor. Starch grain residues on the interiors
of bottle gourd containers also provide insight into the contexts in which these vessels
were used in aceramic cultures, for example, ritual feasting contexts in Buena Vista, Peru.
See also Archaeobotany; Columbian Exchange; DNA Analysis; Guilá Naquitz; Plant
Domestication; Plants; Squash/Gourds; Tools/Utensils, Organic Materials
Further Reading
Duncan, Neil A., Deborah M. Pearsall, and Robert A. Benfer Jr. 2009. Gourd and Squash Artifacts Yield
Starch Grains of Feasting Foods from Preceramic Peru. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
USA 106(32):13202–6.
Erickson, David L., Bruce D. Smith, Andrew C. Clarke, et al. 2005. An Asian Origin for a 10,000-YearOld Domesticated Plant in the Americas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
102(51):18315–20.
Fuller, Dorian Q, Leo Aoi Hosoya, Yunfei Zheng, and Ling Qin. 2010. A Contribution to the Prehistory of Domesticated Bottle Gourds in Asia: Rind Measurements from Jomon Japan and Neolithic
Zhejiang, China. Economic Botany 64(3):260–65.
Horrocks, Mark, and Ian Lawlor. 2006. Plant Microfossil Analysis of Soils from Polynesian Stonefields
in South Auckland, New Zealand. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:200–217.
Kistler, Logan, Álvaro Montenegro, Bruce D. Smith, et al. 2014. Transoceanic Drift and the Domestication of African Bottle Gourds in the Americas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
111(8):2937–41.
■ KAREN BESCHERER METHENY
BREAD
Bread is a processed foodstuff made of cereal flour and water, optionally containing ingredients as diverse as salt, dairy products (milk, cream), blood, vegetable oils or oil-bearing
seeds (linseed, sesame, opium poppy), fruits (date, fig), legume flour (lentil, pea), aromatic
condiments (caraway, black cumin, coriander), and virtually any other substance either
liquid or apt for grinding (e.g., acorns or even the inner bark of pines).The dough can be
directly baked or dried, resulting in flat bread, or first fermented with yeast, sour dough, or
a mixture of both, resulting in leavened bread. Fermentation causes the formation of CO2
gas bubbles and degradation of phytic acid (inositol hexakisphosphate, an antinutritive
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sequestrant binding to metal ions such as zinc, iron, calcium, and magnesium, preventing
their absorption by the small intestine), thus improving availability of micronutrients.
Baking creates the browned crust and various aromas, and destroys antinutritive components such as protease inhibitors (peptides or proteins inhibiting the digestive action of
enzymes such as pepsin or trypsin, thereby restricting protein digestion). As with beer,
the processed outcome is both more appealing in terms of taste and easier to digest and
more nutritious than the raw grain.
Preparation of leavened bread is not possible with all cereals to the same extent and
with the same quality. The crucial component is the elastic protein composite gluten,
which traps CO2 gas in the dough, causing it to rise. High amounts of gluten are found
in all wheat species, and to a much lesser extent in oats, barley, and rye. Maize, rice,
and millets are gluten-free. In rye, the low gluten content is compensated for by a high
amount of pentosan/arabinoxylan (a mucilaginous compound of the sugars arabinose
and xylose) serving the same purpose, but only in an acidic environment (i.e., when
using sour dough). The divergent baking properties of cereals are the reason why the
occurrence of leavened bread has always been more or less limited to the availability
of wheat species and rye.
Depending on the operations and sequences of cereal processing, different cereal
products result (table 1). Bread is one of the most time-consuming and elaborate cereal
products, requiring finely ground flour, time to rise, and in some cases the construction
of oven structures. One of its benefits, however, is its usefulness as a food reserve: bread
can easily be dried, stored, and reused again when crushed and soaked or boiled (examples range from third-millennium BC Sumerian bappir or brewing bread to the rye bread
preserves prepared in the Swiss Valais region up to the 20th century AD).
Archaeological and textual sources from Europe and the Near East and experimental
and ethnographic approaches indicate the high workload necessary for bread preparation,
supporting the hypothesis that risen bread was not an everyday foodstuff in many past
cultures (e.g., Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Germanic, Celtic), but rather was restricted to
festive/ritual occasions or higher social strata (e.g., the bread finds of Ancient Egyptian
elite graves, such as in Qurnet Murai, or in Gallo-Roman and Viking cremation burials).
Prehistoric and historic-period populations in Europe and the Near East most probably
consumed their everyday cereal food in the form of porridge or as flat bread. Further
research is needed, however, to test this hypothesis, in particular for prehistoric periods.
As the archaeological evidence for raised prehistoric bread has long been limited to
the desiccated Ancient Egyptian bread finds known since the 18th century, it is a common
misapprehension that leavened bread was invented in Ancient Egypt. In fact, European
raised bread finds, although rare, are as old as the Chalcolithic (e.g., the site of Twann at
Lake Biel, Switzerland, ca. 3900–3500 BC). Bread as a highly processed foodstuff (containing only finely ground plant tissues) does not preserve archaeologically if not desiccated or charred, thus limiting the overall possibility of archaeological finds.
Early bread research is inseparably connected with the Swiss autodidact Max Währen,
who, in the mid-20th century, provided morphological descriptions of countless archaeological bread finds. The topic received new impetus in the 1980s with the application of
microscopic analyses and scientific methods into Ancient Egyptian and European cereal
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Table 1. Operational Sequences and Corresponding Terminology for Some Historical and
Archaeological Cereal Products
Grain-Paste
1
2
Porridge
1
2
Precooked
Dough Products
bulgur
Bread
Beer
3
4
1
3
2
1
2
4
3
leavened, height
exceeding 45
mm
1
2
flat bread, height
not exceeding 25
mm
1
2
trachanas
5
1
3
4
3
5
X
X
X
X
Valamoti 2011
X
Lannoy et al. 2002
1
Hansson and Isaksson 1994
Maurizio 1916
Toasted Grains
References
Cooking, Baking, Roasting
Fermenting
Drying
Soaking
Grinding
Crushing
Germinating
Sequence of Processes Involved
X
4
X
X
X
3
X
X
2
X
X
Sources: Hansson, Ann-Marie, and Sven Isaksson. 1994. Analyses of Charred Organic Remains. Laborativ
Arkeologi 7:21–29; Lannoy, Sylvie, Philippe Marinval, Alain Buleon, et al. 2002. Études de “pains/galettes”
archéologiques français. In Pain, fours et foyers des temps passés/Bread, Ovens and Hearths of the Past,
edited by Kai Fechner and Marianne Mesnil. Civilisations 49:119–60. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41229645;
Maurizio, Adam. 1916. Die Getreide-Nahrung im Wandel der Zeiten. Zürich: Orell Füssli; Valamoti, Soultana
M. 2011. Ground Cereal Food Preparations from Greece: The Prehistory and Modern Survival of Traditional
Mediterranean “Fast Foods.” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 3(1):19–39.
and bread research (figure 9). More recently, methods such as starch granule analysis and
chemical analyses of residual lipids and carbohydrates in charred material have advanced
this area of study. Ethnoarchaeological as well as experimental approaches have complemented these scientific approaches (table 2).
Bread analyses can provide insights into technological and economic aspects of
bread making: Which cereals or other ingredients were used, and how were they processed? Which contaminants (weeds, chaff , ergot) does it contain? Are there hints of
watered-down or adulterated flour? What was the overall quality of the bread? How
long did it take to prepare? Bread use also overlaps with social and cultural factors, such
as status, culture, or specific religious practices. Examples can be found in the strongly
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Table 2. Some Common Methods Applied in the Analysis of Ancient Bread Finds
Method
Characters
Purpose
References
(exemplary)
Macroscopic bread
morphology
general bread
outline and
height, handprints,
impressions of
baking stones
hints on bread
manufacture, and
possible cultural
implications;
evaluation of
dough properties
and processing
(kneading, rising)
Währen (various
articles) in Eiselen
2000; Samuel
2000; Lannoy et
al. 2002; Heiss
and Kreuz 2007;
Hansson 2013;
Heiss et al. 2015
Microscopic bread
morphology
pore size/shape,
presence of drying
cracks
evaluation of
dough properties
and processing
(water content,
kneading, rising)
Samuel 2000;
Heiss and Kreuz
2007; Heiss 2013;
Heiss et al. 2015
X-ray
counting and
measuring of
grinding quern grit
implications for
flour processing
such as grinding/
milling or the mesh
sizes used in flour
sieving
Währen (various
articles) in Eiselen
2000; Hansson
2013
identification of
possible foreign
objects (e.g.,
stones, metal
pieces) in the
bread
hints on bread
manufacture
(baking stones),
or on possible
“unusual” (e.g.,
ritual) purposes for
the bread
identification of
tissue remains
analysis of plantbased ingredients
(cereal species,
condiments,
additives,
adulterants, and
contaminants)
measuring of tissue
remains
implications for
flour processing
such as grinding/
milling or the mesh
sizes used in flour
sieving
starch granule
analysis
differentiation
between raw and
Light microscopy
and SEM
Dickson 1987;
Körber-Grohne
and Piening 1980;
Hansson and
Isaksson 1994;
Samuel 2000;
Heiss and Kreuz
2007; Valamoti
2011; Heiss 2013;
Heiss et al. 2015
cooked cereal
products
(continued)
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BREAD
Table 2. Continued
Method
Characters
Purpose
References
(exemplary)
MS (mass spectrometry),
GC (gas chromatography)
presence of certain
lipids, proteins, or
carbohydrates
analysis of liquid
ingredients (fat,
milk, oil)
Lannoy et al. 2002;
McLaren and Evans
2002
Sources: Dickson, Camilla. 1987. The Identification of Cereals from Ancient Bran Fragments. Circaea 4(2):95–
102; Eiselen, Hermann, ed. 2000. Max Währen: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Brot- und Gebäckkunde und
-geschichte, 1940–1999. Ulm: Museum der Brotkultur; Hansson, Ann-Marie. 2013. Hidden Stone: A Unique
Bread Offering from an Early Medieval Cremation Grave at Lovö, Sweden. In Plants and People: Choices
and Diversity through Time, edited by Alexandre Chevalier, Elena Marinova, and Leonor Peña-Chocarro,
335–42. Oxford: Oxbow; Hansson, Ann-Marie, and Sven Isaksson. 1994. Analyses of Charred Organic Remains.
Laborativ Arkeologi 7:21–29; Heiss, Andreas G. 2013. Ceremonial Foodstuffs from Prehistoric Burnt-Offering
Places in the Alpine Region. In Plants and People: Choices and Diversity through Time, edited by Alexandre
Chevalier, Elena Marinova, and Leonor Peña-Chocarro, 343–53. Oxford: Oxbow; Heiss, Andreas G., and Angela
Kreuz. 2007. Brot für die Salinenarbeiter—das Keltenbrot von Bad Nauheim aus archäobotanischer Sicht.
hessenArchäologie 2006:70–73; Heiss, Andreas G., Nathalie Pouget, Julian Wiethold, et al. 2015. TissueBased Analysis of a Charred Flat Bread (galette) from a Roman Cemetery at Saint-Memmie (Dép. Marne,
Champagne-Ardenne, North-Eastern France). Journal of Archaeological Science 55:71–82; Körber-Grohne,
Udelgard, and Ulrike Piening. 1980. Microstructures of the Surfaces of Carbonized and Non-Carbonized Grains
of Cereals as Observed in Scanning Electron and Light Microscopes as an Additional Aid in Determining
Prehistoric Findings. Flora 170:189–228; Lannoy, Sylvie, Philippe Marinval, Alain Buleon, et al. 2002. Études
de “pains/galettes” archéologiques français. In Pain, fours et foyers des temps passés/Bread, Ovens and
Hearths of the Past, edited by Kai Fechner and Marianne Mesnil. Civilisations 49:119–60. http://www.jstor.org/
stable/41229645; McLaren, Frances, and John Evans. 2002. The Chemical Identification of Ancient British
Bread Flours: Encountering and Overcoming Some of the Obstacles. In Pain, fours et foyers des temps
passés/Bread, Ovens and Hearths of the Past, edited by Kai Fechner and Marianne Mesnil. Civilisations 49:169–
82. doi:10.4000/civilisations.1427; Procopiou, Hara, and René Treuil. 2002. Moudre et broyer: L’interprétation
fonctionnelle de l’outillage de mouture et de broyage dans la Préhistoire et l’Antiquité. 2 vols. Paris: CTHS;
Samuel, Delwen. 2000. Brewing and Baking. In Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, edited by Paul
T. Nicholson and Ian Shaw, 537–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Samuel, Delwen. 2002. Bread
in Archaeology. In Pain, fours et foyers des temps passés/Bread, Ovens and Hearths of the Past, edited by
Kai Fechner and Marianne Mesnil. Civilisations 49:27–36. doi:10.4000/civilisations.1353; Valamoti, Soultana
M. 2011. Ground Cereal Food Preparations from Greece: The Prehistory and Modern Survival of Traditional
Mediterranean “Fast Foods.” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 3(1):19–39.
diverging values assigned to certain crops and their products, such as barley (Greek vs.
Roman culture) or oats (Romans vs. Germanic peoples). Bread and porridge played
significant roles in many rites across the Mediterranean in antiquity (e.g., Greek burnt
offerings to Persephone/Kore, as well as the elaphebolia and liknophora ceremonies; Roman offerings of mola salsa porridge or farreum libum spelt cake) as well as in Bronze
and Iron Age burnt offerings in the Alpine region. Bread is a common grave good
found in Egyptian as well as Roman and Viking burials. Such finds, and equally those of
bread-shaped objects such as the beeswax-based loaf from Ipwege Bog (eighth–seventh
century BC) near Oldenburg, Germany, suggest a particular symbolic value to bread
throughout history and prehistory.
See also Bakeries; Biomolecular Analysis; Cereals; Ethnoarchaeology; Experimental
Archaeology; Fermentation; Offerings and Grave Goods; Representational Models of Food and Food Production; Residue Analysis, Starch; Yeast
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Figure 9. Late Iron Age (mid-third century BC) bread from Bad Nauheim, Hesse,
Germany. (A) Total view (reconstructed diameter ~15 centimeters); (B) Detailed view,
displaying denser crust (above) and crumb with gas bubbles (below); (C) SEM
image showing bran fragments; (D) Bran fragment with thick-walled, regularly
pitted transverse cells that are typical for wheat (Triticum) species. Photographs
by Andreas G. Heiss.
Further Reading
Eiselen, Hermann, ed. 2000. Max Währen: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Brot- und Gebäckkunde und -geschichte,
1940–1999. Ulm: Museum der Brotkultur.
Fechner, Kai, and Marianne Mesnil, eds. 2002. Pain, Fours et Foyers des Temps Passés/Bread, Ovens and
Hearths of the Past. Civilisations 49(1–2). doi:10.4000/civilisations.964.
Hansson, Ann-Marie. 1994. Grain-Paste, Porridge and Bread: Ancient Cereal-Based Food. Laborativ
Arkeologi 7:5–20.
Procopiou, Hara, and René Treuil. 2002. Moudre et broyer: L’interprétation fonctionnelle de l’outillage de
mouture et de broyage dans la Préhistoire et l’Antiquité. 2 vols. Paris: CTHS.
Samuel, Delwen. 2000. Brewing and Baking. In Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, edited by Paul
T. Nicholson and Ian Shaw, 537–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
■ ANDREAS G. HEISS
BREWERIES
The brewing of fermented beverages may have a lineage as old as domesticated cereals;
in fact, it has been argued that the grain requirement of beer, not bread, was the primary
impetus for domestication around 13000 BC in the Natufian Near East. While the argument for early brewing is speculative, definitive evidence for barley beer is dated to
3500–3300 BC in Egypt at Hierakonpolis, and evidence for fermented rice beverages
in China appears as early as 7000 BC. Research into breweries not only tells us about
technologies and food systems, it also can give insight into labor organization, feasting
and commensal politics, and gender relations, as well as changing tastes and traditions.
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Despite the deep social history of beer, it is difficult to identify the presence of
brewing archaeologically. While contemporary notions of breweries evoke large-scale,
mechanized production, for much of human history brewing has had a dispersed mode
of production, spread across multiple households rather than a centralized workshop.
Space can be flexibly used, with hearths only occasionally dedicated to mash boiling.This
pattern is related to the sporadic demands of seasonal feasting and the short shelf life of
many fermented beverages (e.g., 3–6 days for Andean chicha).
For places and times with the benefit of written histories, descriptions of breweries,
the job of the brewer, and even recipes may be available. Elsewhere, the identification
of brewing relies on comparison of material remains with ethnohistorical accounts and
ethnographic analogy, although this must be done with a critical eye for variation.Vessel
lot analysis compares the forms and styles of ceramic wares to determine the presence and
relative frequencies of brewing, fermenting, serving, and personal consumption vessels in a
given locale. Open vats, constricted-neck jars, bottles, pitchers, and cups respectively suggest production and consumption of beer.This evidence becomes more convincing when
paired with archaeological features such as fire pits with vessel supports, interior surface
pitting of ceramic vessels, and charred archaeobotanical remains of sprouted grains. These
more directly indicate the activity of brewing. Microscopic residue analyses employed
in the search for breweries include X-ray fluorescence for testing soil chemistry around
hearths; optical and scanning electron microscopy of vessel interiors for characteristic
starch granules; and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry for fermentation biomarkers.
A combination of methods across several sites has helped to illuminate diverse brewing
practices of the Andean Wari Empire (AD 600–1000). At Conchopata, an early city in the
heartland of the empire, a dispersed pattern of brewing was found. Ceremonial widemouthed urns and highly decorated jars used to serve chicha in state-sponsored feasting were
found only in civic-ceremonial areas while enormous vessels for brewing were found dotted
across the site in residential spaces (figure 10). To date, no full-time brewing locale has been
Figure 10. At Conchopata, archaeologists found evidence of household brewing activities. Left:
Room 205, part of a domestic structure, had a set of vessels used in chicha brewing. The jars were
smashed and scattered on the floor as part of a room closure sequence. Right: One of several
giant jars reconstructed from Room 205. Photographs by William H. Isbell, Proyecto Conchopata.
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Figure 11. A brewery located within the Wari civic-ceremonial center at Cerro Baúl, AD 600–
1000, with separate rooms for milling, boiling, and fermentation of chicha beer. Excavations
revealed the remains of in situ vats, brewing equipment, plant remains (e.g., Schinus molle),
offerings, and the shawl pins associated with elite women. Plan drawing by Patrick Ryan
Williams, Cerro Baúl Excavation Project. Reprinted from Moseley et al. 2005. © National
Academy of Sciences USA, 2005.
found. The act of brewing for feasts likely increased social capital as in the case of a woman
who was buried with miniature replicas of ceremonial wares while a set of large brewing
jars was deliberately smashed above her tomb in a building termination ritual.
This contrasts with a formal brewery found at Cerro Baúl, a Wari administrative center at
the southern periphery of the empire (figure 11). A dedicated room adjacent to a civic-ceremonial area with rows of jars supported over a series of hearths suggests stronger state control.
Household brewing also occurred at Cerro Baúl, but in smaller-volume jars than those found
at Conchopata, indicating personal consumption rather than production for large events.
See also Archaeology of Household Food Production; Beer; Brewing/Malting;
CHICHA; Conchopata; Fermentation; Food and Gender; Gas Chromatography/Gas
Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry; Material Culture Analysis; Residue Analysis, Starch; Scanning Electron Microscopy; Soil Microtechniques
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Further Reading
Arthur, John W. 2003. Brewing Beer: Status, Wealth, and Ceramic Use Alteration among the Gamo of
South-Western Ethiopia. World Archaeology 34(3):516–28.
Bouby, Laurent, Philippe Boissinot, and Philippe Marinval. 2011. Never Mind the Bottle: Archaeobotanical Evidence of Beer-Brewing in Mediterranean France and the Consumption of Alcoholic
Beverages during the 5th Century BC. Human Ecology 39(3):351–60.
Hayden, Brian, Neil Canuel, and Jennifer Shanse. 2012. What Was Brewing in the Natufian? An Archaeological Assessment of Brewing Technology in the Epipaleolithic. Journal of Archaeological Method
and Theory 20(1):102–50.
Isaksson, Sven, Christina Karlsson, and Thomas Eriksson. 2010. Ergosterol (5, 7, 22-ergostatrien-3β-ol)
as a Potential Biomarker for Alcohol Fermentation in Lipid Residues from Prehistoric Pottery.
Journal of Archaeological Science 37(12):3263–68.
Isbell, William H., and Amy B. Groleau. 2010. The Wari Brewer Woman: Feasting, Gender, Offerings,
and Memory. In Inside Ancient Kitchens: New Directions in the Study of Daily Meals and Feasts, edited
by Elizabeth A. Klarich, 191–220. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Jennings, Justin, and Brenda Bowser, eds. 2009. Drink, Power, and Society in the Andes. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Moseley, Michael E., Donna J. Nash, Patrick Ryan Williams, et al. 2005. Burning Down the Brewery:
Establishing and Evacuating an Ancient Imperial Colony at Cerro Baúl, Peru. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences USA 102(48):17264–71.
Samuel, Delwen. 1996. Investigation of Ancient Egyptian Baking and Brewing Methods by Correlative
Microscopy. Science 273(5274):488–90.
■ AMY B. GROLEAU
B R E W I N G / M A LT I N G
The ancient biotechnologies of malting and brewing date back to the earliest agriculturalists of the Fertile Crescent, where wild grain was gathered and processed 12,000
years ago. These new technologies spread across Europe, reaching the British Isles 6,000
years ago. The importance of malting and brewing to the domestication of cereals during
the Neolithic Revolution has been debated since 1953, when Robert Braidwood asked
which came first: bread or beer.
The essential ingredients for ale and beer are malt, water, herbs or hops, and yeast. In
many re-created ancient ales, dates, honey, and grape juice have been added to provide
fermentable sugars. They also provide flavor. Malt, however, can provide all of the necessary sugars for fermentation. Grain is processed into beer by malting, mashing, lautering
and sparging (to obtain the wort), and fermentation. All grains can be malted. Malt is grain
that has been steeped in water and then laid out on the floor of a cool, dark building to
germinate. When the root and shoot begin to show, the malt is carefully dried in a kiln
or in the sun. In order to extract the sweet liquid, known as wort by brewers and as the
wash by distillers, the malt is crushed and mixed with hot water in a mash tun. The sweet
liquid is drained from the mash in a process known as lautering.Then hot water is trickled
through the mash to collect a larger quantity of sweet liquid. This is known as sparging.
The grain husks act as a filter bed. The wort or sweet liquid is boiled with herbs or hops
before being fermented by the addition of yeast or barm from a previous brew.
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These processes are unchanged across the millennia, although installations, equipment, and ingredients used by the brewer have changed and developed. Hops were
introduced in Europe in the ninth century AD, and in Britain during the 14th century.
Before hops, a variety of plants were used to flavor and preserve ales, including, for
example, bog myrtle, yarrow, meadowsweet, and juniper. This mixture of herbs is called
gruit. Spices also can be used.
Evidence for malting and brewing includes installation sites and brewing equipment,
organic residues in or on pottery, and carbonized or desiccated malt. Installations for malting and brewing have smooth, level floors, kilns, mash ovens, and drains. Necessary equipment includes large vessels, cauldrons, pots, jugs, buckets, tubs, vats, and drinking vessels.
Fire-cracked stones, used to heat the mash or the wort in wooden troughs and mash tuns,
also have been found.The oldest chemical evidence for brewing was found at Godin Tepe,
Iran, and is dated to ca. 3500 BC. Calcium oxalate, a substance that precipitates out of
fermenting barley wort, was identified on the internal surfaces of pots. Barley lipids have
been identified in the fabric of Grooved Ware at the Neolithic settlement at Barnhouse,
Orkney. Cereal-based residues have been identified on Bronze Age beakers from Britain
and Europe. Experimental approaches have been key to understanding brewing practices
in prehistoric cultures, particularly Sumerian, Neolithic and Bronze Age, and medieval
brewing. Residue analysis and textual sources are also integral to this process.
See also Beer; Biomolecular Analysis; Breweries; Distillation; Experimental Archaeology; Fermentation
Further Reading
Braidwood, Robert J. 1953. Symposium: Did Man Once Live by Bread Alone? American Anthropologist
55(4):515–26.
Dineley, Merryn. 2004. Barley Malt and Ale in the Neolithic. BAR International Series S1213. Oxford:
Archaeopress.
———. 2015. The Craft of the Maltster. In Food and Drink in Archaeology 4, edited by Wendy Howard,
Kirsten Bedigan, and Ben Jervis. Totnes, UK: Prospect Books.
Hough, J. S. 1991. The Biotechnology of Malting and Brewing. Cambridge Studies in Biotechnology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
■ MERRYN DINELEY
B R OA D S P E C T R U M R E VO LU T I O N
The term Broad Spectrum Revolution was introduced by Kent Flannery in his classic review
of long-term foraging and food production trends in the prehistoric Near East. Building
on fieldwork in southwestern Iran, he suggested that Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers underwent an important preagricultural shift away from ungulate big game toward
smaller animal- and plant-food packages. Notably, these smaller food resources would
have been relatively more expensive to acquire. Here, expense can be understood in two
dimensions: (1) as greater upfront raw material, technological, time, or calorie costs of
producing suitable tools for obtaining, transporting, or processing such small-package wild
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food resources; and (2) a higher cost-benefit ratio in terms of net calories and nutrients
obtained. In reviewing available evidence, Flannery suggested that the Broad Spectrum
Revolution (BSR) had cultural evolutionary roots in the Upper Paleolithic period, perhaps as early as 40,000 years ago. This “Stone Age economic trend” emerged gradually,
accelerating during the Final Pleistocene, then thought to be roughly 20,000–10,000
years ago (ca. 23–12 cal KYA). The BSR shift in prehistoric Near Eastern hunter-gatherer economies—away from the caloric and nutrient dominance of big game and toward
small game and plant resources—was consistent with an evolutionary systems perspective,
so theoretically important for the New Archaeology of the 1960s and 1970s. The BSR
appeared to fit as an evolutionary transition from Paleolithic hunting and gathering to
early Holocene domestication and agriculture.
Today, the BSR pattern that Flannery identified has been empirically confirmed.
Although theoretical labels have changed, researchers continue to use some form of
multifactor complex systems frameworks for explaining the long-term emergence of agriculture in the prehistoric Near East, always seen as a continuous historical process, rather
than as an abrupt, unique human transformation. Current discussions focus on whether
the transition to a more plant-dominated, small-food-package economy was driven by the
cumulative impact of regional human populations on big-game animal prey populations
(that is, population-pressure-driven food resource depletion) or by terminal Pleistocene
climatic amelioration interacting with sociocultural factors (that is, ecological opportunity
presented by increasing natural grain, lentil, and nut resource abundance, interacting with
durable architectural features of sedentary hamlets, further combined with community-integrating ritual). There is fundamental agreement that the BSR phenomenon was
part of a complicated, often nonlinear, millennial-scale process of change from mobile
hunting and gathering to intensive plant resource exploitation.Yet views differ on which
factors were likely dominant. Current research in the Near East continues to emphasize
a key question in the archaeology of food: what are the environmental and social causes
and consequences of food demand and food preferences in complex, historically changing
cultural systems and the human populations that constitute them?
The Broad Spectrum Revolution concept recently received a theoretical makeover
through Mary Stiner’s landmark incorporation of quantitative foraging theory into Flannery’s observations and ideas about Near Eastern prehistory. Stiner suggested that later
Upper Pleistocene broad-spectrum foraging was inextricably tied to a series of human
population growth pulses, both local and supraregional in geographic scale. If human
demographic growth reached a critical rate, then predation pressure on the energetically
richest, largest prey types would have increased, thereby depressing those prey populations.
Facing declining availability of preferred food resources, human foragers would have increased efforts to obtain smaller, harder to capture/process prey types. As Stiner argued,
the BSR depicts the human behavioral response to changes in food resource availability.
Yet it also causally links the population dynamics of human foragers to the demography of
their prey. What Stiner’s model most clearly predicts is that broad-spectrum exploitation
of small game and plant resources should be chronologically preceded by archaeozoologically documented overhunting of the most ecologically abundant, large-body-sized
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81
ungulate prey. In the prehistoric Near East, big game prey ranged from aurochs (the
biggest of the big) to gazelle.
Recent research in southwest Asia covering the Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic
(ca. 45–12 KYA) has yielded archaeozoological and botanical results indicating that
broad-spectrum resources were diverse, including hare, game bird and waterfowl, fish and
shellfish, and a wide diversity of wild grains, lentils, and other plant resources. Stiner’s prediction of big-game overhunting prior to the BSR is strongly supported in the Southern
Levant between 19 and 12 KYA.This happened at the same time that Southern Levantine
human groups built and settled the first hamlets and increasingly invested in hunting and
trapping diverse small game, while also collecting and processing wild grains and lentils.
Yet it remains difficult to resolve whether broad-spectrum foraging was predominantly
the consequence of big-game overhunting across the entirety of the Near East.
From the perspective of studying the long-term emergence of agriculture, a key
challenge is to tease apart the exogenous impact of climate change and the endogenous
systemic interactions among demographic, economic, sociopolitical, and even religious
factors. The Flannery/Stiner Broad Spectrum Revolution model provides one relevant
frame of reference. As a heuristic, the BSR model supports an explicit methodology
for testing hypotheses about the systemic role of human population dynamics and its
ecosystem impacts in the emergence of sedentism and agriculture. As a hallmark conceptual development, Flannery’s original BSR formulation continues to catalyze a more
thorough understanding of prehistoric food economy as embedded in larger cultural and
ecological contexts.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Ohalo II;
Sedentism and Domestication; Subsistence Models
Further Reading
Flannery, Kent V. 1969. Origins and Ecological Effects of Early Domestication in Iran and the Near
East. In The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, edited by Peter J. Ucko and G. W.
Dimbleby, 73–100. Chicago: Aldine.
Stiner, Mary C. 2001. Thirty Years on the “Broad Spectrum Revolution” and Paleolithic Demography.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 98(13):6993–96.
Stutz, Aaron Jonas, Natalie D. Munro, and Guy Bar-Oz. 2009. Increasing the Resolution of the Broad
Spectrum Revolution in the Southern Levantine Epipaleolithic (19–12 ka). Journal of Human Evolution 56(3):294–306.
Zeder, Melinda A. 2012.The Broad Spectrum Revolution at 40: Resource Diversity, Intensification, and
an Alternative to Optimal Foraging Explanations. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31(3):241–64.
■ AARON JONAS STUTZ
BUTCHERY
Butchery is the process of slaughtering animals and preparing them for distribution and
consumption. It is a fundamental step in using animals for meat, hides, marrow, and other
products. Archaeologists analyze butchery as part of faunal analysis, especially in studies
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focused on describing all of the human and natural forces affecting the patterning of bone
collections. The primary sources of evidence for studying butchery are the tool marks
left on bones and the ways bones are broken and spatially distributed. These data are used
to build interpretations of the ways carcasses were divided and used, providing insight
into hunting and meat-eating practices, and cultural aspects of the conception and uses
of specific parts of animals.
Butchery consists of a series of potential steps including slaughter, skinning, removing
organs and viscera, dividing the carcass, filleting, breaking bones for marrow, cutting up
meat for cooking, and carving cooked meat while eating. Since the butchery process
consists of different steps, one way it is studied is by looking at skeletal part representation
in spatially discrete collections of bones. This approach is commonly used on sites where
wild animals were hunted. At certain types of hunting sites, such as North American bison
bone beds, fine-scale spatial resolution of skeletal parts can provide a detailed understanding of animal processing. More generally, analysts often divide animal bones into different
utility or value categories, and then try to differentiate hunting and primary slaughter
sites, potentially dominated by low-utility parts, from consumption sites, which contain
more high-utility parts. These studies are complicated by different cultural conceptions
of the value of parts and the many other human and natural processes that influence
skeletal-part representation on sites.
The second major way butchery is studied is by analysis of the morphology and
location of tool marks left on bone surfaces. Studies of mark morphology emphasize the
development of criteria for categorizing the surface marks, starting with distinguishing
tool marks from marks left by animals chewing or trampling bones and similar natural
causes. Criteria are also established to differentiate marks left by stone tools from those
of metal tools, as well as to define chop or hack marks, saw marks, and impact scars
from blunt tools. Some of this work is experimental and involves using different tools
to butcher an animal and then studying the resulting marks. Observational studies of
traditional practitioners butchering animals also help to show the link between distinct
steps in the butchery process and the locations and types of marks left on the bones, as
well as the relationship between certain butchery actions and the targeted use of parts
of the carcass. Subtle interpretations are sometimes possible, such as identifying skinning
marks to get access to the meat versus skinning marks to obtain the hide as a primary
product. Butchery marks also are quantified sometimes to compare the intensity of
animal processing across sites.
Some of the most detailed analysis of butchery focuses on the earliest archaeological
sites, which consist largely of collections of animal bones together with a small number
of stone tools. At Olduvai Gorge, interpretations of the timing, nature, and placement of
butchery marks on bones are central to understanding the food practices and behavior
of human ancestors. Scientists debate whether the patterns of butchery marks show early
access to the most meaty parts of the animal, or late access to the meat scraps and bone
marrow left on carcasses after other carnivores had finished feeding.These differing interpretations lead to radically different views of the ecological niche of human ancestors as
dominant hunters or opportunistic scavengers. This research fosters increasingly detailed
and technical analysis of the morphology and location of tool marks on bones, including
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scanning electron microscopy of surface marks and the creation of computerized models
of scratches on bone surfaces.
In complex societies, butchery is viewed as a cultural process that encodes social
meanings. Butchery is part of the daily preparation of food and consumption of meals, a
key way traditional practices are reinforced and reproduced across generations. Archaeologists study how this evolves through time with the introduction of new technology,
with foreign cultural concepts or goods, or in novel situations. In colonial contexts, archaeologists have studied how cultures traditionally using stone tools adopted, rejected,
or selectively incorporated metal tools in their butchery processes. Maintaining specific
cultural butchery rules is one of the many ways food practices were used to define group
boundaries and create social distance, as exemplified by kosher rules for butchery. An
understanding of how animals were butchered and distributed through a society can also
show how food was used to foster social linkages or define social position.
In the modern world, butchery has changed dramatically with the increased commodification of animals. Butchery has largely moved outside of the home, becoming more
standardized and increasingly centralized. Animals are divided into ever more discrete
cuts, with the creation of complex valuation schemes for each part of the carcass and
detailed ideas about the proper uses of each cut. These processes can be studied through
the analysis of changing butchery practices. At recent sites these analyses are often contextualized with historical sources, such as butchery diagrams, recipes in cookbooks, and
advertisements showing prices and availability of cuts of meat. This information is then
used to interpret the cultural implications of the differential distribution of specific cuts
of meat across sites, looking at people’s access to and use of specific foods. Butchery is
one of the most basic means of animal processing, and thus provides evidence for human
uses of animals and animal products across a diverse range of archaeological sites.
See also Bone Fat Extraction; Cookbooks; Ethnoarchaeology; Experimental Archaeology; Food and Ritual; Food Technology and Ideas about Food, Spread of;
Meat; Olduvai Gorge; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions, Taboos; Scanning
Electron Microscopy; Secondary Products Revolution; Subsistence Models;
Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Domínguez-Rodrigo, Manuel, ed. 2012. Stone Tools and Fossil Bones: Debates in the Archaeology of Human
Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fisher, John W., Jr. 1995. Bone Surface Modifications in Zooarchaeology. Journal of Archaeological Method
and Theory 2(1):7–68.
Lapham, Heather A. 2005. Hunting for Hides: Deerskin, Status, and Cultural Change in the Protohistoric
Appalachians. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
■ D AV I D B . L A N D O N
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C
C A C A O / C H O C O L AT E
Chocolate is appreciated in virtually every corner of today’s world: as a mass-marketed
sweet treat, an object of gourmet connoisseurship, a commodity, a cultural icon. Five
hundred years ago, it was a Mesoamerican monopoly. The process for producing chocolate from seeds of Theobroma cacao is surely the most widely appreciated legacy of ancient
Mesoamerica. The word chocolate is itself a loan from Náhuatl, the language of the Aztecs, by way of Spanish. The wild relatives of T. cacao, the domesticated tree, are widely
distributed in Amazonian South America. Native peoples of this region consume the
pulp surrounding the seeds as a refreshing source of liquid, and they ferment it to make
alcoholic beverages. The chocolate preparation, however, was distinctively Mesoamerican.
Today’s chocolate confections are quite different from the cacao beverages consumed in
ancient Mesoamerica. The additions of milk and sugar to chocolate are European innovations, as are the separation of the fat (cocoa butter) to produce cocoa powder and the
fabrication of solid chocolate. Cocoa, a corruption of cacao, is often used as a synonym
for cacao and chocolate, but it is better restricted to the products of the defatting process.
Sixteenth-century Europeans consumed chocolate as an unsweetened frothed beverage in
social contexts and for medical purposes, echoing contemporary Mesoamerican practice.
Mesoamerican cacao preparation, however, was far more varied, as were the contexts in
which it was consumed.
As in South America, the pulp that surrounds cacao seeds in the pod was often fermented into a cacao chicha. In the preparation of chocolate, cacao seeds were fermented
in the pulp, a critical step in development of the distinctive chocolate taste. The dried
seeds were ground and mixed with water and other substances, most commonly ground
and toasted maize and chili peppers. Cacao beverages, particularly chocolate, were essential components of important social occasions: birth ceremonies, wedding celebrations,
funerals, and feasts of all kinds. Invading Spaniards were astonished by the quantity of
chocolate served daily in the Aztec court. Chocolate also accompanied many rituals and
was prescribed for a great variety of diseases and ailments. So widely prized were cacao
seeds that they served as a standard of value in Mesoamerican markets. T. cacao was widely
grown, but large-scale production was concentrated in coastal regions. Cacao grown in
the Aztec province of Xoconochco, on the Pacific coast of Chiapas, and in the lower Ulúa
Valley in Honduras was considered of particularly high quality.
84
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Botanical remains of Theobroma are only rarely preserved, but cacao seeds have been
recovered from a few archaeological contexts. At Joya de Cerén in El Salvador, volcanic
ashfall created a natural cast of a flowering cacao tree in a household garden. Imagery,
hieroglyphic texts, and chemical evidence indicate that cacao beverages were served on
socially, ceremonially, and politically important occasions earlier in Mesoamerican history as well. In books from the Postclassic period (ca. AD 1000–1521), a brownish froth
depicted at the rims of serving bowls indicates that chocolate was served at aristocratic
wedding ceremonies and in rituals. Cacao was the symbolic tree of the southern world
quarter, associated with earth deities. Cacao trees and their pods appear in imagery from
the Classic period (ca. AD 250–1000) as well. The use of elaborately decorated Maya
pottery vessels for cacao serving is demonstrated both by hieroglyphic texts designating
them as containers for cacao and by the presence of residues containing theobromine,
a biomarker for cacao (figure 12). Traces of theobromine extracted from serving vessels
indicate that cacao beverages were served on special occasions in Mesoamerica at least as
early as the Early Formative period (ca. 1600–900 BC).
Theobromine detected in Ancestral Puebloan and Hohokam pottery suggests that cacao
was imported by communities in the American Southwest as early as the eighth century.
Cacao beverages were served by elites, notably in Great Houses in Chaco Canyon, but they
were also consumed in ordinary households. Except for the late representations of brown
chocolate froth, none of this evidence necessarily points to chocolate, as opposed to other
cacao beverages. Since drinks made from fermented cacao pulp have a much broader distribution than chocolate, cacao chicha is a likely candidate for the earliest cacao beverage.
This cannot be demonstrated chemically since theobromine occurs in cacao pulp as well
as seeds. At Puerto Escondido in Honduras, however, where cacao beverages were in use
at least as early as 1100 BC, the earliest cacao-serving bottles have long narrow necks that
were not suitable for creating a froth in the usual way, by pouring the chocolate back and
forth between two vessels. About 700 BC, a new jar form with a wide mouth and a spout
may reflect the practice of frothing and thus the chocolate preparation.
See also CHICHA; High Performance Liquid Chromatography; Joya de Cerén; Residue
Analysis, Theobromine
Further Reading
Coe, Sophie D., and Michael D. Coe. 2013. The True History of Chocolate. 3rd edition. London: Thames
& Hudson.
Dillinger,Teresa L., Patricia Barriga, Sylvia Escárcega, et al. 2000. Food of the Gods: Cure for Humanity?
A Cultural History of the Medicinal and Ritual Use of Chocolate. Journal of Nutrition Supplement
130:2057S–72S.
Hall, Grant D., Stanley M.Tarka Jr.,W. Jeffrey Hurst, et al. 1990. Cacao Residues in Ancient Maya Vessels
from Rio Azul, Guatemala. American Antiquity 55(1):138–43.
Henderson, John S., Rosemary A. Joyce, Gretchen R. Hall, et al. 2007. Chemical and Archaeological
Evidence for the Earliest Cacao Beverages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
104(48):18937–40.
Kaufman, Terrance, and John Justeson. 2007. The History of the Word for Cacao in Ancient Mesoamerica. Ancient Mesoamerica 18(2):193–237.
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Figure 12. Classic-period Maya stirrup-handle, lock-top cacao vessel,
Tomb 19, Río Azul, Petén, Guatemala (AD 460–480). This vessel was
one of 14 containers thought to have been buried with food and
beverages for the deceased in the afterlife. Several glyphs on the
vessel suggested its use as a container for a cacao beverage. Chemical
analysis of a powdery residue from the interior confirmed the presence
of theobromine and caffeine, biomarkers for cacao (Hall et al. 1990).
Photograph © Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
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McNeil, Cameron L., ed. 2006. Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Powis, Terry G., Ann Cyphers, Nilesh W. Gaikwad, et al. 2011. Cacao Use and the San Lorenzo Olmec.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108(21):8595–8600.
Washburn, Dorothy, William N. Washburn, and Petra A. Shipkova. 2011. The Prehistoric Drug Trade:
Widespread Consumption of Cacao in Ancestral Pueblo and Hohokam Communities in the American Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Science 38:1634–40.
———. 2013. Cacao Consumption during the 8th Century at Alkali Ridge, Southeastern Utah. Journal
of Archaeological Science 40:2007–13.
■ JOHN S. HENDERSON
CANNIBALISM
Cannibalism, understood here as the consumption of humans by humans, has been
widely documented in prehistory and to a lesser extent in recent history. Ethnographic
and historical evidence shows that cannibalism may occur in diverse ritual and nonritual
contexts, for example, the disposal of dead bodies, violent conflicts, and famines; each of
these situations results in distinct processing and consumption behaviors.
Ritual cannibalism usually involves the consumption of selected parts of the deceased.
It commonly ends with fairly complete skeletal elements deposited in a burial. These
remains show no sex bias and are not commonly mixed with those of other consumed
animals. By contrast, gastronomic cannibalism is associated with complete consumption
of individuals, involving defleshing, demarrowing, and, in some cases, cooking in order
to extract grease. Human remains are treated similarly to those of other animals, and they
are found mixed together. No discrimination against sex or age is documented. A hybrid
between these two types of cannibalism is that of warfare, in which captured individuals are consumed. There is a substantial amount of variation in warfare cannibalism. In
some cases consumption of bodies is partial, in others highly selective. Removal of body
parts as trophies is fairly common. Human remains thus consumed show intermediate
levels of destruction, missing parts, a sex bias dominated by adult males, and evidence of
perimortem trauma. No burial treatment is documented in these cases. An evolutionary
antecedent of warfare cannibalism is found among chimpanzees. A common form of cannibalism among chimpanzees, both at the intracommunity and intercommunity levels, is
infanticide. Intercommunity aggression ends frequently with the consumption of trapped
individuals, most commonly subadults.
Evidence of prehistoric ritual-warfare cannibalism has been documented at Neolithic sites such as Fontbregoua (France) or Herxheim (Germany). The form of cannibalism best documented archaeologically, however, is gastronomic or nutritional
cannibalism. A classic example of this is documented at Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi)
sites in southwestern North America. Humans were indiscriminately consumed, with
bones showing evidence of complete defleshing and demarrowing and even cooking
for grease extraction. Human remains were thus undifferentiated from those of other
consumed animals. This type of cannibalism has also been documented among Neanderthals at sites such as El Sidrón in Spain, where 13 males and females of various
ages were consumed, and meat, marrow, and brains were systematically exploited. This
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practice is also documented at other Mousterian sites, such as Moula-Guercy (France)
or Krapina (Croatia), where the remains of several human individuals show butchery
patterns akin to those of the animal assemblages in the same deposits.
The site of Atapuerca in Spain contains the oldest and one of the largest archaeological
assemblages with evidence of cannibalism; this is found in the TD6 unit of Dolina and
dates to 850–780 KYA. A total of 164 remains of H. antecessor, representing a minimum
of 11 individuals and including nearly all body parts, were identified among hundreds of
other faunal specimens belonging to a minimum of 17 mammalian taxa. The hominin
remains showed abundant cut and percussion marks distributed on most body elements.
Cut marks show that soft tissues (flesh, viscerae, brain) were removed from the body.
Skinning, evisceration, and defleshing are well documented. Bone breakage also was carried out, with more than 20 percent of the hominin remains showing conspicuous traces
of hammerstone bone breakage. A comparison between butchery patterns of hominins
and cervids (members of the deer family, e.g., Cervus, Dama, Megaloceros) and other large
mammals (such as Equus and Bison) at the site shows no significant differences.
A comparative analysis showed that the TD6 hominin assemblage differs from other
more recent assemblages in which cannibalism has been documented by the higher
abundance of subadult individuals in the former. This suggested that the gastronomic
cannibalism documented at the Dolina site could be more like that of chimpanzees. If
true, the TD6 cannibalism could be the result of warfare or gastronomic cannibalism as
practiced by modern chimpanzees.
In order to taphonomically document cannibalism, large, well-preserved samples of
several individuals are required from the same assemblage. Given this, many sites, containing just one or two individuals with traces of butchery, constitute insufficient evidence
of a practice that was probably more widespread than is archaeologically documented.
For very early sites, this problem is particularly acute as sample sizes tend to be small. The
oldest evidence of hominin butchery is documented on the StW 53 skull from Sterkfontein, South Africa, with an age of 1.8–1.5 MYA, and hominin skulls showing cut and
percussion marks are documented from Middle Pleistocene sites (e.g., Bodo and Herto,
Ethiopia) to the Magdalenian.
See also Bone Fat Extraction; Butchery; Food and Ritual; Gran Dolina; Paleolithic Diet
Further Reading
Conklin, Beth A. 2001. Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Pickering, Travis Rayne, Tim D. White, and Nicholas Toth. 2000. Brief Communication: Cutmarks on a
Plio-Pleistocene Hominid from Sterkfontein, South Africa. American Journal of Physical Anthropology
111(4):579–84.
Saladié, Palmira, Rosa Huguet, Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo, et al. 2010. Intergroup Cannibalism in the
European Early Pleistocene: The Range Expansion and Imbalance of Power Hypotheses. Journal of
Human Evolution 63(5):682–95.
Turner, Christy G., II, and Jacqueline A.Turner. 1999. Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric
American Southwest. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
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Villa, Paola, Claude Bouville, Jean Courtin, et al. 1986. Cannibalism in the Neolithic. Science
233(4762):431–37.
Watts, David P., and John C. Mitani. 2000. Infanticide and Cannibalism by Male Chimpanzees at Ngogo,
Kibale National Park, Uganda. Primates 41(4):357–65.
White, Tim D. 1986. Cut Marks on the Bodo Cranium: A Case of Prehistoric Defleshing. American
Journal of Physical Anthropology 69(4):503–9.
———. 1992. Prehistoric Cannibalism at Mancos 5MTUMR-2346. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
■ MANUEL DOMÍNGUEZ-RODRIGO
C A P I TA L I S M
See Food and Capitalism
C A R V I N G S / C A R V E D R E P R E S E N TAT I O N S O F F O O D
Whether alive or slaughtered and prepared, food is one of the first subjects ancient man
depicted in rock art or cave paintings at least 40,000 years ago. Later representations of
food are carved in stone, wood, and clay. Across many ancient cultures, gods, kings, and
mortals present or consume food on temple, palace, and tomb walls. Kings of ancient
Egypt are shown on temple walls bringing food to the gods in exchange for such intangibles as life, prosperity, power, and health. In the Ancient Near East, scenes of food
offerings to the gods appeared on ritual objects such as the famous Warka Vase from Mesopotamia (ca. 3000 BC) or on utilitarian objects such as cylinder seals rolled over clay to
seal documents. A lavish outdoor banquet carved on the wall of the palace of the Assyrian
king Ashurbanipal celebrates his triumph over the Elamite king Teumman, whose head
hangs on a tree nearby (figure 13). In Egypt, the central focus of a tomb chapel was the
deceased shown beside piles of food, particularly bread and beer, that would provide him
with nourishment eternally. Even those ancient Egyptians who could not afford lavish
burials equipped their tombs with simple stelae showing food and food preparation.
Figure 13. The Banquet Scene from the North Palace of Ashurbanipal (Room S), Nineveh,
depicts a lavish outdoor banquet as the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal celebrates his triumph over
the Elamite king Teumman. Relief. Northern Iraq. Neo-Assyrian, ca. 645 BC. Photograph © The
Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved.
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Figure 14. Detail of front-side panel of outer coffin of Djehutynakht, 2010–1961 BC. Tomb 10,
Shaft A, Deir el-Bersha, Egypt. The carved and painted cedar panel depicts foods for the
deceased in the afterlife, including cattle, fish, and fowl in various stages of processing, and a
variety of food storage vessels. Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition,
20.1822. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2014.
The coffin of the provincial governor Djehutynakht from Bersha, Egypt, is an artistic
and culinary tour de force (figure 14). Every possible item of food and drink is painted
in brilliant, impressionistic colors on the inside of his coffin so that he alone could see
them and magically consume choice victuals in the afterlife. Birds of all types, both alive
and trussed, entire cattle and parts of meat—forelegs, hearts, heads, and ribs—vegetables,
fruits, breads, and containers of beer fill every available space. Although the depictions
themselves are detailed and accurate, relative size was irrelevant to the artist, who painted
a leek larger than the depiction of Djehutynakht. A bowl of figs dwarfs the renderings
of trussed cattle and gazelle. Consuming this lavish feast for eternity was the governor’s
idea of an ideal afterlife.
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The Etruscans, the Romans, and the Chinese are among the many other ancient cultures that included depictions of banquets on tomb walls and on decorative arts.
See also Food and Ritual; Foodways and Religious Practices; Offerings and Grave
Goods; Representational Models of Food and Food Production; Rock Art
Further Reading
Freed, Rita E., Lawrence Berman, Denise Doxey, and Nicholas Picardo. 2009. The Secrets of Tomb 10A:
Egypt 2000 B.C. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts.
■ R I TA E . F R E E D
C A S S AVA
See Manioc/Cassava
Ç ATA L H Ö Y Ü K ( T U R K E Y )
Its well-preserved houses and the intensive study it has received make the site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey a treasure trove of information about Neolithic foodways during
the transition to agricultural subsistence. Dated to roughly 7300–6000 cal BC, Çatalhöyük
is not one of the first agricultural sites but rather an example of the mega-villages that
arose later in the Near Eastern Neolithic: quite large sites with populations in the thousands, but lacking evidence of central authority. Çatalhöyük has hundreds of houses but
no public buildings and no sign of significant social inequality.The site was first excavated
in the 1960s by James Mellaart and has been the focus of continuous study since 1993
by Ian Hodder and a large international and interdisciplinary team.
Çatalhöyük is a tell site: a mound created by rebuilding the close-packed mudbrick
houses on top of each other. Entrance to the dwellings was from the rooftop via ladders.
The houses generally had clay ovens and sometimes also a hearth; the roofs also had
hearths and may have served as summer kitchens. The inhabitants of Çatalhöyük grew
einkorn and emmer wheat, barley, lentils, peas, and bitter vetch, and raised sheep and goats;
in later phases, they also herded domestic cattle. They consumed substantial amounts of
wild foods, particularly nuts (acorns, almonds, pistachios), the oily and spicy seeds of several wild mustard species, aurochs (wild cattle), and wild ass. Plant remains from individual
houses, especially those that burned with their stores in place, suggest households grew
their own crops, usually one or more cereals and a pulse, but varied in which species they
chose. Stable isotope studies of the animal remains indicate that the sheep and goats were
taken to different parts of the landscape by the households or groups that herded them.
Crosscutting food practices also linked households. Feasts occurred at various scales,
with partial remains deposited in or adjacent to houses. Cattle were more often consumed
in feasting than everyday contexts and held strong symbolic value, as seen in artistic depictions and installations of horns and other body parts in the architecture. Toward the
end of the Neolithic occupation, large outdoor ovens appeared in addition to the smaller
ones in the houses, suggesting communal preparation of some foods. Food was stored by
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households, however, and none has storage facilities for much more than the household’s
annual consumption. Feasts would have been organized by soliciting contributions from
many households.
The ubiquitous ovens suggest bread baking, although the grindstones at Çatalhöyük
seem mostly to have been used for minerals. Much of the cereal supply may have been
cooked into porridge using a stone-boiling technique. Clay balls from earlier occupation
levels were likely heated in the fire or oven and dropped into baskets or hide containers
filled with food and water to make soup or gruel. In the later levels, pottery (rare earlier
and apparently absent in the very earliest levels) shows signs of use for cooking directly
over the fire. Most meat was cooked by boiling or perhaps baking while wrapped in
leaves; evidence for roasting over direct heat is rare. Fat, obtained from oily seeds and
animal bones, was highly prized and probably difficult to come by. Most animal bones
were processed to extract bone grease (which stores well) by breaking up and boiling the
bones and skimming the fat off the top. This process indicates that Çatalhöyük residents
were willing to expend substantial effort to obtain this concentrated nutrient and flavor
source. Chemical analysis of residues on pots from later levels shows use of ruminant milk.
Thus at least by this time, Çatalhöyük residents kept animals for dairy as well as meat and
fat. The milk was heated in the pots, perhaps in order to make yogurt or cheese.
While fat and probably beef, as the center of feasts, were highly prized, there are also
indications that some foods were partially or wholly taboo. Domestic cattle were adopted
during the occupation, but in common with other central Anatolian sites, Çatalhöyük did
not adopt domestic pigs when they became available, although people to the east and west
of them did. The treatment of wild boar at Çatalhöyük, underutilized given the excellent
habitat and indications that they were locally abundant from the nearby and slightly earlier
site of Boncuklu Höyük, suggests that some categories of people may have been forbidden from eating them. Only limited amounts of specific body parts were brought onto
the site. The same may also apply to deer, which show a similar pattern. Given marshy
surroundings and a nearby lake and small river, the very low levels of fish and bird remains
also may indicate taboos on these taxa. Despite the presence of bone fishhooks at the site,
the fish are all quite small (mostly under ten centimeters) and seem to have been caught
with nets or scoops in small pools left by receding floods in early summer. Concentrated
deposits of fish bones in some houses, notably in one burnt house with a large cache,
may mean that these minnows were dried for use in seasoning soups through the year.
Çatalhöyük households raised, gathered, and consumed their own food most of the
time but also joined in staging feasts that included several households or more. While
households followed a general pattern in what they raised and consumed, they pursued
variants on these themes and targeted different parts of the landscape. Cooking methods
shifted through time, and herding expanded to include domestic cattle and limited use
of dairy products. Many wild foods were eaten, but some were avoided and probably
subject to partial taboos.
See also Archaeology of Cooking; Bone Fat Extraction; Clay Cooking Balls; Commensality; Feasting; Food and Ritual; Foodways and Religious Practices; Ovens
and Stoves; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions, Taboos
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Further Reading
Atalay, Sonya, and Christine A. Hastorf. 2006. Food, Meals, and Daily Activities: Food Habitus at Neolithic Çatalhöyük. American Antiquity 71(2):283–319.
Balter, Michael. 2005. The Goddess and the Bull. New York: Free Press.
Hodder, Ian. 2006. The Leopard’s Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Çatalhöyük. London: Thames & Hudson.
Mellaart, James. 1967. Çatal Hüyük: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia. London: Thames & Hudson.
Russell, Nerissa, and Amy Bogaard. 2010. Subsistence Actions at Çatalhöyük. In Agency and Identity
in the Ancient Near East: New Paths Forward, edited by Sharon R. Steadman and Jennifer C. Ross,
63–79. London: Equinox.
■ NERISSA RUSSELL
C AT T L E
Domestication has established a complex relationship between man and animals. Cattle
have held a place of particular importance in many human societies. As a food resource
or as beasts of burden, domesticated cattle have significantly impacted prehistoric human
subsistence economies. They also have been valued as possessions and have been the object of worship in many societies.
Using a variety of scientific tools and techniques, including archaeology, zooarchaeology, paleoanthropology, paleogenetics, and biogeochemistry, it is now possible to
reconstruct the process of cattle (Bos taurus) domestication. This took place in the Near
East 11,000 years ago, somewhere between the Levant, central Anatolia, and western Iran.
According to paleogenetic data, this happened in a restricted area, and the process was
constrained by the difficulty of sustained management and breeding of the aurochs (Bos
primigenius), the wild progenitors of domestic cattle. The short- and long-term effects of
domestication, as seen in the archaeological record, are changes in the structure of the
herd and the ratio of males to females; the decrease of sexual dimorphism; the reduction
of the size of the skull, the horncores, and the wither height; and the modification of the
proportion of bones or body parts.
Zooarchaeologists have observed the first signs of cattle domestication in faunal remains from the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic, dated 11,000 ago, at the site of Dja’de (Syria)
in the middle Euphrates Valley. Spreading westward, domestic cattle reached central Europe 6,500 year ago with migrating herders. The earliest evidence of animal husbandry
for the purpose of dairy production lies outside the Fertile Crescent and dates back to
8,500 years ago in northwest Anatolia. Archaeologists continue to debate whether cattle
were domesticated for their meat or milk. Recent genetic research indicates that the first
herders of the Middle East exploited milk to produce fermented dairy products (yogurt,
cheese, ghee), allowing for consumption of milk-based foods among populations with
lactose intolerance. Later on, a genetic mutation or mutations in humans led to lactase
persistence in herding populations. The use of processed milk in central Europe was
recently discovered through the analysis of organic residues preserved in 7,000-year-old
ceramic pots found in central Poland. Contemporaneous evidence from the Parisian Basin
based on zooarchaeology and stable isotope analyses suggests deliberate early weaning of
cattle by Neolithic herders for the purpose of milk production for human consumption.
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See also Animal Domestication; Biomolecular Analysis; Butchery; Lactase Persistence and Dairying; Meat; Milk and Dairy Products; Residue Analysis, Dairy
Products; Secondary Products Revolution; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Balasse, Marie, and Anne Tresset. 2002. Early Weaning of Neolithic Domestic Cattle (Bercy, France)
Revealed by Intra-Tooth Variation in Nitrogen Isotope Ratios. Journal of Archaeological Science
29(8):853–59.
Bollongino, Ruth, Joachim Burger, Adam Powell, et al. 2012. Modern Taurine Cattle Descended from
Small Number of Near-Eastern Founders. Molecular Biology and Evolution 29(9):2101–4.
Edwards, Ceiridwin J., Ruth Bollongino, Amelie Scheu, et al. 2007. Mitochondrial DNA Analysis Shows
a Near Eastern Neolithic Origin for Domestic Cattle and No Indication of Domestication of European Aurochs. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 274(1616):1377–85. doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.0020.
Helmer, Daniel, Lionel Gourichon, Hervé Monchot, et al. 2005. Identifying Early Domestic Cattle
from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Sites on the Middle Euphrates Using Sexual Dimorphism. In The
First Steps of Animal Domestication: New Archaeological Techniques, edited by J.-D. Vigne, J. Peters, and
D. Helmer, 86–94. Proceedings of the 9th International Council of Archaeozoology Conference,
Durham, 2002. Oxford: Oxbow.
McCormick, Finbar. 2012. Cows, Milk and Religion: The Use of Dairy Produce in Early Societies.
Anthropozoologica 47(2):101–13.
Salque, Mélanie, Peter I. Bogucki, Joanna Pyzel, et al. 2013. Earliest Evidence for Cheese Making in the
Sixth Millennium BC in Northern Europe. Nature 493(7433):522–25.
Tresset, Anne, Ruth Bollongino, Ceiridwen Edwards, et al. 2009. Early Diffusion of Domestic Bovids
in Europe: An Indicator for Human Contacts, Exchanges and Migrations? In Becoming Eloquent:
Advances in the Emergence of Language, Human Cognition, and Modern Cultures, edited by Francesco
d’Errico and Jean-Marie Hombert, 69–90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Vigne, Jean-Denis. 2008. Zooarchaeological Aspects of the Neolithic Diet Transition in the Near East
and Europe, and Their Putative Relationships with the Neolithic Demographic Transition. In The
Neolithic Demographic Transition and Its Consequences, edited by Jean-Pierre Bocquet-Appel and Ofer
Bar-Yosef, 179–205. New York: Springer.
■ M A R JA N M AS H KO U R
C AV E A R T
See Rock Art
C AV E S
See Rockshelters/Caves
CEMETERIES
See Mortuary Complexes; Offerings and Grave Goods; Subeixi Cemeteries
CEREALS
The term cereals refers to grasses cultivated for the production of grain. Today three
cereals, maize, rice, and wheat, dominate grain production and account for over half
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the energy consumed by humans. Cereals are members of the grass family (Poaceae)
and share aspects of morphology and physiology that explain their role as staple foods
in past and present societies.
The vegetative part of the grass plant consists of stems (culms) and leaves, together
termed the straw and itself valuable as animal feed and building material. The ear is
borne on flowering stems and is made up of grains enclosed by husks (glumes, lemmas,
and paleas) that protect the grain. Each ear is composed of spikelets borne on a rachis
(like wheat) or on inflorescence (flowering) branches and pedicels (like rice); each
spikelet is usually enclosed by two glumes, which can be small (as in teff) or papery
(as in oats) or can be toughened, as in hulled wheats such as emmer and spelt. The
glumes are at the base of the spikelet and enclose one or more florets, each comprising
a larger lemma and a smaller palea enclosing the flower. Fertile florets will contain a
grain; in some species the lemma and palea are bonded to the grain, as in hulled barley,
but more often they are either papery and relatively loose, as in bread wheat, or form
toughened cases enclosing the grain, as with millets and rice. Cereal chaff—the husks
and rachises—is removed by crop processing, such as winnowing and sieving, before
consumption of the grain.
The grain (caryopsis) is made up of three main components: starchy, white endosperm;
the bran (layers of aleurone layer, seed coat, and fruit coat) that covers the grain; and germ
(the scutellum and embryonic axis from which root and shoot develop on germination).
The dry, starchy nature of grains, and their protection both by bran and by outer husks,
mean that they can be easily stored and are easily portable. Human digestion of raw grains
is hindered by the semicrystalline nature of starch granules, so the starch is usually treated
before human consumption, either by heating in a moist environment (e.g., as gruel or
as bread) or by malting.
All cultivated cereals are annual plants, usually derived from annual wild ancestors.
Although most grass species are perennial, very few of these were domesticated for grain,
probably because they were poorly adapted to early agricultural fields. An exception is
domesticated rice (Oryza sativa), which has a predominantly perennial wild ancestor, O.
rufipogon. Grasses use one of two methods of photosynthesis: C3 in cooler regions and C4
in warmer; the importance of this to archaeology is that consumption of C4 plants such
as maize and some millets can be detected by isotopic analysis of bones.
There are about 12,000 species of grass, about 40 of which are cultivated as cereals.
These can conveniently be considered by tribe and subfamily, as grass genera within
the same group exhibit strong similarities. The tribe Hordeae (previously Triticeae)
in the subfamily Pooideae accounts for the main cereals originating in the Near East
and Europe: wheat (Triticum), barley (Hordeum), and rye (Secale). These cereals share
a narrow-shaped ear (spike) and grains rich in gluten, meaning that many species
are suitable for bread making. The closely related tribe Poeae, also in the subfamily
Pooideae, includes oats (Avena). All four genera have a C3 metabolism and are adapted
to temperate climates.
The subfamilies Panicoideae and Chloridoideae offer the greatest diversity of tropical
grasses. All Sacchareae (formerly Andropogoneae, subfamily Panicoideae) species have C4
metabolism; this tribe includes maize (Zea mays), which originated in Mexico, sorghum
(Sorghum bicolor), from sub-Saharan Africa, and adlay (Coix lacryma-jobi var. ma-yuen), a
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minor cereal from India. The subfamily Chloridoideae (likewise all C4) includes finger
millet (Eleusine coracana) from sub-Saharan Africa and teff (Eragrostis tef) from Ethiopia.
The subfamily Ehrhartoideae (all C3) includes Asian rice (Oryza sativa), African rice (O.
glaberrima), and North American wild rice (Zizania palustris), the latter still mainly harvested wild. The tribe containing the largest number of species is the Paniceae, which
contains both C3 and C4 species. Important species include pearl millet (Pennisetum
glaucum), from sub-Saharan Africa, and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail
millet (Setaria italica), from Asia. This tribe includes a wide range of local millet species in
Asia, in the genera Digitaria, Echinochloa, Panicum, Setaria, and Brachiaria.
The wild ancestors of most major cereals have been identified and DNA fingerprinting of crops and their wild ancestors has narrowed down the area of origin. The location
and timing of domestication of African cereals, and of minor cereals elsewhere, remains
obscure, however. In general, current-day populations of cereals seem to derive from one
or few domestication events. The changes to the plant that occur during domestication
are known collectively as the domestication syndrome and are the result of both conscious
and unconscious selection for these traits by early farmers. For cereals, these changes usually include larger grains, nonshattering ears, and loss of germination inhibition; the first
two can be tracked in the archaeological record.
The early stages of domestication are likely to have been the result of unconscious
selection, for example, through sickle harvesting, which selects for nonshattering ears,
rather than through conscious selection of rare mutant forms in wild populations. Increase in grain size may have occurred through deliberate selection of larger grains or
spikelets (by sieving) for sowing. Although most changes associated with domestication
are controlled by a small number of genes, archaeobotanical evidence for domestication
points to protracted domestication events. Archaeobotanical evidence of chaff shows that
surprisingly high proportions of shattering ears are present in what otherwise appears
to be fully domesticated wheat and barley at the end of the Neolithic in the Near East,
and a similar pattern is visible for rice in China. Different elements of the domestication
syndrome were likely added at different times; for example, at Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites
in the Near East, such as Jerf el Ahmar in Syria, there is evidence of increase in barley
grain size prior to the appearance of nonshattering ears.
Cereal remains are prominent in the archaeobotanical record, reflecting both the importance of diverse cereals in past economies and the fact that cereal processing generates
large quantities of byproducts. For example, chaff and grain may be fed to animals and
thus be charred when dung is burnt as fuel; straw also may be used as fuel. Grains are
heavy and dense and will char well if they fall into ashes during food preparation. Cereals
are also visible as microremains, in the form of starch adhering to tools such as grinding
stones, or phytoliths from husks, found in food processing areas. Cereals may therefore be
overrepresented compared to other classes of foodstuff.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Agriculture, Procurement, Processing, and Storage; Archaeobotany; Barley; Cultivation; DNA Analysis; Maize; Millets; Phytolith
Analysis; Plant Domestication; Plants; Residue Analysis, Starch; Rice; Rye; Sorghum; Wheat; Wild Progenitors of Domesticated Plants
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Further Reading
Black, Michael, J. Derek Bewley, and Peter Halmer, eds. 2006. The Encyclopedia of Seeds: Science,Technology
and Uses. Wallingford, UK: CABI.
Fuller, Dorian Q. 2007. Contrasting Patterns in Crop Domestication and Domestication Rates: Recent
Archaeobotanical Insights from the Old World. Annals of Botany 100(5):903–24.
Nesbitt, Mark. 2005. Grains. In The Cultural History of Plants, edited by Ghillean Prance and Mark
Nesbitt, 45–60. New York: Routledge.
■ MARK NESBITT
CERÉN
See Joya de Cerén
CHICHA
Chicha refers today to a broad range of drinks, both fermented and unfermented, consumed in Latin America. Archaeological studies have focused on beverages in the Andes
(and to a lesser extent, the Amazon), where the term chicha was introduced by the Spanish. There is archaeobotanical evidence for chicha made from maize, the fruit of Schinus
molle, and algarrobo (Prosopis sp.) pods. Maize beer is the most common form described
in written accounts of the pre- and postconquest Andes, and it continues to be popular
today. A variety of maize landraces can and have been used to make chicha. Other Andean
and Amazonian cultigens and wild plants used to make chicha include but are not limited
to quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), kañiwa (Chenopodium pallidicaule), peanut, manioc, palm
fruit, potato, oca (Oxalis tuberosa), and chañar (Geoffroea decorticans). Different varieties may
have had different uses and meanings.
Maize beer was an everyday drink produced and consumed by commoner and elite
households across the Andes; it was also brewed for feasts of all kinds, imbibed as medicine, and was essential for sacrifices and other ritual practices. While maize beer can spoil
quickly and is most often served immediately, there are also historical and ethnographic
descriptions of maize chicha that was sealed in jars and buried for aging. In the Inca Empire, maize beer was brewed in vast quantities for the state by aqlla, women selected from
conquered polities and relocated to imperial centers where they made textiles and brewed
beer. Chicha was provided to workers fulfilling their labor tribute obligations and flowed
generously at state ceremonies held in Cuzco and provincial administrative centers, gestures of official hospitality meant to mask demands for labor and resources. Similar uses
of beer for political purposes are described for other Andean polities and likely predate
the Inca. Rich ethnohistorical descriptions of chicha’s religious significance and qualities
indicate that maize beer, beer-filled vessels, or byproducts (the lees) were seen as animate
and powerful. It should be noted that the range of pre-Hispanic chicha practices (and
ingredients) was likely much more diverse than represented in historical accounts and
ethnographic observations.
Archaeological evidence comes from iconography (scenes of brewing or serving
chicha) and artifacts, facilities, and features related to brewing, serving, and drinking. The
maize beer brewing process includes malting the grain (or chewing to add saliva enzymes
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CHICKEN
that convert starch to sugar), cooking and cooling, and fermentation. It may also include
milling the grain, sieving (coarse or fine particles), and the addition of ingredients other
than maize. Specific vessel forms may have been dedicated to different brewing steps,
serving, and drinking, but some forms may have had multiple uses, including uses unrelated to chicha production and consumption. Botanical evidence includes malted maize,
deposits of spent grain or other plant byproducts (e.g., fruit seeds), and starch or phytoliths from maize or other plants used to make chicha. Yeast has also been documented in
inferred brewing vessels. Bone isotopic evidence for increased maize consumption may
indicate increased chicha drinking (e.g., as compensation for labor). Sites where multiple lines of evidence for brewing have been documented include (in Peru) Cerro Baúl
(where an abundance of Schinus molle seeds indicates molle chicha or a molle/maize blend),
Huánuco Pampa, Marayniyoq, Cerro Azul, Manchan, San José de Moro, Cajamarquilla,
Moche, Pampa Grande, and (in Argentina) Juella. Evidence for chicha drinking, based on
the presence of distinctive drinking or serving vessels (usually of pottery but also of metal
or made from gourds), has been found at many sites in different contexts throughout the
Andes, though surprisingly few of these vessels have been analyzed for residues. More
residue and botanical studies, increased ethnoarchaeological and experimental work, and
recognition of diversity in pre-Hispanic brewing and drinking practices will improve our
understanding of the many roles of chicha in the past.
See also Beer; Breweries; Brewing/Malting; Commensality; Conchopata; Ethnoarchaeology; Ethnographic Sources; Experimental Archaeology; Feasting;
Fermentation; Food and Politics; Food and Power; Food and Ritual; Foodways
and Gender Roles
Further Reading
Jennings, Justin, and Brenda J. Bowser, eds. 2009. Drink, Power, and Society in the Andes. Gainesville:
University of Florida Press.
León, Rafo, ed. 2008. Chicha peruana una bebida una cultura. Lima: Universidad de San Martín de Porres.
Morris, Craig. 1975. Maize Beer in the Economics, Politics, and Religion of the Inca Empire. In Fermented Food Beverages in Nutrition, edited by Clifford F. Gastineau, William J. Darby, and Thomas B.
Turner, 21–34. New York: Academic Press.
■ F R A N C E S M . H AYA S H I D A
CHICKEN
The domestic fowl offers nutrition from meat and eggs and can be kept in a semiferal
scavenging state requiring little human investment. These traits led to its predominance
as a global food source. Chicken bones found in the archaeological record show evidence
of butchery and cooking but have also been used to make a variety of other objects,
including needles, whistles, and beads. Chickens are also associated with sacrifice and
divination around the world.
Chickens were domesticated in Southeast Asia from wild Junglefowl (Gallus sp.) and
are considered oligocentric, or independently domesticated in multiple regions. Evidence
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99
suggests that the Red Junglefowl was the only ancestral species, making chickens monophyletic. Others have suggested chickens may be polyphyletic, having multiple ancestors.
Other potential progenitors include other Gallus species: Gray (Gallus sonneratti), Green
(G. varius), and perhaps Ceylonese Junglefowl (G. lafayetti).
The earliest domestic chicken remains are 7,000 and 8,000 years old and were recovered from the sites of Chishan and Peiligan in China. In India, domestic chickens are
associated with agriculturalists living around 4,500 years ago at the sites of Harappa and
Mohenjodaro. Chickens were transported east, outside of their natural range, 5,000 years
ago as exotic prestige goods. Domestic fowl were not broadly incorporated into Mediterranean or African culture until the seventh century BC when the Greeks were regularly
using and transporting them. The chicken was a standard-issue ration for Roman legions
and was essential for its use in augury (divination or reading of omens from the behavior
or remains of birds), leading to its dispersal around Europe in the first millennium AD.
Chickens were transported west through the islands of Southeast Asia and into the
islands of the Pacific before 3,500 BP. The voyages of Polynesians likely led to the first,
albeit limited, introduction of chickens to South America, but most New World chicken
lineages were introduced from a variety of global ports of trade and exchange, including
China, India, Europe, Africa, and the Pacific Islands after AD 1500.
See also Animal Domestication; Butchery; Meat; Old World Globalization and
Food Exchanges; Pacific Oceanic Exchange; Trade Routes; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Crawford, Roy D. 1984. Domestic Fowl. In Evolution of Domesticated Animals, edited by Ian L. Mason,
298–311. London: Longman.
Serjeantson, Dale. 2009. Birds. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
■ A L I C E STO R E Y
CHILI PEPPERS
Chili peppers are the fruits of neotropical plants that are classified within the genus Capsicum. At least five different species of chili peppers were brought into cultivation and
were domesticated eventually by the indigenous peoples of the neotropics. These species
include Capsicum annuum, Capsicum baccatum, Capsicum chinense, Capsicum frutescens, and
Capsicum pubescens.
While the genus Capsicum is known to have arisen in Bolivia, the regions in which
each species was domesticated are subject to debate. Various lines of evidence, including
archaeological data, phytogeography, and genetic analyses, have led researchers to suggest that C. annuum was initially domesticated in Mexico or northern Central America,
C. frutescens in the Caribbean, C. baccatum in lowland Bolivia, C. chinense in northern
lowland Amazonia, and C. pubescens in the mid-elevation southern Andes.
The archaeobotanical remains of peppers are recovered as large fragments, entire fruits,
or seeds (macroremains), or as microscopic residues that include starch grains from the
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C L AY C O O K I N G B A L L S
pericarp or fruit wall (microremains). Macroremains of chili peppers recovered from the
arid Coxcatlán Cave in the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico document the only sequence of
domestication, with wild chili harvesting begun about 8,000 years ago, followed by the
cultivation and eventual domestication of C. annuum by about 6,000 BP.
The earliest microremains of chili peppers were recovered from sites in Ecuador and
are derived from chili peppers that were already domesticated by 6,000 BP. Remains
of chili peppers have also been recovered from New World archaeological sites ranging
temporally from about 8,000 BP to European contact, and geographically from what is
today northern Mexico to the Caribbean and coastal South America.
See also Archaeobotany; Condiments; Phytolith Analysis; Plant Domestication;
Residue Analysis, Starch; Tehuacán Valley
Further Reading
Eshbaugh, W. Hardy. 1993. History and Exploitation of a Serendipitous New Crop Discovery. In New
Crops, edited by Jules Janick and James E. Simon, 132–39. New York: Wiley.
Perry, Linda, Ruth Dickau, Sonia Zarrillo, et al. 2007. Starch Fossils and the Domestication and Dispersal
of Chili Peppers (Capsicum spp. L.) in the Americas. Science 315(5814):986–88.
Pickersgill, Barbara. 1984. Migrations of Chili Peppers, Capsicum Spp., in the Americas. In Pre-Columbian
Plant Migration, edited by Doris Stone, 105–23. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
Ethnology 76. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum Press.
■ LINDA PERRY
C H O C O L AT E
See Cacao/Chocolate
C H R O M AT O G R A P H Y
See Gas Chromatography/Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry; High Performance Liquid Chromatography
C L AY C O O K I N G B A L L S
Clay cooking balls served the same range of culinary practices as cook stones, including
steaming or baking in earth ovens and hearths or boiling in the pot. They have been
described at the Late Archaic site of Poverty Point, Louisiana, the Neolithic village
of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, and a variety of sites in the Puuc Maya region (figure 15).
Clay balls are common artifacts that suffer from a lack of analytical attention, and their
culinary functions may be even more widespread; they are most often categorized as
slingshot ammunition. The residents of these particular settlements employed clay balls
instead of stone for cooking because of the greater availability of clay resources and
perhaps also because of cultural preferences. Like cook stones, fired clay balls are capable
of retaining heat, sparing fuel, and generating steam or boiling water. The documented
examples of clay cooking balls share similar attributes: size (three to six centimeters
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C L AY C O O K I N G B A L L S
Figure 15. Examples of fired clay cooking balls recovered from a
kitchen at Escalera al Cielo, a Terminal Classic period (AD 800–
950) Puuc Maya site located in Yucatán, Mexico. Photograph by
Stephanie R. Simms.
in diameter), shape (most are spherical or flattened spheres), expedient use of available
clay and temper raw materials, evidence of heating, roughened or decorated surfaces
to increase heat diffusion and permit easier manipulation with sticks or tongs, and repeated use of broken or cracked balls. Archaeological context—inside ovens, hearths,
and associated with kitchens—is the most compelling piece of evidence for clay balls
as a culinary implement. Other analytical methods that have been used to identify clay
cooking balls include a variety of macroscopic observations, experimental archaeology,
compositional analyses such as ceramic petrography, analysis of microbotanical and
chemical residues from foods and fuel, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy
(a molecular technique that can be used to measure firing temperatures based on the
heat-related transformations of common clay minerals).
See also Çatalhöyük; Fire and the Development of Cooking Technology; Fire-Based
Cooking Features; Infrared Spectroscopy/Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy; Residue Analysis, Starch
Further Reading
Atalay, Sonya L. 2005. Domesticating Clay: The Role of Clay Balls, Mini Balls, and Geometric Objects
in Daily Life at Çatalhöyük. In Changing Materialities at Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 1995–1999
Seasons, Çatalhöyük Project, Vol. 5, edited by Ian Hodder, 221–84. Cambridge: McDonald Institute
Monographs/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.
Simms, Stephanie R., Francesco Berna, and George J. Bey III. 2013. A Prehispanic Maya Pit Oven?
Microanalysis of Fired Clay Balls from the Puuc Region, Yucatán, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological
Science 40(2):1144–57.
■ STEPHANIE R. SIMMS
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COCA
COCA
The genus Erythroxylum is characterized by 250 species of coca that are distributed from
Mexico and parts of the Caribbean to northwest Argentina. The production and consumption of coca and its leaves has been a significant part of indigenous Andean lifeways
for several thousand years, generating nutritional, medicinal, and digestive properties.
Both ethnohistorical and ethnographic sources indicate that coca leaves were chewed
with a small portion of lime to extract these properties. Leaves also were placed as grave
offerings and used during rituals. One species in particular, Erythroxylum novogranatense
var. truxillense, is the most common type recovered in the archaeological record of the
Americas, as evidenced by the macroremains of leaves. It is cultivated in semitropical to
tropical areas on the lower western slopes of the Andes in northern Peru. This species is
resistant to drought and grows in arid conditions, but it requires irrigation. Its primary
habitat is the semitropical to tropical zone situated at 200 to 1,200 meters in elevation.
The remains of coca leaves are found infrequently in archaeological sites of the Andes.
The earliest known evidence of anthropogenic use is the presence of masticated leaves (E.
novogranatense var. truxillense) preserved in the house floors of Middle Holocene foragers
and cultivators in the Ñanchoc Valley in the northern Peruvian Andes. Two radiocarbon
dates on the leaves indicate that coca chewing in the valley began at least 7,000 years ago.
The archaeological record also shows evidence for heating calcium-bearing limestone to
produce lime as an alkali used to extract alkaloids from the leaves. There is evidence to
show that, at least by 3,500 BP, many coast and highland inhabitants of the Andes were
consuming coca leaves. Coca also was heavily exploited during the Inca and later Spanish
colonial periods. It was used as a stimulant to decrease fatigue, hunger, and thirst and as a
medicine and digestive. Coca leaves also were a symbol of social status and ethnic identity
and an offering at oracles and rituals.
Since the 16th century when the Spanish first recorded coca use, the plant has been
controversial, especially in modern times for its association with cocaine, which is extracted from the coca leaf. Cocaine production and the social, economic, and psychological effects of its use have been well documented. Although cocaine is one of several
alkaloids of the coca leaf, there is no evidence to suggest that it was ever extracted in
Pre-Columbian times.
See also Food and Identity; Food and Ritual; Ñanchoc Valley; Offerings and Grave
Goods; Psychoactive Plants; Quids
Further Reading
Dillehay, Tom D., Jack Rossen, Donald Ugent, et al. 2010. Early Holocene Coca Chewing in Northern
Peru. Antiquity 84(326):939–53.
Duke, James A., David Aulik, and Timothy Plowman. 1975. Nutritional Value of Coca. Botanical Museum
Leaflets, Harvard University 24(6):113–19.
Plowman, Timothy, and Nancy Hensold. 2004. Names, Types, and Distribution of Neotropical Species
of Erythroxylum (Erythroxylaceae). Brittonia 56(1):1–53.
■ T H O M A S D . D I L L E H AY
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COFFEE
One of the world’s most consumed beverages, coffee attained widespread popularity in
just a few centuries; its diffusion reflects increased globalization and social change associated with its use, including changing religious beliefs and bridged social barriers. Archaeological, textual, and material evidence reveals coffee’s diffusion throughout the Middle
East starting in the 15th century, its introduction to Europe in the 17th century, and its
increasingly global impact by the 18th century. The institution of the coffeehouse expressed societal restrictions based on gender and class, as well as professional and political
affiliation. Nonetheless, the coffeehouse provided a zone of interaction between society
and the state, allowing for an emerging, caffeine-fueled, genteel culture that engaged in
conversation and debate.
Coffee itself has left little trace in the archaeological record. Therefore, available evidence comes primarily from the objects used during the preparation and serving of the
beverage. The material culture of coffee, during its early expansion, includes earthenware
and metal coffee bean roasters, coffee mills, metal coffee broilers, and small cups for
drinking (figure 16). These serving cups, made of either earthenware or porcelain, are
the most widely recovered artifacts associated with coffee consumption and have been
found at sites along trade routes, including shipwrecks in the Red Sea; at port and urban
sites; at ceramic production centers; in citadels; along roads taken by pilgrims during hajj;
and at house sites. Chinese blue-and-white porcelain from Jingdezhen set the trend for
luxury ceramics, leading local workshops to fabricate imitations, such as Kütahya wares
from Turkey, before the eventual dominance of European styles and products, for example,
Delftware from the Netherlands. The artifacts associated with coffee consumption, especially ceramics, have been widely researched by art historians, providing a growing corpus
of regional reference material that can aid in the analysis of archaeological evidence.
Figure 16. Ottoman-era coffee cups from the site of Hanot Taggarim, Israel. Coffee was
consumed from small cups (finjan) like these (Brosh 2002). Photographs by Clara Amit.
Courtesy of Israel Antiquities Authority.
See also Food and Dining as Social Display; Food as a Commodity; Globalization;
Material Culture Analysis; Trade Routes
Further Reading
Brosh, Na’ama. 2002. Coffee Culture. Jerusalem: Israel Museum.
Cowan, Brian. 2005. The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
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CO LU M B I A N E XC H A N G E
Milwright, Marcus. 2010. An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Watson, Oliver. 2004. Ceramics from Islamic Lands. New York: Thames & Hudson.
■ AIMEE C. BOUZIGARD
COLONIALISM
See Food and Colonialism
CO LU M B I A N E XC H A N G E
The Columbian Exchange was a term coined by the historian Alfred Crosby (1972) to
describe the direct transfer and indirect movement of numerous species of plants, animals,
insects, diseases, and other biota, along with humans and a slew of different technologies,
ideas, and tradecraft, between the Old and New Worlds. This phenomenon began shortly
after Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas in 1492 and had profound
effects on the lives of people on both sides of the Atlantic. The seemingly innocuous introduction of biological organisms did allow important new foods to become ingrained
within human societies across the farthest reaches of the globe. This exchange also had
devastating ecological effects, however, largely as a consequence of the introduction of
many new species that outcompeted native flora and fauna and became part of new
agrarian production systems. Epidemic diseases also took a devastating toll on native
groups with no natural immunities. This caused death on a massive scale and a concomitant breakdown in the social order of native communities across the Americas. Over
time, the Spanish desire for precious metals, particularly gold and silver, and a need to
subjugate Amerindians—whom they subsequently enslaved, converted to Catholicism, or
indiscriminately killed—ultimately led to widespread depopulation and provided a much
easier path for European control over the New World from many other foreign powers,
including the Portuguese, French, British, and Dutch, all of whom were vying for power
and control of the lucrative wealth that the New World had to offer.
1492: The Beginning
The Caribbean bore the full brunt of European colonization and expansionism when
Columbus landed in the Bahamas in 1492. During this and three subsequent voyages,
Columbus’s ships transported Old World plants and animals with which they were most
familiar to serve as provisions on the transatlantic journey and to provide stock for settlers.
It was during Columbus’s second voyage, comprising 17 ships and 1,200 men, that European horticultural activities became firmly entrenched in the New World. During this trip,
they brought with them seeds and cuttings of melons, olives (Olea europaea), onions (Allium
cepa), chickpeas (Cicer arietinum), wheat (Triticum spp.), salad greens (e.g., Brassica oleracea),
sugarcane (Saccharum sp.), radishes (Raphanus sativus), grape vines (Vitis vinifera), and various
fruits. Other familiar plants came later, including almond (Prunus dulcis), barley (Hordeum
vulgare L.), carrot (Daucus carota), clove (Syzygium aromaticum), figs (Ficus carica), and mango
(Mangifera spp.). Many of these plants did extremely well in the tropical climate of the West
Indies, though others such as wheat, olives, and grape vines failed miserably. As a result,
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Europeans were robbed of their most comforting of foods: bread, olive oil, and wine. Many
crops flourished in smaller gardens, however, including cabbages, radishes, cauliflowers,
melons, and lettuce, as did fruits like lemons (Citrus limon), pomegranates (Punica granatum),
oranges (Citrus sinensis), citrons, and figs. In addition, bananas (Musa sp.), brought from the
Canary Islands in 1516, as well as other major cash crops (e.g., sugarcane, cotton, and coffee
[e.g., Coffea arabica]), led to a massive transformation of the landscape as the Spanish cleared
land of native habitat and planted profitable cultigens.
Sugar, in particular, became one of the most important cash crops in the New World.
The Portuguese had already begun to cultivate and process sugar on their island possessions of São Tomé and Madeira off the coast of Africa, and by the early 1500s, they were
growing it in Brazil using hundreds of windmills and producing tens of thousands of
tons of sugar for export to Europe. The popularity of sugar and its derivatives, including
molasses and rum, in Europe led the English, French, and Dutch to also stake their claim
to islands and other territories in the New World, resulting in a great many skirmishes
between the various European powers as well as native Caribbean Amerindians.That only
a single island in the Caribbean, Barbados, never changed hands between colonial powers
is a strong testament to the nearly continuous conflicts that took place over a period of
centuries.While sugar and other commodities such as tobacco, coffee, and cotton became
integral to the economic engines of these colonial powers, there was still a dire need to
grow mostly nonluxury products for subsistence.
For the Spanish, this meant wheat, wine, and olives. Wherever the climate was conducive for their cultivation, these staples were grown. Wheat did so well in temperate parts
of Mexico, for example, that it was eventually exported to the Antilles beginning in 1535.
In addition, wine was a major staple of the Castilian diet, but grape vines did not grow
well in the Antilles or Mexico. In the early 1550s, however, vineyards were established in
Peru, and a century later production was great enough to allow for surplus wine to be
exported. Olive trees were comparatively late, with the first ones not planted until 1560
along the Pacific coast of South America, largely because of the difficulty in keeping
seedlings alive on the long journey from Europe.
As agricultural production increased in the 1500s, less familiar but equally widespread
plants were brought over both purposefully and inadvertently as spores, pollen, and seeds
attached themselves to ships and their cargo. Many of the grasses and weeds commonly
seen throughout the Americas today—dandelions, daisies, Kentucky bluegrass, and tumbleweeds (Salsola spp.), for example—are Old World in origin. The fact that millions of
square acres of land in the United States contain very few, if any, native New World plants
is a testament to how quickly Old World species proliferated.
Native Amerindians also quickly became familiar with dozens of new animal species,
including horses, cattle, pigs, and goats.There was a stark contrast between the numbers of
domesticated varieties seen in the Old World versus the New World. In the New World,
only two camelids (Camelidae) (the llama and alpaca), the dog (Canis familiaris), the guinea
pig (Cavia porcellus), the Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata), and the turkey (Meleagris spp.)
were domesticated. None of these were used for transportation, with the exception of
dogs and camelids that served as pack animals. It is an astonishing feat of human endurance and ingenuity that all movement in the New World prior to European contact was
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on foot, and that large-scale agriculture of native crops such as potatoes, manioc, and
maize was all accomplished without the use of draft animals.
In comparison, domesticated animals were plentiful in the Old World, and it was not
long before horses (Equus ferus), cattle (Bos spp.), sheep (Ovis aries), goats (Capra aegagrus), and
pigs (Sus scrofa), as well as new species of rats and chickens (Gallus gallus) (though the latter
may already have been introduced earlier to South America by Polynesians), became a major
part of New World transportation and food production. In addition, the lack of many natural predators, the prevalence of vegetation for fodder (both native and introduced), a dearth
of diseases, and the rapid decline in Amerindian populations led to an explosion of Old
World animals that began to cause irreversible and extensive damage to local environments.
Of these animals, pigs and cattle adapted most quickly. Pigs, in particular, took up
little space on ships and were so extremely self-sufficient that they were often dropped
off on islands to help resupply Spanish ships. Their numbers grew so quickly that many
Spanish accounts reported tens of thousands of these animals were roaming wild across
Cuba and other islands. Pigs thus served as a major food source for explorers venturing
into previously uncolonized territories and for sailors who had become shipwrecked.
When De Soto ventured to Florida in 1539, he brought with him 13 pigs that multiplied
to 700 only a few years later.
Horses, on the other hand, were much more difficult to transport across the Atlantic
and did not reproduce as quickly, though their numbers did reach the point where herds
were soon running wild across the plains of Española (now Haiti and the Dominican
Republic). Though the horse was actually native to the Americas, it had died out after
the Last Glacial Maximum thousands of years ago and only later reintroduced by Columbus in 1493. The horse was not only extremely useful as a draft animal but provided for
the Spanish much needed transportation and allowed them to move people, freight, and
information quickly and efficiently. Notably, the horse was also larger than any animal
Native Americans had seen before, and given its speed, strength, and agility, as well as its
obedience to humans, the horse contributed to the successful conquest of native groups
who were terrified into submission by mounted Spaniards.
The introduction of new plant and animal species into the New World by Europeans
was in itself destructive on an unimaginable scale. The quick establishment of an agrarian
economy in the Caribbean and elsewhere, coupled with the introduction of communicable diseases that ravaged native Amerindian populations, laid the framework for the
Spanish conquest in many other areas in the Americas and magnified the consequences
of these encounters for native peoples. As Cortes, Pizzarro, and other conquistadors laid
an assault on Mexico, western South America, and the southeastern United States, they
carried with them the same pathogens that had ravaged the Caribbean. Diseases such as
smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, influenza, leprosy, typhoid, bubonic plague, and yellow
fever, among many others, enacted a terrible toll on Native Americans. Their numbers
quickly dwindled, aided of course by the horse.
F r o m t h e N e w Wo r l d t o t h e O l d
While the number of domesticated species in the New World was fewer compared to the
Old World (on a scale of five to one in terms of plants alone), there were some that began
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to radically change the diets and cuisine of peoples across Europe and Asia. Of these, maize
(Zea mays), manioc (Manihot esculenta), potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), sweet potatoes (Ipomoea
batatas), and numerous bean species have become the most widely cultivated, though others
are equally, if not more, important.These included squashes (Cucurbita spp.), avocado (Persea
americana), guava (Psidium spp.), tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), pineapple (Ananas comosus),
chili peppers (Capsicum spp.), cacao (Theobroma cacao), and dozens of others.
Maize was arguably the most important cultigen to native populations. First domesticated thousands of years ago in parts of central Mexico, different varieties spread out
across the Americas before European contact. Today, its importance to feeding humans
and animals cannot be overstated. Maize grows well in a variety of climates, has a high
yield per hectare (nearly double that of wheat), matures fairly quickly, and provides a
concentrated package of carbohydrates, sugars, and fat.
Potatoes, native to the Andean highlands, are more restricted in terms of the climate in
which they can grow but nonetheless have become a major world staple. Potatoes (both
white and sweet varieties) can produce more calories per unit of land than wheat, maize,
or other cereals. They are also easy to grow in temperate zones, even at higher elevations,
and can thrive in soils that are not as nutrient rich as those required for many other plants.
There are more than 1,000 species of beans worldwide, but many of the species most
commonly eaten today originate from the Americas. These include a number of species
whose names often belie their origin: navy, lima, sieva, Madagascar, Rangoon, French,
string, snap, and frijole, along with many others. While not as important as other New
World cultigens, they do have the advantage of being high in carbohydrates as well as
protein and oils. Europeans quickly recognized the superiority of American beans, and
they spread rapidly across the Old World continents, often grown in smaller garden plots
without much technological sophistication.
Of all of the major New World crops, manioc is perhaps the least well known, though
it is widely cultivated today, particularly in the tropical parts of Africa and the Indo-Pacific
region. Manioc, also known as tapioca or cassava, is a tuber that grows well in many different climates and was a major staple for native groups living in parts of Central America,
South America, and the Caribbean islands.There are two major varieties: sweet and bitter.
The latter variety contains lethal amounts of cyanide (prussic acid) that must be removed
through a lengthy process of boiling, mashing, and leaching before it is edible. But manioc
also has the distinct advantage of growing well in soils too poor to support other crops,
is largely free from pests, and is not susceptible to drought, as it can lie dormant until
sufficient rainfall returns. Though manioc is mostly starchy and does not contain much
fat or protein, it is high in calories and contains many different vitamins and minerals,
including vitamin C. Because of these qualities, manioc was brought to the west coast
of Africa, where it became a staple used to sustain slave populations prior to and during
their transport to the New World. Some scholars have suggested that manioc was the crop
that sustained the African slave trade.
A Cuisine for the Ages
The relative paucity of New World crops involved in the Columbian Exchange should
not obscure the importance they had in changing the diet of Europeans. One can
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hardly imagine what pasta dishes in Italy would have been like without the tomato,
or Ireland the potato. And maize, though it can only grow well in the more southerly
parts of Europe where several months of hotter weather allow it to proliferate, is very
much engrained in the cuisine of peoples across Europe and through Russia, where it
is widely used to feed both humans and livestock. Despite the fact that maize did not
catch on in Europe until after the 1550s, possibly a consequence of a colder climatic
regime that lasted until the 1700s, by the late 1600s maize became more common in
the diet of many Europeans, particularly in Romania and the former Yugoslavia, which
are among some of the largest producers of maize.
Like maize, the introduction of the potato had a profound effect on European lifeways.While it is difficult in historical records to track when and where potatoes became
established, especially given that many censuses did not distinguish between white and
sweet varieties, it was clear that Europeans were not immediately enamored with its
presence. Many considered it a vile food; others believed the rumors that the potato
caused disease; still others thought that at its very best, the potato was a tasteless, uninteresting food. But Europeans could not ignore the fact that potatoes were well suited
to the climate and soils of northern and western Europe and could provide greater
yields and calories than other species. As is well known from the historical literature,
potatoes were embraced by the Irish, many of whom were living in poverty in the 18th
century and were reeling under foreign rule. The introduction of potatoes allowed the
population to grow from an estimated 3.2 million in 1754 to more than 8 million less
than a century later. Many Irish were eating potatoes without much else, however, and
in the mid-1800s when the potato blight hit, millions died of starvation or were forced
to emigrate. Overall, it is estimated that between 20 and 25 percent of the population
died of starvation over a period of seven years.
Conclusions
The colonization of the Americas by Europeans beginning in the late 1400s led to the
translocation of hundreds of species of plants, animals, insects, and pathogens. Many of
these were pivotal in changing the shape of history on both sides of the Atlantic, and
led to massive ecological changes and depopulation in the Americas. The movement and
incorporation of many New World plant species into the diets of people around the
world dramatically altered the lives of millions over the course of several centuries, and
in actuality marks one of the first major stages of globalization that we know today.
The Columbian Exchange continues, however, and its effects can be seen across the
world as new invasive species and diseases are transported, many unwittingly, to the farthest reaches of the globe. Syphilis, one of the few communicable diseases originating in
the New World, has been a leading cause of death throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa,
while cholera, smallpox, measles, and malaria, to name just a few, continue to ravage
human populations in the New World, though with decreasing efficiency because of
advances in modern medicine.
Ecological battles are still raging as invasive species enter new environments, both accidentally and purposefully, with long-lasting and sometimes permanent effects. The voracious brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) native to New Guinea and other parts of Mel-
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anesia has destroyed nearly all of the native bird species on Guam. Lionfish (Pterois spp.),
voracious predators originally from the Indo-Pacific, are now making their way through
the Caribbean. The kudzu vine (Pueraria spp.), introduced to the United States from Japan in 1894 to help control soil erosion, has taken over vast swaths of land, particularly
in the Southeast. These are only a few of an almost endless list of species invasions that
have wreaked havoc on ecological systems throughout the world.Though the Columbian
Exchange led to numerous benefits, overall these changes—the result of both inadvertent
and intentional (and often vicious) human involvement—have not left the world a richer
place, but rather created a more impoverished genetic pool that will continue to diminish
as a result of overpopulation and widespread extinctions of organisms around the world.
See also Bean/Common Bean; Food and Colonialism; Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of; Globalization; Immigrant Foodways; Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Maize; Manioc/Cassava; Old World Globalization
and Food Exchanges; Pacific Oceanic Exchange; Pig; Potato; Slave Diet, on West
Indian Plantations; Sucrose; Trade Routes
Further Reading
Boivin, Nicole, Dorian Q Fuller, and Alison Crowther. 2012. Old World Globalization and the Columbian Exchange: Comparison and Contrast. World Archaeology 44(3):452–69.
Crosby, Alfred W. 2003. The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492. Westport,
CT: Greenwood.
Nunn, Nathan, and Nancy Qian. The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas.
Journal of Economic Perspectives 24(2):163–88.
■ S C O T T M . F I T Z PAT R I C K
COMMENSALITY
The term commensality, from the Latin com (“together with”) and mensa (“table”), refers
to the mutual partaking of food and drink among two or more persons in a given space.
What, how, and with whom we eat are among the most fundamental ways that humans
define themselves as social beings and members of a specific group. Commensality is
thus understood to play a critical role in the establishment and reproduction of social
relations and identities. Commensal activities may be divided into two broad categories:
the quotidian and the extraordinary. Daily commensality typically takes place within the
domestic context where the sharing of food serves to materialize and reinforce bonds of
kinship. Extraordinary commensal events—often referred to in the literature as feasting or
ritual commensality—are defined in relation to the former but distinguished in terms of
context, temporality, participants, types, quantities, preparation, and serving techniques of
the foodstuffs involved. Ritual commensal events often have specific political agendas that
may enhance status, mark social boundaries, promote competition, create indebtedness,
or foster solidarity. Another function of ritual commensality involves the establishment of
relations of sociality with external others, serving as a mechanism through which others
are constituted as social beings and members of a given social milieu.
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COMMENSALITY
Commensal activities have both material and spatial dimensions that potentially make
them visibile in the archaeological record. The investigation of commensality necessarily
begins with a focus on food from which social connections may then be traced outward.
Basic initial questions include:What was being consumed? In what quantities? By whom?
Where? What preparation techniques were involved? What serving protocols were followed? It is usually necessary to establish everyday commensal practices as the comparative baseline against which extraordinary or ritual events might be recognized. Over
the past twenty years, many types of archaeological data have been brought to bear on
these questions, derived from analyses of paleobotanical and zooarchaeological remains,
culinary equipment, organic residues, human remains, geochemical composition of soils
and features, contextual and architectural configurations, and iconography. The results of
such investigations have provided important insights into the role of food production and
consumption in the shaping of social interactions, identities, and political power.
Recent investigations of commensality in the context of premodern societies highlight
a number of different theoretical orientations. Most common is the focus on extraordinary
commensal events (e.g., feasting activities) as material explanations for the maintenance or
transformation of social inequality and political hierarchy. Such studies are dependent on
the identification of what constitutes ordinary commensal practices in specific local contexts in order to distinguish the extraordinary. More recent works are beginning to redirect
attention to daily commensality as an important locus of study in its own right vis-à-vis
the reproduction of the microscale relations upon which continuities of social life and larger-scale structures of history are built, for example, as embodied practice or as a key element
of one’s habitus. Other studies have highlighted the relationship between consumption
and production, as well as the tension between the presumed conservatism of taste and the
adoption of new commensal practices. Another avenue of investigation concerns the use
of commensality as an analytic tool for identifying the different kinds of entities (human
and nonhuman) that might be drawn into relations of sociality via the sharing of food and
drink. In sum, the centrality of commensal relations to people’s everyday lives makes this
a particularly important locus for the investigation of social relations, the construction of
social networks, and the working of politics at multiple scales.
See also Feasting; Food and Identity; Food and Politics; Food and Status; Food
Sharing
Further Reading
Bray,Tamara L., ed. 2003. The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires. New
York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press.
Klarich, Elizabeth A., ed. 2010. Inside Ancient Kitchens: New Directions in the Study of Daily Meals and
Feasts. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Pollock, Susan. 2012. Towards an Archaeology of Commensal Spaces: An Introduction. In Between Feasts
and Daily Meals: Towards an Archaeology of Commensal Spaces, edited by Susan Pollock. eTopoi: Journal
for Ancient Studies, special issue, 2:1–20. http://journal.topoi.org/index.php/etopoi/issue/view/3.
Twiss, Katheryn C., ed. 2007. The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
■ T A M A R A L . B R AY
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COMMODITIES
See Food as a Commodity
COMPLEX SOCIETIES
See Food Production and the Formation of Complex Societies
C O N C H O P ATA ( P E R U )
Conchopata was a pre-Inca Andean city renowned for spectacular polychrome pottery
employed in commensal rituals. Located in Peru’s central highland Ayacucho Valley,
Conchopata was occupied from at least AD 500 until 1000, with the period of urbanism
corresponding to the Andean Middle Horizon (AD 650–1000). Its 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants included farmers, herders, potters, brewers, warriors, and minor kings or rulers
subordinate to the senior nobility of the Wari Empire, whose capital city of Huari was
located only ten kilometers down the valley. Maize was the dietary staple for both men
and women, although botanical remains and ceramic iconography depict many other
plants, especially tubers.The Ayacucho Valley was intensively cultivated with irrigated terraces in lower elevations, dry farming at intermediate elevations, and specialized camelid
production—large llamas for meat and long-distance caravanning and small alpacas for
wool (but some meat)—in the high-elevation pasturelands. Wild animals and plants were
scarce in the diet. Rare exceptions were a few birds and the Anadenanthera colubrine, a
tree that produced seedpods from which a powerful hallucinogenic snuff was prepared.
Images of this plant appear relatively frequently in Conchopata ceramic art, even though
it probably had to be acquired by long-distance trade.
There are still many questions about the organization of pottery manufacture, brewing, cooking, and other super-domestic activities at Conchopata, but mortuary remains
imply that women fulfilled numerous important roles. As wives in elite polygynous
families, they manufactured at least some of the giant urns and jars in which they subsequently prepared large quantities of food and drink for commensal spectacles (figure
17). Conchopata’s potters also manufactured large numbers of drinking and eating vessels,
many highly decorated, from which participants consumed feast foods and especially beer
brewed of corn (chicha), sometimes combined with sweet berries of the molle tree. Meat,
beer, and other food remains from Conchopata imply patron-role feasts, in which the
status and power of institutionalized elites were confirmed by the impressively generous
drinking bouts and banquets documented archaeologically.
See also Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Beer; Breweries; CHICHA; Commensality;
Feasting; Foodways and Gender Roles; Irrigation/Hydraulic Engineering; Maize;
Psychoactive Plants
Further Reading
Bergh, Susan E. 2012. Wari: Lords of the Ancient Andes. New York: Thames & Hudson.
Isbell, William H., and Amy Groleau. 2010. The Wari Brewer Woman: Feasting, Gender, Offerings, and
Memory. In Inside Ancient Kitchens: New Directions in the Study of Daily Meals and Feasts, edited by
Elizabeth A. Klarich, 191–220. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
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CONDIMENTS
Figure 17. Left: Giant jars were manufactured at Conchopata, sometimes by women, for brewing
large quantities of chicha. Many of the most elaborately decorated jars were deliberately
smashed to mark the end of commensal rituals. Center: Decorated urns of great size were
displayed in buildings at Conchopata that probably served as feasting halls. Some urns were
likely used to serve chicha to guests. Right: Irela Vallejos holds up a fragment of a giant urn.
Photographs by William H. Isbell, Proyecto Conchopata.
Rosenfeld, Silvana A. 2012. Animal Wealth and Local Power in the Huari Empire. Ñawpa Pacha 32
(1):131–64.
■ WILLIAM H. ISBELL
CONDIMENTS
Condiments add extra flavors and nutrients to food, and their properties have sometimes
been considered medicinal as well. A condiment can be as simple as a ground spice added
at table in the way we often use black pepper today, or aromatic whole seeds such as
sesame or onion seeds, seed mixes, or a more complex, brewed or fermented preparation
such as vinegar or soy sauce.
Condiments are difficult to distinguish from spices in most archaeological contexts
as generally whole seeds are found with no indication of their intended use. Seeds of
coriander (Coriandrum sativum), fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), dill (Anethum graveolens),
celery (Apium graveolens), cumin (Cuminum cyminum), ammi (Trachyspermum copticum),
anise (Pimpinella anisum), black cumin (Nigella sativa), rue (Ruta, cf. chalepensis), fenugreek
(Trigonella foenum-graecum), black pepper (Piper nigrum), and possibly white mustard (cf.
Sinapis alba) and black mustard (Brassica nigra) were all found at the Roman town of Mons
Claudianus in Egypt. All of these seeds have aromatic flavors and could have been used
for table condiments but are just as likely to have been used as spices in cooking.
Condiments also can be made with animal products. An unusual assemblage of fish
bones found in a Roman fort in Chester, England, may have been the remains of garum,
a fermented fish sauce widely used by the Romans. Though identifications were not all
secure, some of the fish may have been Mediterranean species, and, if so, then the garum
would have been imported. Fish sauce was a widespread condiment in the Roman Empire
and was transported in amphorae, many of which can be found on archaeological sites.
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In recent historical periods, condiments have been sold in distinctive bottles and jars
that can often be recognized as specific to a particular condiment and maker.
See also Amphorae; Spices; Trade Routes; Umami/Glutamates
Further Reading
Curtis, Robert I. 2009. Umami and the Foods of Classical Antiquity. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
90(3):712S-18S.
Garner, Dan. 2008. Excavations at Chester 25 Bridge Street 2001: Two Thousand Years of Urban Life in Microcosm. Chester, UK: Chester City Council.
Van der Veen, Marijke. 2001. The Botanical Evidence. In Survey and Excavation Mons Claudianus
1987–1993,Vol. 2, Excavations: Part 1, edited by V. A. Maxfield and D. P. S. Peacock, 175-222. Cairo:
Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale.
■ LISA MOFFETT
CONFLICT
See Food and Conflict
CONSUMPTION
Food has both biophysical and social properties: although all humans require food to stay
alive, the idea of an appropriate diet is culturally constructed. Today our food preferences
and diet breadth are much greater than at any prior time in history, but modern science
still has not agreed upon the ideal regimen for the human body. As a result, both researchers and the popular media offer competing claims about the “naturalness” of meat versus
vegetarian diets as well as changing assessments of the benefits and risks of caffeinated
drinks, alcohol, fats, processed foods, dairy products, and wheat. Indeed, our species has
the ability to survive on an astonishing variety of foods, as seen in the investigation of
health, social dynamics, and human–environmental interactions over time.
Our earliest human ancestors were omnivorous scavenger-hunters living in small
groups with limited food sharing. By about 1.8 million years ago, they migrated out of
Africa and encountered a diverse range of new food sources. They also began to use fire
to cook and sanitize food. A major shift in food consumption was the independent development of agriculture in many world regions starting 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, an
adaptation that researchers have called the Neolithic Revolution. Early agriculturalists focused on the cultivation of starchy carbohydrates as the principal food resource: potatoes
in South America, rice in East and South Asia, wheat and barley in West Asia and Europe,
and millet and sorghum in Africa. Another significant change was the development of
an enhanced range of beverages including alcohol from carbohydrates and milk products
from newly domesticated animals such as cows, sheep, goats, and water buffaloes.
The adoption of agriculture changed many aspects of consumption, not only in
terms of the foods themselves but also in the repertoire of household items needed to
produce, store, and prepare them: harvesting and planting equipment, storage facilities,
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CONSUMPTION
and cooking ware, including ovens and pottery containers. Because agriculture is much
more labor intensive than foraging, researchers have asked whether humans were compelled to adopt cultivation because of population pressure or whether they willingly
took on extra work for social reasons. The anthropologist Brian Hayden, for example,
has suggested that agriculture was the result of the desire to create stockpiles for feasts
as demonstrations of political power.
Feasting was clearly a source of social solidarity in many ancient contexts, as seen in the
archaeological evidence of mass quantities of discarded containers and food waste associated with funerary activity, temple construction, and ritual events. Daily consumption also
became woven into ideology, as seen in ancient writings that celebrated the abundance of
foods such as rice in the ancient Indian subcontinent and bread in the Judeo-Christian
tradition. Even in agricultural societies, however, wild products continued to be used,
including fruit, mushrooms, bark, and herbs and spices used to flavor and preserve food.
Other types of ingestion included geophagy (consumption of minerals, salt, and soil) in
which the boundaries of food and medicine were merged through consumption practices.
Food consumption involves restrictions as well as largesse, in which taboos are used to
enforce social distinctions. Nearly every religious tradition incorporates food prohibitions
as part of the individual’s expression of faith, evident in the earliest textual references of
Buddhism, Christianity, and Judaism, as well as Native traditions in the Americas, Australia,
and Africa. Ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence similarly highlights the restriction
of foods within communities along gender and status lines, such as prohibitions against pork
consumption for women in ancient Hawai‘i and differential isotopic signatures of maize and
meat consumption between elites and non-elites in Mesoamerica and the Andes.
Although most food is perishable, there are a variety of proxy methods by which
archaeologists can evaluate consumption. Studies of landscapes through pollen cores and
climate reconstruction indicate the types of collection or cultivation that would have
been possible in different eras. Most types of food also leave behind some inedible residue
such as shells, husks, and bones concentrated in middens (trash heaps) that are indicative of
the scale and scope of prior consumption. Tools such as grindstones and pots can contain
traces of the foods once processed in them, particularly fatty foods and alcohol. Human
bones and hair, when preserved, also contain a chemical and mineralogical signature of
food intake that can be identified through stable isotope analysis, while coprolites (ancient
feces) are sometimes preserved under exceptionally dry or wet conditions and provide
detailed snapshots of consumption activity. At the Iron Age salt mine of Dürrnberg in
Austria, for example, Nicole Boenke found that coprolites had different proportions
of flavoring elements, indicating variability in the way that dishes were prepared from
household to household.
Not all consumption is successful. Mishaps include the painful, sometimes fatal condition known as hypervitaminosis A, which produces a skeletal signature of accelerated
bone growth (the result of eating carnivore livers, and identified in both Homo erectus and
early polar explorers). Food poisoning can result from improper preparation and storage,
not only in the relatively recent phenomenon of canned foods but also in stored products such as nuts and grains that accumulate harmful aflatoxins and fungus. Allergies to
cultivated products such as wheat are well documented in the present day, and the study
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of food allergies and tolerances within the context of evolutionary medicine should yield
new insights on the legacy of culinary preferences and landscape management that we
have inherited from the distant human past.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Feasting; Fire and the Development of Cooking
Technology; Food and Ritual; Food and Status; Food as a Commodity; Foodways
and Religious Practices; Paleodietary Analysis; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions, Taboos
Further Reading
Dietler, Michael, and Brian Hayden, eds. 2001. Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food,
Politics, and Power. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Twiss, Katheryn C., ed. 2007. The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
Wiessner, Polly, and Wulf Schiefenhövel, eds. 1997. Food and the Status Quest: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books.
■ MONICA L. SMITH
COOKBOOKS
Cookbooks are compilations of recipes for food preparation. Modern texts are quite
specific in their instructions, creating almost a contract between author and reader. Cookbooks have been compiled since at least the Roman era, and archaeologists have found
these textual sources to provide insight into not only foodways practices (food technology, ideas about food, systems of measurement) but also community and kin networks
(through the exchange of recipes) and a range of social and cultural beliefs (e.g., socioeconomic status, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, religion, morality, health, and medicine).
There are no remains of the cookbook written ca. 400 BC by a Greek, Mithekos,
living in southern Italy, but the text is remembered in later writings. Culinary Arts (De re
coquinaria) is a set of recipes supposedly used by the Roman Apicius but compiled ca. AD
400 or several centuries after his death. Dishes for kings and caliphs are contained in the
tenth-century Kitab al-Tabikh and its 12th-century counterpart. A series of 12th-century
medicinal formulas stored at Durham Cathedral’s priory was restudied recently and found
to contain Latin recipes for herbal sauces to accompany meat and a seasonal recipe for
poultry (hen in winter); another originated in France. Similarly, Proper and Essential Things
for the Emperor’s Food and Drink, presented to the Mongol throne in 1330, also emphasizes
medicinal foods and draws together dishes from across the empire, including Roast Wolf
Soup, many variations of boiled mutton, and countless soups. Two manuscripts detail
Catalan cuisine in the 14th century, and a third, Manuscrit Ecrit Vers, documents royal food
served in the French and Italian courts. There are also manuscripts of Danish, German,
and Norwegian recipes. None, however, reveal the foods consumed by those among the
lower social ranks of society.
With the invention of printing, cookbooks became more numerous. By the late
medieval era, elite women kept personal, handwritten notebooks filled with recipes
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(i.e., receipt books) while professional chefs busily published their own, with much unattributed borrowing. The first American-authored book, in 1796, provided a series of
distinctly American dishes, as did some British texts. French recipes also began to appear
in British texts starting in the early 19th century. Indian recipes, derived from colonial
cuisine, appeared slightly later, as did Jewish cooking manuals. Each country had its favorite texts containing food recipes with directions for household management. Cookbooks published for use in European colonies helped retain ties with the motherland
and cohesion among European colonists. Group solidarity on a smaller scale was one of
the benefits of the many community cookbooks cooperatively published by American
churches and charities that appeared after the end of the American Civil War.
See also Documentary Analysis; Food and Colonialism; Food and Gender; Food and
Identity; Food and Power; Food Appropriation and Culinary Imperialism; Recipes
Further Reading
Theophano, Janet. 2002. Eat My Words: Reading Women’s Lives through the Cookbooks They Wrote. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Willan, Anne, with Mark Cherniavsky and Kyri Claflin. 2012. The Cookbook Library: Four Centuries of the
Cooks, Writers, and Recipes That Made the Modern Cookbook. Berkeley: University of California Press.
■ ANNE E. YENTSCH
COOKING
See Archaeology of Cooking; Fire and the Development of Cooking; Fire and the
Development of Cooking Technology
COOKING VESSELS, CERAMIC
Ceramic cooking vessels greatly enhance food processing technology by prolonging
moist cooking times, increasing control of cooking temperatures, and enabling repeated
container use through vessel durability. These common features of ceramic cooking vessels arose through independent invention in multiple locations and led to their long and
robust history of use in diverse regions around the world.
Once thought to have been developed by sedentary agriculturalists, new evidence
from multiple regions in the world reveals that ceramic vessels for cooking were first
manufactured and used for cooking a wide range of foods by hunter-gatherers carrying
out diverse subsistence strategies. The earliest examples of ceramic cooking vessels are
found in eastern Asia, with dates as early as 20,000 BP, while the earliest in the Americas
are from the Amazon with dates around 7,000 BP. Although hunter-gatherer populations
first produced and used ceramic vessels, through processes of independent invention and
diffusion, ceramic cooking vessels later came to dominate the material cultural assemblages of sedentary agricultural communities.
Ceramic vessels have a robust presence in the archaeological record because of their
durability, even in extreme environments where other materials such as botanical remains
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do not survive. This permits the study of ceramic cooking vessels as tools in a variety
of cultures and temporal contexts, but also aids in the understanding of food processing
strategies and the transition of raw ingredients into cooked food, diets, and other aspects
of human behavior. Several types of analyses are used to explore the function of ceramic
cooking vessels from archaeological contexts. These include, but are not limited to, usewear, residue, and ethnoarchaeolgical analyses. Use-wear or use-alteration analyses examine the alteration of ceramic vessels resulting from the processes of cooking and other activities. Changes to ceramic vessels from cooking occur from processes such as prolonged
exposure to heat, proximity to a heat source, and mechanical actions associated with vessel
use like stirring. The results include such markers as the presence and patterning of soot
on the interior and exterior of vessels, type and location of surface damage such as pitting and spalling, and vessel breakage patterns. Patterns across assemblages are helpful in
documenting which vessel forms were used for cooking and how these vessels were used.
The most informative types of analyses to determine the uses of ceramic cooking
vessels are those that identify visible and nonvisible residues. Residues are the remains of
organic compounds that adhere to the vessel wall. Residues may leave a visible deposit
or may be absorbed into the porous structure of the ceramic matrix, leaving no visible
remains. With the introduction of new scientific instrumentation and the testing of new
extraction and identification methods, archaeologists are increasingly successful in detecting residues, even from ceramic sherds that have been in collections for decades.The most
widely utilized analyses to detect and identify residues to date are gas chromatography–
mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS).
These analyses are sometimes used in conjunction with other methods, chosen based
on the organic compounds under study to maximize data collection and accuracy. In all
cases, the extraction of material for analysis from the vessel or pottery sherd is destructive.
Data resulting from these analyses are displayed in a bar graph, where each bar represents
an ion with a specific mass-to-charge ratio by relative abundance. These ions and their
relative amounts are used as the basis for assessing the types of organic compounds present.
Even though residue analysis can provide evidence of what was cooked, it cannot be
used to discern individual cooking events. Thus, although great detail can be obtained,
it is not possible using the current technology to determine what items were cooked
together; instead, the residues reflect a lifetime of use. There are also a variety of reasons
for absorption or coating of ceramic surfaces and subsurfaces, including post-depositional
events, thus archaeologists rely on patterning of data to make inferences.
Ethnoarchaeological and experimental research also has informed the study of ceramic cooking vessels. Ethnoarchaeological studies of ceramic manufacture and function
use data garnered from living peoples and historical documents; experimental approaches
study material culture through replication and experimentation. These studies are then
utilized as the basis for addressing existing questions and formulating new ones. Details
concerning vessel construction materials and manufacturing techniques, vessel form, and
vessel function have been collected in combination with more general information such
as subsistence base, mobility, and social organization. Experimentation is often used to
explore patterning in the archaeological record, to examine optimization strategies in
ceramic production and use, and to improve methods used in other types of analysis. An
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example is the replication and use of cooking vessels to determine where residues are
best preserved. Resulting data were used to target specific areas for residue extraction.
Ethnoarchaeological research and other types of analyses have resulted in models of vessel
use, information on cooking vessel use-life and discard, and overarching patterns of vessel
function, revealing details concerning cooking strategies.
The archaeological study of ceramic cooking vessels, one of the most conservative
technologies in the human tool kit, has shown their importance, durability, and stability
through space and time. In the archaeological record, they represent a shift in cooking
strategies that becomes widely utilized. Use-wear, residue, and ethnoarchaeological analyses of ceramic cooking vessels create a more complete understanding of food processing
strategies, cooking technology, and human behavior.
See also Archaeology of Cooking; Biomolecular Analysis; Fire and the Development
of Cooking Technology; Food Technology and Ideas about Food, Spread of; Gas
Chromatography/Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry; Material Culture
Analysis; Residue Analysis, Dairy Products; Residue Analysis, Starch; Use-Wear or
Use-Alteration Analysis, Pottery
Further Reading
Barnard, Hans, and Jelmer W. Eerkens, eds. 2007. Theory and Practice of Archaeological Residue Analysis.
BAR International Series 1650. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Craig, O. E., H. Saul, A. Lucquin, et al. 2013. Earliest Evidence for the Use of Pottery. Nature
496(7445):351–54.
Evershed, Richard P. 2008. Experimental Approaches to the Interpretation of Absorbed Organic Residues in Archaeological Ceramics. World Archaeology 40(1):26–47.
Nelson, Kit. 2010. Environment, Cooking Strategies and Containers. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
29(2):238–47.
Skibo, James M. 2013. Understanding Pottery Function. New York: Springer.
■ KIT NELSON
C O O K I N G V E S S E L S , M E TA L
The earliest known metal cooking vessels date to the Bronze and early Iron Ages, where
they were principally luxury items. For elites, Bronze vessels also had a significant ritual
function, and elaborate forms were used for this purpose. Archaeological evidence shows
that ancient people began to cook their food with metal vessels during this period. Ceramic cooking vessels were most common, however, and non-elites generally cooked
with pottery or simple metal forms. In later periods, archaeological examples of metal
cooking vessels include forms made of iron, cast iron, copper, and tin. Their contextual
association with hearths and food preparation areas allows their identification as cooking
vessels. Residue analysis and use-wear analysis also have been used to identify cooking
vessels and to identify the ingredients of past meals.
Early bronze forms usually copied ceramic cooking vessels of the period. In China,
for example, the Li, the Ding, the Yan, and the Fu were used. Of these, the most important
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Figure 18. Left to right: Bronze Ding and three integrated Yans excavated from the tomb of
Fuhao, Yin Dynasty (13th century BC), Anyang City, Henan Province; bronze Ding from the site of
Beidi, Wuguan Village (13th–11th century BC), Anyang City, Henan Province. Courtesy of Institute
of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China.
vessel type was the Ding, a tripod vessel that was cast in a composite clay mold (figure
18). The Ding was a very important cooking container during the late Erlitou period
from the 18th to 16th centuries BC. This kind of vessel usually appeared in two forms: a
spherical body with three feet, and a rectangular form with four feet. These vessels were
used mainly to cook meat. The Yan was a cooking vessel used for steaming (figure 18). A
large, intact example dating to the 13th century BC was found in the royal tomb of Fuhao,
in Anyang City, Henan Province, in 1976. A rectangular, six-footed Yan featuring three
Zens, or spherical vessels, was also found. Water was heated in the lower part of the Yan,
creating steam that was allowed to rise and heat the food in the Zens through holes in the
bottom of each container. Two Dings with four-footed rectangular bodies decorated with
the images of tigers and dragons also were found in this tomb, together with many other
imperial ritual items made of bronze and jade. Such vessels could be used to cook meat
or cereal-based foods, while at the same time serving as the focal point of a national or
royal ceremony. Over time, more bronze cooking vessel forms were developed in various
regions of China, such as the bronze Mao from the Qin state in the Warring States period.
This form is a spherical pot with one large and another small ring handle on the neck.
Bronze cooking vessels and other bronze container vessels served an important ritualistic role in ancient China. The Ding was the key ritual cooking vessel and served an
especially important role. Cooking vessels decorated with geometric lines and the figures
of fantastic animals appeared in different groupings and varied in number until their use
declined during the Han Dynasty, when bronze or iron cooking vessels with simple, undecorated shapes took the place of the traditional bronze forms. Bronze and iron cooking
vessels or woks were used on kitchen ranges; many miniature kitchen range models made
of bronze or clay have been excavated from Han Dynasty tombs (figure 19). This type of
cooking range continues to be used, though it is now found only in rural areas.
Inhabitants of the Eurasian steppes usually depended on ceramic vessels to cook meat,
dairy, and some cereal foods from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. Perhaps inspired by
Chinese culture from the central plains, however, the people living in the northern belt
region of China invented a type of bronze cooking vessel, the cauldron, during the late
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Figure 19. Left to right: Ceramic kitchen range model, West Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 9);
ceramic kitchen range model, East Han Dynasty (AD 25–220); bronze kitchen range model, West
Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 9). Courtesy of Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences, China.
Western Zhou Dynasty around the tenth to ninth century BC. Originally, the cauldron
form had two handles on the rim of a barrel-shaped body, with a footring in the form
of a cone. Various stylistic changes occurred over time, mainly to the handle and to the
bottom of the vessel. The bronze cauldron and, later, the iron cauldron spread across the
Eurasian steppes, from the heartland in Europe to Japan, reaching most parts of the Eurasian continent between the ninth century BC and the eighth century AD.
A range of evidence suggests that bronze cauldrons were an important type of ritual
vessel or prestige good that symbolized the power and the wealth of the elite, as the Ding
did in the central plains of ancient China. Herodotus’s Histories mentions the ritual use
of cauldrons. Additionally, most archaeological examples of cauldrons have been found
near springs or along rivers. Finally, some cauldrons were entombed as important prestige
goods in the Kurgans, or tumuli, of the elite or of chiefs. For example, two cauldrons
were excavated from the southeast side of Tomb 5 of Kurgan II in Arzhan in the Russian
Republic of Tuva (southern Siberia). A later example includes some fragments of a bronze
cauldron with a hollowed-out footring and a handle in the form of a mountain that were
found in the large Kurgan of a chief of Xiongnu in Noin Ula, Mongolia. The cauldron
was likely a prestige good used in ritual ceremony.
An iron cauldron similar to those of Xiongnu and Xianbei was dug out from a nomadic tomb in Tuva, together with Kaiyuan Tongbao coins of the Tang Dynasty dating
to the eighth century AD. It appears that by this period, members of this nomadic society
began to cook their food with an iron wok. Bronze cooking vessels had lost their sacred
meaning by this time and were used only as cooking vessels.
See also Archaeology of Cooking; Cooking Vessels, Ceramic; Cooking Vessels, Other
Materials; Fire and the Development of Cooking Technology; Food and Ritual;
Food and Status; Food Technology and Ideas about Food, Spread of; Gordion;
Ovens and Stoves
Further Reading
Chang, Kwang-Chih. 1986. The Archaeology of China. 4th edition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Čugunov, Konstantin V., Hermann Parzinger, and Anatoli Nagler, eds. 2010. Der Skythenzeitliche Fürstenkurgan Aržan 2 in Tuva. Archăologie in Eurasien 26. Mainz: Verlag Philipp Von Zabern.
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Guo, Wu. 2003. The Universe in the Cauldrons: The Eurasia Steppe and Bronze Cauldrons. Shanghai: Academy of Sciences of Shanghai.
Maenchen-Helfen, Otto J. 1973. The World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture. Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
Von Falkenhausen, Lothar. 2006. Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000–250 BC):The Archaeological
Evidence. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA.
‫؀‬ʅҨֿࠕ‫ދ‬ě: 뺶祵셉ࠕ‫ދ‬-솴쉯솷솅셰‫؀‬ʅ셉ᎌ،Ƈ،뺷, ॽͪᐓ, 2011 ŭ뼶[Steppe Archaeology Society, ed. 2011. Studies on Ancient Cauldrons: Cultic or Daily Vessels in the Eurasian
Steppes. Tokyo: Yuzankaku Shuppan.]
■ GUO WU
C O O K I N G V E S S E L S , O T H E R M AT E R I A L S
Cooking vessels of stone, especially soapstone, and organic material, wood, and hide have
been traced archaeologically over large areas. Vessels made from organic materials are
inferred from indirect evidence, through concentrations of fire-cracked stone and from
textual sources, ethnographic accounts, and experimental studies. By using hot stones,
liquids could be heated in both wooden vessels and skin sacks.The verb seethe (Old Norse
sjóða and Middle English sethen from Old English sēoþan) may refer to this old prehistoric
technique. The method, which is mentioned in medieval and later sources, was used for
heating milk and also in brewing processes.
Soapstone, which is both durable and fire resistant, is renowned for its excellent heating
properties. Soapstone cooking vessels warm evenly and are quickly heated; they also retain
heat for a long time. They were first introduced in the Late Bronze Age and were widely
used in Scandinavian households from ca. AD 800 into the Scandinavian Middle Ages (ca.
AD 1050–1500). Most were produced in Norway, but soapstone vessels were also made in
other areas, such as Shetland and the Alpine region. In Scandinavia, they have been found
in both rural and urban settlement contexts, including Viking Age graves.They usually measure between 20 and 30 centimeters across the rim, but larger ones also occur. Their height
ranges between 6.5 and 14.5 centimeters. Because of the generally fragmented state of the
vessels, it is difficult to give a representative estimate of volume. The rim diameters indicate
that they were generally larger than contemporary ceramic cooking pots. Rounded bowlshaped vessels were the most common and could also have a handle. Vessels with straight
sides were also used in the Middle Ages. Generally, Viking Age vessels had a smooth and
polished surface, while medieval ones could also have coarse, uneven exteriors, and some
were furnished with vertical facets. Residue analyses of medieval vessel remains indicate
carbohydrate food materials but also protein—fish, meat—and some kind of soup or gruel.
See also Biomolecular Analysis; Cooking Vessels, Ceramic; Cooking Vessels, Metal;
Fire and the Development of Cooking Technology; Fire-Based Cooking Features;
Residue Analysis, Dairy Products; Residue Analysis, Starch
Further Reading
Baug, Irene. 2011. Soapstone Finds. In Things from the Town: Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-Age
Kaupang, edited by Dagfinn Skre, 312–37. Kaupang Excavation Project Publication Series 3. Norske
Oldfunn XXIV. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
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C O O P E R AT I V E H U N T I N G
Øye, Ingvild. 2009. Food and Technology. In Processing, Storage, Distribution of Food: Food in Medieval Rural
Environments, edited by J. Klápšte and P. Sommer, 225–34. Ruralia 8. Turnhout: Brepols.
■ I N GV I L D ØY E
C O O P E R AT I V E H U N T I N G
The pooling of knowledge, ability, labor, tools, and other resources of two or more hunters (often many more than this number) that is directed toward a preconceived foraging
bout is known as cooperative hunting. Such cooperative efforts are designed primarily
to increase the net caloric return of the participants, compared to what could be gained
by foraging alone. Procurement may involve acquisition of one animal, as in whaling or
moose hunting, or a large number of a single prey type en masse, as in bison, jackrabbit,
gazelle, kangaroo, caribou, bighorn sheep, deer, and pronghorn hunting. In terrestrial
contexts, natural geographic features such as river crossings, precipices, narrow valleys,
and dry-season water sources are often used advantageously to increase the chances of
entrapment, while in other instances, corrals, surrounds, or nets are constructed to facilitate containment, often in conjunction with drive lanes made of rock, timber, or brush
intended to funnel animals to the kill location. Cooperative hunting typically occurs
during periods when prey are clumped and thus available for mass procurement, namely
during seasonal migrations.
It is difficult to identify evidence of cooperative hunting archaeologically using faunal
remains because this activity may impart the same faunal signature as a composite record of individual hunts. Fortunately, in some regions, remnants of prehistoric and early
historic-period entrapment features made of rock and timber are extant. Rich records
consisting of sophisticated constellations of drive lanes, precipice jump-off points, and
processing areas associated with cooperative bison hunting exist on the northern Great
Plains of North America. At Head-Smashed-In, Alberta, Canada, cooperative bison hunting began ca. 6,000 BP. Also in North America, bighorn sheep in the Rocky Mountains
were hunted cooperatively using nets as well as traps and drive lines made of timber. In
the Old World, Upper Paleolithic hunters intercepted herds of horse at Solutré, France,
and reindeer at Stellmoor and Meiendorf, Germany.
See also Food Sharing; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Paleoindian Diet;
Paleolithic Diet; Subsistence Models; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Bar-Oz, Guy, and Dani Nadel, eds. 2013. Worldwide Large-Scale Trapping and Hunting of Ungulates
in Past Societies. Quaternary International 297:1–7.
Brink, Jack W. 2008. Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains. Edmonton: Athabasca University Press.
Davis, Leslie B., and Brian O. K. Reeves, eds. 1990. Hunters of the Recent Past. London: Unwin Hyman.
■ M AT T H E W G . H I L L
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COPROLITES
See Paleofecal Analysis
CORN
See Maize
C R E O L E C U I S I N E S / F O O D WAY S
Creole cuisines are original ensembles of culinary practices, developed in colonial contexts by the creative combination of existing culinary traditions with innovative practices,
materials, and ideas about food, cooking, and eating. Creole cuisines are formed under
the influence of such factors as settler migration, slavery, and transatlantic economies, and
they often are tied to historically specific, vernacularized Creole identities. In the social
sciences, the concept of creole cuisine is further associated with theories of creolization,
hybridity, and cultural contact, as well as their exemplification through material culture.
Many aspects of creolization and cultural transmission in foodways have been studied
archaeologically, including the ingredients and material culture associated with the preparation of food and its consumption, the systems of knowledge mobilized in cultivation,
as well as the cultural practices involved in food-related behavior (e.g., feasting, dietary
avoidance, preferential consumption, and structure of the meal).
The term creole and the concept of creolization originally served to designate new
cultural forms in the New World, as well as the processes by which they came into existence. Despite their fundamental association with the Caribbean and Central America,
these concepts are now used by social scientists in a wide variety of contexts to describe
and analyze both historical and contemporary processes of cultural transformation and
hybridization. In the United States, the term creole is perhaps most often used in reference to cuisine and foodways and to designate a specific Southern American culinary
genre strongly associated with New Orleans, Louisiana. The blend of French, Portuguese, Native American, African, and vernacular Southern American cooking found in
Louisianan Creole cuisine has become iconic of culinary manifestations of creolization
in general, despite the numerous creole cuisines that can be identified in the Caribbean, South America, and beyond. Because of its longevity and its enduring presence
in historical and ethnographic archives, Louisianan Creole cuisine further provides an
example of how creolized practices can in turn be appropriated in the crafting of localized self-identifications and communities.
Since the 1970s, some archaeologists have used creolization theory to study those
very forms of nativized or vernacular colonial objects and subjects that were historically
designated as “creole.” Others have extended the concept to achieve a broader understanding of the processes of material negotiation and cultural transmission at play in
colonial societies, most particularly in plantation contexts. The study of food and cuisines has figured importantly in the archaeology of creolization, which has contributed
to our understanding of the material everyday of the African Diaspora in the Atlantic
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C R E O L E C U I S I N E S / F O O D W AY S
world. The survival of African heritage in colonial contexts and the processes of transatlantic cultural transmission have been traced archaeologically through the recovery
of archaeobotanical remains of West African crops such as millet and black-eyed peas,
the presence of cosmographic symbols in tableware décor, and the use of large yabba
(earthenware cooking vessels), for example.
Archaeologists have also pointed out that, in cuisine as in other material domains, the
process of creolization is nurtured by a break in modes of cultural transmission occasioned,
for example, by migrations, whether forced or voluntary, by unfamiliar environments, as well
as by close contact with individuals and groups of a different culture or origin. The study
of food and food-related behavior, whether in anthropology, sociology, or history, contributes substantially to our understanding of colonial systems of power and of resistance by
providing a critical engagement with the unsuspected generative and creative consequences
of the uprootings, traumas, and uncertainties of colonial displacements.The historical depth
afforded by historical scholarship can help further contextualize this insight into the longterm trajectories of global circulations in such a way as to retain local specificity while
addressing interdisciplinary debates that bridge disciplines and area studies.
Some critiques of the use of creolization theory with significant implications for the
study of creole foodways have included the neglect of historical specificity, the oversimplification of complex social dynamics and the ironing out of internal conflict by the use of
“creole” as a blanket term, and the difficulty of avoiding the reification of the terms designating a process that is precisely ever-changing. In contrast, proponents of creolization
theory have highlighted how its core concept eschews colonial categories to highlight the
pluralistic character of colonial communities and how it critiques essentializing dichotomies (such as colonizers–colonized; Metropolitan–Other; white–nonwhite) that tend to
underpin the study of colonialism, affords open-endedness and ambiguity in studies of
colonial histories, and supports the potential for comparative research.
Promising directions for the archaeology of creole cuisines and its contribution to the
social sciences include, first, a critical engagement with the definition of what “counts” as
creole cuisine culturally, historically, and archaeologically, and, second, a broader reflection
on the relationships between cultural transmission, food, and self-identification. For example, archaeology may contribute to our understanding of the distinction between the
self-identifier “creole” and the process of cultural creativity and change that creolization
theory aims to capture. Further, the pitfall of chasing the ever-receding horizon of distinguishing between “old” and “novel” practices retooled by New World communities could
be sidestepped by considering instead what kinds of original, distinctive, and challenging
assemblages were and are constructed, used, and discarded by these same communities.
Archaeology has the potential to show that creole cuisines are more than the sum of
heterogeneous foods and cooking techniques; they are also embedded into the broader,
historically specific contexts of colonial social practices, at the household level as well as
within a global system of labor.
See also Creolization; Diaspora Foodways; Food and Colonialism; Food and Identity; Food Appropriation and Culinary Imperialism; Food Technology and Ideas
about Food, Spread of; Immigrant Foodways
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Further Reading
Armstrong, Douglas V., and Elizabeth J. Reitz. 1990. The Old Village and the Great House: An Archaeological and Historical Examination of Drax Hall Plantation, St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. Urbana: University
of Illinois Press.
Dawdy, Shannon Lee. 2000. Understanding Cultural Change through the Vernacular: Creolization in
Louisiana. Historical Archaeology 34(3):107–23.
Deagan, Kathleen A., and Joan K. Koch. 1983. Spanish St. Augustine: The Archaeology of a Colonial Creole
Community. New York: Academic Press.
Ferguson, Leland G. 1992. Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650–1800. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Loren, Diana DiPaolo. 2005. Creolization in the French and Spanish Colonies. In North American Archaeology, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat and Diana DiPaolo Loren, 297–318. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wilkie, Laurie A. 2000. Culture Bought: Evidence of Creolization in the Consumer Goods of an Enslaved Bahamian Family. Historical Archaeology 34(3):10–26.
■ GENEVIÈVE GODBOUT
C R E O L I Z AT I O N
The concept of creolization refers to a region-specific, historically situated process of
cultural change predicated upon the encounter, blending, reformulation, and vernacularization of diverse cultural elements, usually in the context of colonization. This process
results in the creation of a “creole” language, practice, people, community, or ideology
that in turn becomes the epicenter of its ongoing transformation. Self-identification as
“creole” may be enacted, expressed, and reinforced through material practices, including
those involving food and food-related material culture. Creolization theory is used mostly
in the study of the colonial Atlantic New World, particularly the Caribbean, Central
America, and the southern United States, although its core concepts have recently been
extended to other spatial and temporal contexts.
Although the term originated as a tool of colonial classification designating people of
mixed ancestry born in the New World, colonial communities and individuals appropriated the concept of creole as a self-referential to mark their affiliation with distinct local
cultural groups. In the second half of the 20th century, creole identity and the idea of
creolization became part of many nationalist ideologies of the Caribbean.
Originally a theory of language formation in the Caribbean, creolization theory was
quickly adopted by sociocultural anthropology and archaeology as a metaphor for culture
change and innovation in creole cultures and societies in general. The study of creolization in anthropology has sought and highlighted the contribution of African cultures to
creole phenomena, and in this sense it has always been tied to the history of the slave trade
and the heritage of slavery. The idea of creolization was first introduced to archaeology
in reaction to acculturation studies. The idea of creolization has since been deployed in
a variety of historically specific contexts to highlight the generative aspect of cultural
encounters, even within systems of inequality.
See also Creole Cuisines/Foodways; Diaspora Foodways; Food and Colonialism;
Food and Identity; Immigrant Foodways; Innovation and Risk
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C U LT I VAT I O N
Further Reading
Mintz, Sidney W., and Richard Price. 1976. An Anthropological Approach to the Afro-American Past: A Caribbean Perspective. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.
Palmié, Stephan. 2006. Creolization and Its Discontents. Annual Review of Anthropology 35:433–56.
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 2002. Culture on the Edges: Caribbean Creolization in Historical Context.
In From the Margins: Historical Anthropology and Its Futures, edited by Brian Keith Axel, 189–210.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
■ GENEVIÈVE GODBOUT
CUISINE
See Food and Identity; Food and Status; Foodways
C U LT I VAT I O N
Cultivation means that humans take an active role in food production by systematically
growing plants, often in prepared plots of land. Plant management practices associated with
systematic cultivation do not necessarily lead to the genetic and morphological changes
apparent in domesticated species. Some intentionally and systematically cultivated plants
become domesticated species through conscious selection by humans, however. Archaeologists and archaeobotanists commonly view the onset of cultivation of staple food plants
such as wheat, barley, rye, rice, millet, and corn (maize) as the turning point that changed
the world’s economic and demographic history. This transition has been termed incipient
cultivation in the geographic centers where agricultural societies emerged later. Other
human activities such as tending and propagating trees, bushes, and other plants (such
as vegetables) that produce fruits, seeds, leaves, stems, and underground tubers should be
included within the general definition of cultivation. This is well exemplified in regions
of Southeast Asia, the Japanese archipelago, and Oceania. In these regions, the process of
human involvements, variously labeled as low-level food production, plant husbandry, or
small-scale gardening, is recorded in the Jōmon culture, and early manifestations in New
Guinea. Plant husbandry is also well documented in the archaeological record of prehistoric populations in North America.
The issues that occupy scholarly research concerning the onset of systematic cultivation are the “when,” “where,” and “why” humans intentionally collected and planted
seeds in order to harvest the yields at a future date. This activity represented a major
shift from the Paleolithic subsistence strategy of “immediate returns” to “delayed returns,” one that also meant the presence of storage facilities. Harvesting in the wild or,
later, in fields that were intentionally sown could have been done with sickles. Sickle
blades that have been recovered through archaeology are characterized by a gloss that
resulted from harvesting cereals, as demonstrated by numerous experimental replications. Seeds could be collected or gathered from the ground, as well, and stored for
future use. Similarly, the long-term use of animals, exemplified by the shift to animal
husbandry of goats, sheep, and pigs in southwestern Asia, required a major conceptual
change from the learned mental framework of hunting and sharing meat and hides to
keeping livestock for later consumption.
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This major shift in human subsistence activities, referred to as the transition from
foraging to farming, was based on a few starchy plants. Demographic studies show that
“Neolithic” societies emerged in the regions where those plants were first domesticated,
and developed later in areas where wheat, barley, rice, or maize cultivation was adopted
by foragers or from the expansion of farming communities. The identification of cereal and legume cultivation in southwestern Eurasia became known as the Neolithic
Revolution, a term coined by V. Gordon Childe to designate this major socioeconomic
transformation in a schematic, pre-radiometric subdivision of the Stone Age. In ensuing years, the use of this term as a process, Neolithization, has been problematic. Its use
creates chronological ambiguities because “Neolithic” as a time unit occurs at a later
date than the “Mesolithic,” a period when western Eurasian people are considered to
have still been hunter-gatherers. In addition, the term Neolithic as defined in Europe is
not used across the globe. Childe saw pottery, the axe-adze, domesticated cereals, goats,
sheep, cattle, pigs, and dogs as the markers of this major socioeconomic revolution that
began in the Near East and spread from there. Today, however, we know that the earliest
pottery dates to 20/19–16 KYA cal BP in East Asia, that axe-adzes also date to this earlier
period, and that grinding stones were used by foragers in this vast region from at least
30,000 BP. It is also clear that this term, as previously defined (particularly the notion
of a revolution), does not adequately account for the complexity of this transition, nor,
as previously noted, the occurrence of low-level food production or plant husbandry
in areas across the globe. Indeed, archaeobotanical assemblages indicate that intentional
cultivation was tried and abandoned by humans on several occasions long before the
systematic planting and harvesting of wild cereals began in earnest some 12,000 years
ago.This process of trial and error occurred in the Levant as well as other regions and was
repeated over several millennia, leading to the formation of low-level food production
in some areas. The identification of these past experiments depends on preservation of
plants at sites of Late Paleolithic foragers from different ecological niches. In the case
of pulses, genetic evidence indicates that domestication occurred earlier than for other
plants, suggesting that the full range of cultivation activities is still poorly known where
we rely solely upon the preserved archaeobotanical assemblage.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Archaeobotany; Broad Spectrum Revolution; Cereals; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Innovation and Risk; Legumes and
Pulses; Plant Domestication; Plant Husbandry; Root Crops/Tubers; Sedentism and
Domestication; Subsistence Models
Further Reading
Abbo, Shahal, Simcha Lev-Yadun, and Avi Gopher. 2011. Origin of Near Eastern Plant Domestication:
Homage to Claude Levi-Strauss and “La Pensée Sauvage.” Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution
58(2):175–79
Crawford, Gary W. 2008. The Jomon in Early Agriculture Discourse: Issues Arising from Matsui, Kanehara and Pearson. World Archaeology 40(4):445–65.
Fuller, Dorian Q. 2007. Contrasting Patterns in Crop Domestication and Domestication Rates: Recent
Archaeological Insights from the Old World. Annals of Botany 100(5):903–24.
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CURRY
Harris, David R. 2007. Agriculture, Cultivation and Domestication: Exploring the Conceptual Framework of Early Food Production. In Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives, edited by Timothy P. Denham, Jose Iriarte, and Luc Vrydaghs, 15–35. Walnut Creek, CA:
Left Coast Press.
Kislev, Mordecai E. 1997. Early Agriculture and Paleoecology of Netiv Hagdud. In An Early Neolithic
Village in the Jordan Valley Part I: The Archaeology of Netiv Hagdud, edited by Ofer Bar-Yosef and Avi
Gopher, 209–36. American School of Prehistoric Research Bulletin 43. Cambridge, MA: Peabody
Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.
Kislev, Mordecai E., Ehud Weiss, and Anat Hartmann. 2004. Impetus for Sowing and the Beginning of
Agriculture: Ground Collecting of Wild Cereals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
101(9):2692–95.
Ladizinsky, G. 1987. Pulse Domestication before Cultivation. Economic Botany 41(1):60–65.
Smith, Bruce D. 2011. General Patterns of Niche Construction and the Management of “Wild” Plant
and Animal Resources by Small-Scale Preindustrial Societies. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
Society B: Biological Sciences 366(1566):836–48. doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0253.
Willcox, George, and Danielle Stordeur. 2012. Large-Scale Cereal Processing before Domestication
during the Tenth Millennium cal BC in Northern Syria. Antiquity 86(331):99–114.
■ O F E R B A R -YO S E F
CURRY
Curry dishes are an essential part of Indian cuisine. Curry is synonymous with the
family of cuisines of South Asia, and although there is much regional variation across
the subcontinent, it is generally taken to refer to long-simmered and highly spiced saucy
dishes. Recent archaeological research at the site of Farmana, India, has allowed us to
explore the origins of this culinary tradition. Starch grain analysis of dental calculus
from cattle teeth provides the first direct evidence of cooked ginger and turmeric. The
study indicates that the Harappans were eating food flavored with these spices by the
second half of the third millennium BC. This provides the first archaeological evidence
for the consumption of these spices anywhere and suggests that they were part of the
South Asian diet by the Bronze Age.
The development of methods to recognize the starch grains characteristic of condiments provides an important complement to conventional archaeobotanical approaches.
Work in the Americas has highlighted the potential for such an approach through the
tracking of chili pepper starches. The current study introduces such an approach to Asian
archaeobotany through the identification of starches that likely derived from the spicy
roots of the ginger family, namely, ginger and turmeric. The morphologies of some of the
starch grains are consistent with those derived from cooking experiments, suggesting that
not only were ginger and turmeric known and available but they were cooked alongside
or together with other food plants such as cereals and pulses and even meats. While we
cannot be sure that staples were simmered in sauces as is typical of curry today, the cooking of turmeric and ginger is a key component of the curry tradition, which we argue
can now be traced back to the Harappan period. Today, turmeric in particular is widely
used and gives many curry preparations a characteristic yellowness, to the extent that such
a food color has become diagnostic of a “curry” no matter how “spicy.” In addition, the
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archaeological identification of turmeric provides for the possibility that it was used as a
vegetable dye for cloth as well as for medicinal purposes in South Asia during antiquity.
See also Archaeobotany; Condiments; Dental Analysis; Experimental Archaeology;
Residue Analysis, Starch; Spices
Further Reading
Kashyap, Arunima, and Steve Weber. 2010. Harappan Plant Use Revealed by Starch Grains from Farmana, India. Antiquity 84(326): Project Gallery. http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/kashyap326.
Lawler, Andrew. 2012. The Ingredients of a 4000-Year-Old Proto-Curry. Science 337(6092):288.
Perry, Linda, Ruth Dickau, Sonia Zarrillo, et al. 2007. Starch Fossils and the Domestication and Dispersal
of Chili Peppers (Capsicum spp. L.) in the Americas. Science 315(5814):986–88.
■ A R U N I M A K A S H YA P
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D
DA I RY
See Milk and Dairy Products
D AT I N G
See Radiocarbon Dating
DEMOGRAPHY
See Paleodemography
D E N TA L A N A LY S I S
Dental analysis can offer insights into the types and proportions of foods consumed,
providing a direct link to the diets of specific groups of individuals. By using contextual
information associated with those individuals, such as age, sex, and funerary treatment, it
is possible to gain insights into the sociocultural role of food, including, for example, status or gender-based differences in food consumption. Within the discipline of biological
anthropology, dental anthropology deals with the biology and behavior of hominins as
reflected in their teeth. The study of food and foodways in dental anthropology generally
involves analysis of patterns of dental micro- or macrowear and pathology in skeletal
assemblages. Dental research has shown that it is possible to distinguish the type of abrasive agents that cause certain patterns of wear. These abrasives include foods and other
materials that are introduced into the mouth. Likewise, dental pathology is known to be
related to the diet. Food preparation techniques also influence dental wear and pathology,
with heavily processed, soft, sticky foods resulting in lower rates of dental wear and higher
rates of dental pathology than unrefined, abrasive foods.
Dental wear is strongly related to age. The longer the teeth spend in functional occlusion, the more worn they become. Dental wear is also related to the physical properties of
the food (e.g., tough, unrefined, fibrous, soft, sticky, refined), food preparation techniques
(e.g., grinding, baking, boiling), and the inclusion of dust, sand, and grit in the food, for
example, in marine diets or in sandy (desert) environments. High rates of wear have been
attributed to the use of stone grinding tools that introduce tiny stone particles into the
130
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food; the consumption of tough, fibrous plant foods or sandy, gritty marine foods; the
consumption of dried or frozen meat and fish; and the inclusion of sand, grit, and ash in
baked foods. Lower rates of wear are associated with soft, refined foods without stone particles and boiled foods. Because of the relation between age and dental wear, comparisons
between skeletal populations with differing age profiles use age-independent methods
of assessment. Intra-individual rates of wear, which measure the difference in degree of
wear between adjacent permanent molars, offer age-independent assessment of rate of
wear, since the molars erupt at approximately six-year intervals in all humans. Over time,
rates of molar wear in humans have declined, a trend that is generally attributed to the
transition from hunter-gatherer to agricultural subsistence practices. Nonetheless, both
hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists can have high rates of wear, although the etiology
(cause) of the wear may differ.
Dental microwear analysis is the study of microscopic patterns of dental wear, in the
form of scratches and pits on a tooth’s surface, using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
Foods as well as other materials leave particular patterns of microwear on teeth, depending
on their material properties. The majority of microwear analysis has focused on humans
and nonhuman primates, often for the purpose of reconstructing the diets of our human
ancestors. SEM has been used for microwear analysis since the late 1970s, but identifying
individual features of microwear on tooth surfaces is time-consuming and subject to observer error. More recently, patterns of microwear are quantified using three-dimensional
surface data and scale-sensitive fractal analysis (i.e., microwear texture analysis), a method
that avoids observer error and reduces the amount of time involved.
Dental pathology is related to individual heredity and susceptibility, but is also strongly
related to the proportion of carbohydrates in the diet. Carbohydrate-rich diets, especially
those high in sugars, are known to be associated with high rates of pathology, particularly
caries, the most ubiquitous dental disease. The presence of caries has been central to diet
reconstruction and to the examination of shifts in foodways in prehistoric human populations. Globally, caries rates have increased over time, a change that has been attributed to
a shift toward a more carbohydrate-rich diet. In most areas this coincides with important
social developments that are often associated with the adoption of agriculture, although
less pronounced changes in diet and food-processing techniques can also lead to different
caries rates. Again, processing techniques also influence pathology rates, with soft, sticky
foods facilitating bacterial growth. Differences in pathology rates between populations or
social groups (e.g., agriculturalists/hunter-gatherers, elites/non-elites, males/females) have
been used to indicate differences in foodways associated with social organization, and thus
are a very valuable source of information in archaeology.
Dental analyses are particularly suitable for distinguishing (temporal) dietary differences between large samples. For example, patterns of dental wear and pathology in
Pre-Columbian Caribbean material have indicated an unexpectedly large dietary shift
over time, with foodways increasingly agricultural in orientation. In contexts where
social change may profoundly influence foodways, such as in culture contact situations,
dental analyses combined with other lines of dietary evidence have revealed significant
temporal changes in subsistence practices. Recently, there has been an increased focus
on the amount of variation within (site) samples as the result of both biological and
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D H R A’ ( J O R DA N )
sociocultural factors. A persistent caveat in the potential of diet reconstruction using
dental analysis, however, is that while wear and pathology are clearly related to food
consistency and carbohydrate intake, the precise fauna and flora comprising the diet
cannot be distinguished. Furthermore, dental wear and pathology have complex etiologies, meaning that neither is a straightforward indicator of diet and foodways. Therefore,
dental analysis for diet reconstruction works best as part of an integrated, multidisciplinary research design, including dietary and contextual information from faunal and
botanical studies, archaeometry, osteology, ethnography, and ethnohistory.
See also Bioarchaeological Analysis; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleonutrition; Paleopathology; Scanning Electron Microscopy; Teeth, Diet, and Human Evolution
Further Reading
Chattah, N. Lev-Tov, and P. Smith. 2006.Variation in Occlusal Dental Wear of Two Chalcolithic Populations in the Southern Levant. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 130(4):471–79.
Eshed, Vered, Avi Gopher, and Israel Hershkovitz. 2006. Tooth Wear and Dental Pathology at the
Advent of Agriculture: New Evidence from the Levant. American Journal of Physical Anthropology
130(2):145–59.
Hillson, Simon. 1996. Dental Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Irish, Joel D., and Greg C. Nelson, eds. 2008. Technique and Application in Dental Anthropology. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Larsen, Clark Spencer, ed. 2001. Bioarchaeology of Spanish Florida: The Impact of Colonialism. Gainesville:
University Press of Florida.
Littleton, Judith, Rachel Scott, Gina McFarlane, and Keryn Walshe. 2013. Hunter-Gatherer Variability:
Dental Wear in South Australia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 152(2):273–86.
Scott, George R., and Christy G. Turner. 1988. Dental Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology
17:99–126.
■ H AY L E Y L . M I C K L E B U R G H
D H R A’ ( J O R DA N )
The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA; 11,500–10,500 cal BP) site of Dhra’ is located
on the east side of the Dead Sea, at the junction between the mountains and the plains
around the sea. At the time of the settlement’s occupation, a number of key economic
changes appear to have been taking place, including the cultivation of wild cereals and
development in architectural forms reflecting the changing economy.
One striking development is in buildings that appear to have been designed for collective storage. The floors of these structures were held above the ground by wooden beams
placed on upright stones, with notches to hold the beams. A raised floor would have
had the double benefit of keeping the contents dry and away from pests such as rodents.
There are no stored goods preserved in the buildings, although there is a concentration
of phytoliths from barley husks in one, but the absence of any normal domestic features
(such as fireplaces) and the specific architectural features of these structures support their
interpretation as stores. In addition, the mud walls of the buildings are tempered with
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barley chaff , suggesting a close association with that grain and indicating the large quantities that were harvested.
Other buildings appear to have served for food processing. These are light constructions with wattle and daub screen walls, but with well-made mud-plaster floors containing built-in cup-hole mortars. The construction of special-purpose buildings indicates
the importance of the food economy to these very early sedentarizing communities
and suggests a communal approach to storage and processing. While food storage is a
vital component in minimizing risk and the early transition to agriculture, this apparent
communal approach shows that this early stage was probably not associated with the
accumulation of surplus and the development of social inequality.
The settlement at Dhra’ was abandoned toward the end of the PPNA when a new
location was adopted farther out onto the plains at Zaharat edh Dhra’. The ecotonal
position of Dhra’, typical of hunting-and-gathering settlements that exploited different
wild resources, no longer provided sufficient space for fields to support an increasing
reliance on cultivation.
See also Bedrock Features; Broad Spectrum Revolution; Cultivation; Food Storage;
Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Innovation and Risk; Phytolith Analysis; Sedentism
and Domestication; Storage Facilities
Further Reading
Finlayson, Bill, Ian Kuijt, Trina Arpin, et al. 2003. Dhra’ Excavation Project, 2002 Interim Report.
Levant 35:1–38.
Kuijt, Ian, and Bill Finlayson. 2009. Evidence for Food Storage and Pre-Domestication Granaries 11,000
Years Ago in the Jordan Valley. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106(27):10966–70.
Kuijt, Ian, Bill Finlayson, and Jode MacKay. 2007. Pottery Neolithic Landscape Modification at Dhra’.
Antiquity 81(311):106–18.
■ B I L L F I N L AY S O N
D I A S P O R A F O O D WAY S
Diaspora is used variously to describe, define, and theorize communities and societies
characterized by forced or voluntary migration from a homeland, whether real or imagined. Diasporic peoples are dispersed, displaced, and often feel unanchored since their
roots exist elsewhere. Moreover, in their host countries they are alienated and discriminated against. Thus, to be in diaspora is to be in a struggle. Many individuals and communities living in diaspora long for a return to their ancestral home. Even more fight to
remain where they are, seeking social justice and equality. Importantly, while we often
generalize in reference to “diaspora,” diasporic communities are uniquely formed and
transformed by diverse histories, origins, cultures, and experiences. Singular definitions
of diaspora simply do not apply to all case studies.
The archaeological study of diaspora cultures is most prominent in historical archaeology. Drawing influence from the broader social and political movements that defined the
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D I A S P O R A F O O D W AY S
1960s, historical archaeologists began to take an interest in sites once occupied by enslaved
Africans in the United States. The growing concern for reconstructing more inclusive
pasts soon led to archaeological research on the Overseas Chinese, African Diaspora sites
in the Caribbean, and European immigrant groups that faced discrimination upon arrival on American shores (especially the Irish). Along the way, foodways have remained a
central line of inquiry in the study of diasporic groups.
In excavating the sites of the disenfranchised, archaeologists have generally focused on
the interrelated issues of inequality, identity, and cultural change. Diasporic peoples were
composed of racial and ethnic minorities who were systematically oppressed, and foodways were heavily implicated within cultural and social identities, norms, and interactions.
Key research questions involving diaspora foodways include the role that food and its
related practices played in collective identity formation and in resistance to subjugation.
Prime examples of how diaspora communities used foodways to reproduce their
cultural heritage and to express collective identities are represented in the research of
Chinese immigrants. Paul E. Langenwalter published one of the earliest studies of a Chinese diaspora community during the California gold rush. His site was that of a general
store in Madera County owned and operated by a Chinese immigrant named Ah Sun
who sold goods to Chinese miners. Langenwalter analyzed ceramic vessels and animal
bones, and the butchering marks on them, and concluded that Overseas Chinese foodways were conservative. The merchant and his Chinese customers had not acculturated
to the subsistence practices of dominant Californian society. In fact, where the author
did identify local animal species that were atypical of Chinese fare, he interpreted this as
Sun’s pragmatic use of readily available meat protein in place of the difficult-to-obtain
species traditionally consumed.
Archaeologists who subsequently researched the Overseas Chinese and other diasporic groups moved away from acculturation as an approach to understanding cultural
change. Still, a growing number of case studies have suggested that many of these diaspora
communities and households did practice foodways that were at least partially rooted in
the traditions of their ancestral homeland. Wong How, a seaweed gatherer on the central coast of California during the early 20th century; Chinese laborers on the Brown/
Sanderson farm in Northern California; and the Irish in the Five Points neighborhood of
New York consumed foods that underscored their connections to “home” an ocean away.
Research on early 19th-century enslaved foodways at Clifton Plantation in the Bahamas
is also a case in point. Drawing on a wide array of evidence, including ceramics, the remains of marine and terrestrial species, observations of contemporary open-air markets, and
historical sources, Laurie Wilkie and Paul Farnsworth posit that enslaved Bahamians were
steeped in foodways traditions of West Africa.Yet this was not cultural stasis. Instead, through
long-term memory and recall, Afro-Bahamians reproduced traditional food-related practices as a way to assert their identity and to maintain connections across generations. They
used outdoor cooking platforms, prepared one-pot meals (i.e., stews, porridges), and likely
brewed African-style beverages. Moreover, the authors considered the spiritual and ritual
roles that food played in West African societies—and by extension, the Bahamas—where
feasting, rites of passage, and ancestor veneration involved food consumption.
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Most of the diaspora scholarship in archaeology has focused on people of African descent, especially in the United States and the Caribbean. Others have studied how foodways served as a vehicle for identity formation and a politics of resistance. Evidence from
slave-related sites in Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and Jamaica demonstrates that
Africans and American-born blacks actively participated in constructing new food-related
practices that integrated African, Native American, and European foods and subsistence
activities. The process is often referred to as creolization, where cultural interaction inevitably leads to change.
Foodways can also reveal how social relations operated, as food can be a point of
contention, or alternatively, a source for networking and communalism. For example,
Maria Franklin’s research showed that enslaved Virginians variously worked collectively
to acquire, grow, barter, hunt, and prepare foods and that the cooperation around foodways helped to engender cohesiveness within the slave quarter. This work highlighted
the gendered division of labor around foodways and how women played a major role in
the creation of the early manifestations of “soul food.” Likewise, research into the role of
hunting at Saragossa Plantation in Mississippi revealed that not only did hunting help with
social bonding, but it was heavily implicated in the formation of male gender identity.
Thus, foodways were instrumental in African diasporic socialization processes.
See also Creole Cuisines/Foodways; Creolization; Food and Colonialism; Food and
Identity; Food and Inequality; Foodways and Gender Roles; Immigrant Foodways;
Informal Economic Exchange; Poplar Forest; Slave Diet, on Southern Plantations;
Slave Diet, on West Indian Plantations
Further Reading
Ferguson, Leland. 1992. Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650–1800. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Franklin, Maria. 2001. The Archaeological and Symbolic Dimensions of Soul Food: Race, Culture, and
Afro-Virginian Identity. In Race and the Archaeology of Identity, edited by Charles E. Orser, 88–107.
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Greenwood, Roberta S., and Dana N. Slawson. 2008. Gathering Insights on Isolation. Historical Archaeology 42(3):68–79.
Langenwalter, Paul E. 1980.The Archaeology of 19th Century Chinese Subsistence at the Lower China
Store, Madera County, California. In Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnicity in America, edited by
Robert L. Schuyler, 102–12. Farmingdale, NY: Baywood Publishing.
Wilkie, Laurie A., and Paul Farnsworth. 2005. Sampling Many Pots: An Archaeology of Memory and Tradition
at a Bahamian Plantation. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Young, Amy L., Michael Tuma, and Cliff Jenkins. 2001. The Role of Hunting to Cope with Risk at
Saragossa Plantation, Natchez, Mississippi. American Anthropologist 103(3):692–704.
■ MARIA FRANKLIN
DIET
See Paleodietary Analysis
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DIGESTION AND HUMAN EVOLUTION
D I G E ST I O N A N D H U M A N E VO LU T I O N
Compared to other apes, humans have relatively large energy budgets but small digestive structures for our body size. This combination of traits is thought to reflect a legacy
of energy-rich and easy-to-digest diets in Homo, beginning about two million years
ago (MYA). The diet allowing these changes has been debated, but enhanced reliance
on animal foods and the adoption of food processing technologies were likely both
important drivers.
Daily energy budgets expanded in early Homo. Fossils indicate enlarged adult body
size, especially in females, who would have been acutely sensitive to energetic supplies
associated with the high costs of reproduction. Locomotor adaptations appearing at this
time suggest intensification of energetically demanding behaviors like long-distance running. In addition, increased relative brain size implies higher basal energy requirements
or compensatory reductions. Two kinds of compensatory reductions have been proposed:
the expensive tissue hypothesis argues that metabolic costs of an enlarged brain were met
by a reduction in similarly expensive gut tissue; the expensive brain hypothesis argues
that encephalization costs were met through higher energy intake and lower investments
in locomotion, growth, and reproduction. Although the relative merits of these two ideas
remain under discussion, both hypotheses argue that ancestral humans must necessarily
have transitioned toward an energy-rich diet.
Coincident reductions in digestive structures suggest that Homo was not simply eating
more to meet these increased energy needs but was instead eating differently. Compared
to australopithecines, early Homo had reduced postcanine teeth, slighter mandibles, and
more gracile chewing muscles per unit body size. Compared to our nearest living relatives
in the genus Pan, modern humans have smoother (less sacculated) intestinal tracts and
reduced colons that limit our ability to retain and extract energy from foods that escape
digestion in the small intestine, like fiber. Our smaller guts seem to have originated in
early Homo, judging from the emergence of a narrower pelvis and barrel-shaped, rather
than cone-shaped, thorax. These features suggest that early Homo gained routine access to
a diet requiring less chewing effort and less capacity for indigestible nutrients.
Anthropologists have long argued that these adaptations were driven by increased
consumption of animal foods. Support for this hypothesis is abundant and diverse: cut and
breakage marks on bones, wear marks on stone tools, and assemblage data suggest that
humans were butchering animals by 2.5 MYA; bone isotope profiles position early Homo
between carnivores and herbivores; genetic analysis of taeniid tapeworms that jumped
from African carnivores to humans as primary hosts indicate frequent meat consumption
prior to 1 MYA; and modern humans have limited ability to synthesize important nutrients available primarily from animal foods, including the sulfonic acid taurine and key
polyunsaturated fatty acids necessary for brain growth.
Despite such evidence, increased reliance on animal foods was probably not the sole
solution. First, the pursuit of animal foods typically requires a large energetic investment
with low rates of success, leading to speculation that hunting by ancestral humans was
only made possible through access to a consistent alternative source of energy-rich food
that buffered against the consequences of hunting failure. Second, it has been argued that
seasonal depletions of body fat in prey animals would have placed human ancestors at risk
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of “rabbit starvation,” a condition of negative energy balance that can arise in omnivores
deriving a large proportion of their calories from protein, due to the high costs of protein
digestion and limited capacities for urea synthesis. Third, a high intake of meat would
have presented a chewing challenge, since ancestral and modern Homo share blunt molars
with rounded cusps that cannot efficiently fracture compliant animal tissues. Finally and
importantly, empirical data from modern raw foodists suggest that diets incorporating raw
animal foods remain energetically inadequate, even in the absence of seasonal constraints
on supply or quality.
These concerns have focused attention on the complementary role of food processing in explaining human digestive adaptations. Most theoretical development to date has
centered on cooking, which has been shown to raise the energetic value of plant and
animal foods by increasing digestibility and lowering the metabolic costs of mastication
and digestion. By improving consistently available plant items in addition to animal items,
cooking would have conferred a predictable increase in energy, relaxing constraints on
the coevolution of larger total energy budgets and smaller digestive capacities. A key challenge for the “cooking hypothesis” is timing, however: major digestive adaptations were
apparent in humans beginning ~2 MYA, but the earliest widely accepted evidence for
controlled fire dates to ~1 MYA (Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa), with direct evidence
for cooking in the form of hearths and burned bones dating to just 250 KYA. One potential explanation is that traces of fire often vanish too quickly to be faithfully preserved in
the archaeological record. Another possible explanation with recent empirical support is
that the widespread adoption of simple nonthermal processing techniques like pounding
could have conferred early improvements in dietary quality; the subsequent adoption of
cooking would greatly enhance these benefits.
Further work to quantify the energetic gains and digestive efficiencies expected from
intensified exploitation of animal foods versus the adoption of thermal and nonthermal
processing technologies will help to clarify the pathways by which humans arrived at our
biological commitment to a high-quality diet. In addition, emerging studies of the many
dietary interactions between humans and the microbial inhabitants of our bodies promise
insight into human digestive capabilities that have evolved in genomes beyond our own.
See also Bioarchaeological Analysis; Fire and the Development of Cooking; Fire
and the Development of Cooking Technology; Meat; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleonutrition; Plant Processing; Teeth, Diet, and Human Evolution; Wonderwerk Cave
Further Reading
Aiello, Leslie C., and Peter Wheeler. 1995. The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis: The Brain and the Digestive System in Human and Primate Evolution. Current Anthropology 36(2):199–221.
Bunn, Henry T. 2007. Meat Made Us Human. In Evolution of the Human Diet:The Known, the Unknown,
and the Unknowable, edited by Peter Ungar, 191–211. New York: Oxford.
Carmody, Rachel N., Gil S. Weintraub, and Richard W. Wrangham. 2011. Energetic Consequences
of Thermal and Nonthermal Food Processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
108(48):19199–19203.
Navarrete, Ana, Carel P. van Schaik, and Karin Isler. 2011. Energetics and the Evolution of Human Brain
Size. Nature 480(7375):91–93.
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D I S T I L L AT I O N
Speth, John, D. 2010. The Paleoanthropology and Archaeology of Big-Game Hunting: Protein, Fat, or Politics?
New York: Springer.
Walter, Jens, and Ruth Ley. 2011. The Human Gut Microbiome: Ecology and Recent Evolutionary
Changes. Annual Review of Microbiology 65:411–29.
Wrangham, Richard. 2009. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. New York: Basic Books.
■ R AC H E L N . C A R M O DY
DINING
See Food and Dining as Social Display
D I S T I L L AT I O N
The art of distilling, the concentration of liquid concoctions through heating, has been
practiced for millennia. Distillation represents the most complex form of alcohol production. The production of distilled spirits requires not only fermentation, but also the
added steps of heating and regulating the fermented compounds in an alembic or still to
produce a concentrated alcoholic beverage with a high alcohol content. In ancient times
it was used to produce medicinal mixtures and fragrances. The ancient Egyptians, for example, distilled rose water for its aromatic and pharmacological qualities. The distillation
of alcoholic beverages is a more recent phenomenon. While it is widely accepted that the
distillation of alcoholic beverages began in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, archaeological evidence may challenge this Eurocentric narrative. In South Asia, for example,
distinctive ceramic pots at 2,500-year-old village sites in northern India and Pakistan have
been interpreted as alembics. If correct, the pots would represent the earliest evidence of
alcohol distillation in the world.
The large-scale distillation of alcoholic beverages is most notably a fixture of the
modern age and has been the focus of historical archaeological inquiry in the New
World. Distilling equipment has been recovered from Martin’s Hundred, a 17th-century
Virginia settlement, and from nearby James Fort in Jamestown. Given the relative novelty
of alcohol distillation in the early 17th century and the rather limited consumption of
distilled spirits in Britain at this time, these stills were probably used for making medicinal
compounds rather than alcoholic beverages.
The expansion of distilling industries in the later 17th century was driven in part
by the expansion of sugar production in the Caribbean, which provided an enormous
amount of base material (molasses) for local Caribbean distillers as well as distillers in
Europe and North America. Investigations on Tobago show that the process of rum distilling and the layout of the natural terrain dictated the location of structures on Caribbean
sugar estates. Rum distilleries have also been investigated at colonial and post-Revolutionary sites in North America. Unlike the factory-in-the-field operations found in the
Caribbean, rum distilling in early New York and New England was an urban industrial
enterprise that used imported Caribbean molasses as its fermentable base material.
Historical archaeologists have explored other types of distilleries, including bourbon
whiskey distilleries in Kentucky and a whiskey distillery at George Washington’s home
at Mount Vernon, Virginia (USA), demonstrating the role of distilling as both an ancil-
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lary economic activity and a primary economic focus. Brandy, made from distilled grape
wine, has been investigated archaeologically at the Vergelegen estate in South Africa and
in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The brandy distillery in Buenos Aires was an independent
operation that distilled raw base material imported from distant locations, especially from
rural vineyards and wineries located outside of the city.
See also Distilled Spirits; Fermentation; Food as a Commodity; Sucrose
Further Reading
Clement, Christopher Ohm. 1997. Settlement Patterning on the British Caribbean Island of Tobago.
Historical Archaeology 31(2):93–106.
Smith, Frederick H. 2005. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press
of Florida.
———. 2008. The Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
■ FREDERICK H. SMITH
DISTILLED SPIRITS
Distilled spirits are concentrated alcoholic beverages produced in stills. Rum, gin,
brandy, whiskey, vodka, and various other concentrated forms of alcohol are different
from low-alcohol-content fermented beverages, such as wines and beers. Emerging in
the 17th century with the growing knowledge of alcohol distillation in Europe and the
increasing efficiency of distilling technology, spirits have left their mark in the archaeological record and have helped provide insights into colonialism, capitalism, sociability,
ethnic identity, class anomie, and many other aspects of life in the early modern era.
Evidence of distilled spirits has been recovered from a variety of archaeological contexts, including taverns, saloons, military sites, slave villages, boardinghouses, and work
camps. Textual sources and ethnographic studies have helped archaeologists understand
the uses and meanings of the glass bottles, stoneware storage containers, crystal drinking
vessels, porcelain punchbowls, brass spigots, iron barrel hoops, and various other forms
of material culture associated with distilled spirits found on archaeological sites. The
archaeological study of distilled spirits has increased our understanding of the economic
impact of distilled spirits and their role in sustaining emerging trade networks, especially
with indigenous peoples. The study of specialized places for the consumption of distilled spirits has also revealed important information about sociability. And the material
culture of distilled spirits has shed light on the way that identity formation and class
conflict play out in different archaeological contexts.
The vessels used for the storage and transport of distilled spirits reveal colonial ventures and trade networks that connected disparate parts of the globe. In colonial North
America, alcoholic beverages played an integral role in creating and sustaining the European-Indian fur and skin trades. Although prior to European contact North America
was one of the few areas of the world that did not produce alcoholic beverages, Native
Americans quickly embraced European-introduced alcoholic drinks, especially rum and
whiskey.They incorporated alcohol into traditional social and spiritual activities, and used
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it to cope with the unsettling changes that accompanied European colonialism. Historical
archaeologists have recovered glass bottles and ceramic storage jars from Native American sites that highlight the extent to which Native North Americans were engaged in
the global alcohol traffic. For example, at 18th-century Creek and Cherokee sites in the
southeastern United States, archaeologists found glass bottles and ceramic storage jars that
testify to the prominent role of spirits in the fur and skin trades.
The liquor trade between Europeans and indigenous peoples was not limited to
North America. The introduction of large quantities of liquor into a volatile environment of colonial domination disrupted traditional indigenous social structures, even in
areas with long-standing traditions of alcohol use. For example, before the arrival of
Europeans, fermented alcoholic beverages made from cassava played a central role in
the social and spiritual worlds of the indigenous peoples in the Orinoco Delta region
of South America. In the 16th and 17th centuries, European-introduced alcoholic beverages began to penetrate the Orinoco region. Fragments of European glass bottles and
ceramic storage containers, once used to hold alcoholic beverages, especially high-alcohol-content distilled spirits, represent a substantial part of the artifact assemblages from
contact-period indigenous sites along the Orinoco River. Archaeological evidence
shows that European-introduced alcoholic beverages and the European alcohol trade
undermined traditional indigenous social structures in the Orinoco. The introduction
of distilled spirits, especially rum, also disrupted life along the West African coasts, and
the fragments of European glass bottles at colonial sites in West Africa testify to the
extensive role of alcohol in the African slave trade.
Taverns, saloons, and other drinking spaces offer insights into the role of spirits in
sociability, especially in frontier settings. One of the most comprehensive studies of saloon life in the western United States reveals the importance of whiskey in sustaining
social bonds on the western frontier. Identity and sociability are also linked to particular types of spirits. For example, fragments of whiskey bottles have been recovered
from Irish tenement sites in New York City that may indicate the residents’ attempts
to maintain connections to their Irish homeland. The presence of imported Chinese
liquors at Chinese laundry-worker sites in Oakland and Chinese miner sites in Sacramento may also represent attempts to maintain cultural links across the Pacific. The
relationship between alcohol and identity formation is a topic of particular interest for
archaeologists and anthropologists.
Drinking also reveals important information about class identities and the tensions
between workers and employers in the early industrial era. Perhaps the most important
research projects to examine these tensions are the archaeological investigations into
the lives of 19th- and early 20th-century workers at the Boott Cotton Mills in Lowell,
Massachusetts, which revealed insights into the alcohol-related changes that accompanied
industrial capitalism. Mill owners practiced a system of moral policing that sought to
restrict the drinking of mill workers. A program of corporate paternalism was meant to
produce a structured, diligent workforce and reduce the likelihood of labor unrest. The
presence of alcohol bottles in the archaeological record from boardinghouses at the Boott
Cotton Mills indicates that attempts to curb drinking were not entirely successful and
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shows that workers clandestinely took control of their leisure pursuits and challenged the
social controls of the mill owners.
See also Distillation; Food and Identity; Immigrant Foodways; Military Sites;
Taverns/Inns; Trade Routes
Further Reading
Dietler, Michael. 2006. Alcohol: Anthropological/Archaeological Perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology 35:229–49.
Dixon, Kelly J. 2005. Boomtown Saloons: Archaeology and History in Virginia City. Reno: University of
Nevada Press.
Heath, Dwight B. 2000. Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and Culture. Philadelphia:
Brunner/Mazel Publishing.
Kelly, Kenneth G. 1997. The Archaeology of African-European Interaction: Investigating the Social
Roles of Trade, Traders, and the Use of Space in the Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Hueda
Kingdom, Republic of Benin. World Archaeology 28(3):351–69.
Scaramelli, Franz, and Kay Tarble de Scaramelli. 2005. The Roles of Material Culture in the Colonization of the Orinoco, Venezuela. Journal of Social Archaeology 5(1):135–68.
Smith, Frederick H. 2005. Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History. Gainesville: University Press
of Florida.
———. 2008. The Archaeology of Alcohol and Drinking. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
■ FREDERICK H. SMITH
D N A A N A LY S I S
Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is one of life’s basic molecular building blocks and contains
vast amounts of data that specify the characteristics of all living things. The analysis of
DNA in living organisms and archaeological materials can provide detailed information
not only about foods consumed but also about the different types of subsistence strategies
employed by humans during prehistory.
The analysis of DNA was revolutionized 30 years ago by the development of the
polymerase chain reaction, which enables tiny amounts of DNA to be amplified millions
of times. This method has made it possible to analyze ancient DNA (aDNA) in archaeological material, though this can be difficult because of the degraded nature of aDNA.
Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is enabling the analysis of even older material and
has greatly increased the sequence data recovered. Through NGS it is now possible to
analyze the whole genome of an ancient specimen; this new field is called paleogenomics.
aDNA can be extracted directly from archaeologically recovered animal bones and
plant macrofossils, and can also be recovered from coprolites, the gut contents of wellpreserved bodies, and dental plaque, enabling the identification of particular foodstuffs
consumed by humans when morphological identification is not possible.
The comparison of DNA sequences from different individuals or populations allows
family relationships to be elucidated, and different types of DNA markers can be used
to address different questions. For example, the analysis of short sequence repeats (SSRs),
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mainly in regions that do not encode protein sequences, can be used to study the relationships between a crop in particular areas and its dispersal from its site of domestication,
while the analysis of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in coding regions sheds
light on the function of various genes, such as those determining the physical characteristics of an organism.
Analysis of DNA from modern human populations can also be used to make inferences about the past. For example, the presence of genetic mutations causing lactase
persistence (continued presence of the enzyme lactase in adulthood) in human populations lends support to a long history of dairy consumption in particular regions such as
northern Europe.
See also Animal Domestication; Biomolecular Analysis; Dental Analysis; Lactase
Persistence and Dairying; Paleofecal Analysis; Plant Domestication
Further Reading
Brown, Terry A., and Keri Brown. 2011. Biomolecular Archaeology: An Introduction. Chichester, UK:
Wiley-Blackwell.
■ DIANE L. LISTER
D O C U M E N TA R Y A N A LY S I S
Drawing on techniques developed in fields such as ethnohistory, historical anthropology, cognitive anthropology, semiotics, and literary criticism, archaeologists use, analyze,
and interpret historical documents of all sorts, whether retrieved from archives or from
archaeological sites. Documents studied by archaeologists include written records on
paper or other media as well as excavated “documents” like clay tablets, cylinder seals,
seal-impressed vessels, ostraca (potsherds with writing on them), graffiti, and inscriptions.
Both excavated and archived documents may require deciphering and transcription. At
times archaeologists mine documents for correspondences between excavated data and
the written record, but many documentary archaeologists seek information that documents convey inadvertently about attitudes, beliefs, and actions as well as evidence of the
character and standpoint of documents’ authors, recorders, or subjects.
Text-aided or documentary archaeology involves first “constructing the archive” for
a given research project by assembling as much data as possible from all available sources.
Laurie Wilkie, in her essay “Documentary Archaeology,” observes that elements of the
archive constructed for a given research project may provide overlapping, conflicting, or
entirely different insights into the past that require resolution and integration to account
for differences in scale, completeness, representativeness, and temporality. The analytical process is aimed at developing contexts for interpreting archaeological evidence
through close critical readings and content analysis of documents. While documentary
archaeologists may not treat each line of evidence (e.g., the site matrix and the data it
contains, artifacts, documents, images, maps, oral history), they do consider all forms of
evidence as equally deserving of critical analysis. Understanding the relationships among
different source materials is key, fostering integration of sources in ways that permit the
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archaeologist to write accurate narratives; access to multiple lines of documentary and
oral historical evidence at times allows the archaeologist to construct alternately parallel
and conflicting narratives reflecting multiple voices from the past. Documentary archaeology is an analytical approach that allows elucidation of embodied practices, embraces
ambiguity and multiple meanings, and examines closely how objects figure in discourses
both at the intimate, one-to-one level between a person and artifact as well as at broader
institutional or global scales.
A documentary archaeology of food might incorporate a diverse set of textual sources,
including provisioning lists, account books, inventories, and other documents, to determine
what foodstuffs were available in particular geographic and temporal contexts. Through
contextual analysis of seals on Early Bronze Age ceramics (EB IV) from western Syria, objects previously thought to be transport jars sealed with emblems of the Ebla state (~24002000 BC), Sarah R. Graff identified the vessels instead as specialized cooking pots used in
domestic rituals. Though often biased and even ideological in nature, textual sources, analyzed critically in conjunction with archaeological data and oral accounts, have contributed
significantly to the interpretation of foodways of enslaved African Americans, for example,
as well as corporate foodways in boardinghouses in 19th-century Lowell, Massachusetts
(USA). Close readings of recipes, cookbooks, and personal accounts permit reconstruction
of meals, dishes, table etiquette, and other food-related practices, or even of particular events
(e.g., feasts), within specific cultural contexts. Textual sources have been used to develop
a ceramic typology employing emic terms for food-related material culture, for example,
in the colonial Chesapeake (USA), along with the contexts for the use, consumption, and
meanings assigned to foods and food-related material culture by their users.
See also Cookbooks; Food and Capitalism; Food Production and the Origins of
Writing in Mesopotamia; Material Culture Analysis; Recipes; Slave Diet, on
Southern Plantations
Further Reading
Andrén, Anders. 1998. Between Artifacts and Texts: Historical Archaeology in Global Perspective. Translated by
A. Crozier. New York: Plenum.
Beaudry, Mary C., ed. 1988. Documentary Archaeology in the New World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2014. Feasting on Broken Glass: Making a Meal of Seeds, Bones, and Sherds. Northeast Historical
Archaeology 42:184–200.
Beaudry, Mary C., Janet Long, Henry M. Miller, et al. 1983. A Vessel Typology for Early Chesapeake
Ceramics: The Potomac Typological System. Historical Archaeology 17(1):18–42.
Graff, Sarah R. 2012. Culinary Preferences: Seal-Impressed Vessels from Western Syria as Specialized
Vessels. In The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation, edited
by Sarah R. Graff and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, 19–45. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Little, Barbara J., ed. 1991. Text-Aided Archaeology. Orlando: CRC Press.
Moreland, John. 2001. Archaeology and Text. London: Duckworth.
Wilkie, Laurie A. 2006. Documentary Archaeology. In The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology,
edited by Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry, 13–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
■ MARY C. BEAUDRY
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DOMESTIC SITES
Some of the most significant locations for foodways in archaeological contexts are domestic sites. Indeed archaeologists throughout the world excavate more domestic sites than
any other site types. They can be found within urban settlements but also in rural contexts, and at military sites such as Roman forts and fortresses (e.g., soldiers’ barracks and
commanding officers’ residences). Within domestic sites, everyday food practices—the
storage, processing, and food consumption activities of all members of the household—are
often the most identifiable of all household activities, through structural, material-cultural,
and bioarchaeological evidence. In contrast, day-to-day, domestic food practices from the
earliest historical periods are probably the least well documented in the textual sources.
Such written records are more usually concerned with exceptional cooking and eating
practices, such as special banquets and feast days. Beginning with the medieval period,
a range of documentary sources provides details of household foodways, from account
books and ledgers, to receipt books, to manuscript recipes and published cookbooks. For
example, we have lists of food from the Westminster Abbey kitchens that give us insight
into the rich diets of medieval monks.
For most archaeological sites, it is not always possible to distinguish everyday food
activities from exceptional food-related practices, although it is widely assumed that evidence for exceptional or luxury foods (e.g., thousands of oyster shells in a single deposit
at the urban site of Silchester in Roman Britain) or high-quality dining vessels (e.g., silver vessels as were found in the House of the Menander in Pompeii) documents special
banquets and feasts.
Another important aspect of domestic sites is that, in addition to the physical remains
of dwellings and evidence for their contents, such sites often include refuse areas where
household rubbish was dumped. These materials can often include food waste and also
waste from food preparation and consumption (e.g., ceramic remains). This rubbish can
be dumped in pits within the domestic structure or can be discarded farther away. For
example, at the Old Kinchega Homestead, a 19th- to 20th-century homestead in outback New South Wales, Australia, an extensive area of household refuse covering 16,000
square meters was located some 200 meters from the homestead complex. This refuse
area produced a wealth of evidence for foodways at this site and particularly for those
practices that involved more formal dining and perhaps tea drinking and socializing at a
rural location where the nearest potentially like-minded neighbor was about 60 kilometers away. Indeed such refuse areas often provide good insights into household practices,
but they are less useful for discriminating between the foodways of different members of
the household. In situations where there are no specific documentary sources outlining
the food-related activities of the different household members at an archaeological site,
we need to draw on ethnographic or historical analogy, but with caution. For example,
tea drinking is a particularly important social ritual for women in domestic contexts in
the British Empire. This is not exclusively the case, however.
Domestic sites in all contexts—for example, urban, rural, military—can be made up of
a number of different spaces in which different domestic activities could potentially have
taken place. We should not assume, however, that domestic space and domestic activities
in all past societies, and in all contexts, were differentiated along similar lines. Fixtures,
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decoration, material culture, and bioarchaeological remains within domestic sites can
often give greater, and often surprising, insights into how household activities, including
food-related practices, were organized at particular sites.
See also Archaeology of Household Food Production; Architectural Analysis;
Commensality; Cookbooks; Documentary Analysis; Food and Dining as Social
Display; Herculaneum and Pompeii; Household Archaeology; Middens and Other
Trash Deposits; Military Sites
Further Reading
Allison, Penelope M., ed. 1999. The Archaeology of Household Activities. London: Routledge.
———. 2004a. Pompeian Households: Analysis of the Material Culture. Monograph 42. Los Angeles: Cotsen
Institute of Archaeology, UCLA.
———. 2004b. Pompeian Households: An On-Line Companion. The Stoa: A Consortium for Electronic
Publication in the Humanities, edited by Ross Scaife. http://www.stoa.org/projects/ph/home.
———. 2006a. The Insula of the Menander in Pompeii. Vol. 3, The Finds: A Contextual Study. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
———. 2006b. The Insula of the Menander in Pompeii Vol. III: The Finds in Context: An On-Line Companion.
http://www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/menander/.
Allison, Penelope M., and Aedeen Cremin. 2006. Fine Ceramics from the Old Kinchega Homestead.
Australasian Historical Archaeology 24:55–64.
Fulford, Michael, Amanda Clarke, and Hella Eckardt. 2006. Life and Labour in Late Roman Silchester:
Excavations in Insula IX since 1997. Britannia Monograph Series 22. London: Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.
Harvey, Barbara. 1993. Living and Dying in England, 1100–1540: The Monastic Experience. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Painter, Kenneth S. 2000. The Insula of the Menander in Pompeii. Vol. 4, The Silver Treasure. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
■ PENELOPE M. ALLISON
D O M E S T I C AT I O N
See Animal Domestication; Plant Domestication; Sedentism and Domestication
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E
E N V I R O N M E N TA L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N
See Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction
E T H N OA R C H A E O LO GY
Ethnoarchaeology is the study of material remains that result from present-day human
practices for application to the study of human behavior in the past. It encompasses ethnographic observations based on a clear archaeological research question. This process
is followed by the formation of relational analogies pertaining to the patterns expected
at archaeological sites that result from various human practices. Ethnoarchaeological research thus records human activities and their material signatures in their social, economic,
and ideological contexts. Food acquisition, preparation, consumption, storage, discard,
exchange, and trade are important research topics, and ethnoarchaeology has become an
integral part of the archaeological study of food.
Food acquisition includes all forms of human subsistence—hunting, gathering, herding
(including butchering and milking), plant cultivation, and exchange/trade. It involves all
types of food, both animal and vegetal, as well as consumption of inorganic mineral materials
(e.g., salts and soil). The vast majority of ethnoarchaeological studies revolve around food
acquisition, for example, the study of the decisions taken by hunters in relation to animal
size, distance of kill from the base camp, and sharing of butchered animal parts. Another
example is the study of plant crop processing, from harvesting in the fields through decisions relating to which plant parts will be brought into the settlement and how different
plant parts will be processed. By observing human practices relating to food acquisition,
archaeologists are informed about the operational sequences that determine which portions
of food raw material are brought into human habitation sites, and which are left behind.
Food preparation involves a large variety of activities, including butchering, preparation of dairy products, heating (roasting, toasting, stewing, boiling, baking, etc.), sieving,
grinding, pulverizing, cutting, mixing of several ingredients, brewing, and salting. Ethnoarchaeological studies in this category tend to concentrate on preparation of plantbased foods and beverages—for example, preparation of acorns for human consumption,
a process that involves detoxification by prolonged soaking and later pulverization, or
the chain of operations related to beer brewing. Recent ethnoarchaeological studies of
cooking installations included measurements of temperatures produced in ovens and
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Figure 20. Temperature measurements conducted during cooking (stewing) in Uzbekistan as
part of an ethnoarchaeological study to aid in the identification of cooking installations in the
archaeological record. Thermometers were used to measure the temperature at the fuel area and
at the bottom of the cooking utensil (Gur-Arieh et al. 2013). Courtesy of Ruth Shahack-Gross.
open hearths, their effect on installation walls, and whether the use of different fuel types
(namely wood vs. animal dung) affects cooking efficiency (figure 20). Other ethnoarchaeological studies look into identification of food preparation areas through analysis of
chemical elements in the soils/sediments on which food preparation took place. These
include studies in domestic contexts such as kitchen areas, but also studies in open-air
locations—for example, sites used for drying fish.
Food consumption is relatively little studied ethnoarchaeologically, presumably because this activity leaves little, if any, evidence. A few studies deal with food taboos, an
interesting topic in itself that may leave archaeological evidence if it involves consumption
(or lack of it) of foodstuffs that leave durable materials (such as bone, shell, or charred
seeds). For example, zooarchaeological studies at archaeological sites in Israel have shown
that the pig taboo in Jewish tradition may have already been present in the Iron Age,
some 3,500 years ago.
Food storage, though an important topic, especially in the context of the transition
from hunting and gathering to agriculture, has received less attention. While storage has
been studied from the point of view of human behavior, storage facilities as such (pits,
bins, large pots, house rooms) have not been extensively studied.
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Food discard includes rubbish accumulation following preparation and consumption.
Ethnoarchaeological studies of ephemeral hunter-gatherer (and pastoral) camps have
shown that discard is mostly informal, while in long-term (sedentary) settlements, discard patterns are formal, with special-purpose trash accumulations (middens). In essence,
except for rare occasions of rapid site abandonment or destruction (e.g., Pompeii), most
archaeological finds are in fact discarded food (and other) items.
Exchange and trade of food items is a topic of interest. This involves introduction
of foreign foodstuffs into geographical regions where these items have not been present
before (e.g., introduction of maize from Central America into North America). The
process itself is not well studied ethnoarchaeologically, yet certain studies among eastern
and southern African hunter-gatherer groups do examine the introduction of domestic
livestock into hunter-gatherer societies.
Ethnoarchaeological research is also extremely valuable for understanding which materials introduced as food items into human settlements will survive the ravages of time to
form part of the archaeological record. Generally, organic materials do not preserve unless
waterlogged, in permafrost, or under conditions of extreme aridity. Remains of animal
foodstuffs in the form of bones, teeth, and shells are often preserved, as well as charred
vegetal foodstuffs. Ethnoarchaeological studies have shown that not all parts of animal
bones discarded after consumption will survive to enter the archaeological record. Specific bone patterns have been recorded in assemblages that have been chewed by dogs, for
example. Bones and shells buried in acidic soils/sediments will be partially or completely
dissolved. Charred plant materials often represent only foodstuffs that have been close
to a fire source (i.e., cooking installations) and not the whole plant diet at a settlement.
See also Archaeobotany; Archaeology of Cooking; Architectural Analysis; Experimental Archaeology; Food Storage; Material Culture Analysis; Middens and
Other Trash Deposits; Plant Processing; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions,
Taboos; Subsistence Models; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Binford, Lewis. 1978. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York: Academic Press.
David, Nicholas, and Carol Kramer. 2001. Ethnoarchaeology in Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Gur-Arieh, Shira, Eugenia Mintz, Elisabetta Boaretto, et al. 2013. An Ethnoarchaeological Study of
Cooking Installations in Rural Uzbekistan: Development of a New Method for Identification of
Fuel Sources. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(12):4331–47.
Hayashida, Frances M. 2008. Ancient Beer and Modern Brewers: Ethnoarchaeological Observations of
Chicha Production in Two Regions of the North Coast of Peru. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
27(2):161–74.
Hillman, Gordon. 1984.Traditional Husbandry and Processing of Archaic Cereals in Recent Times:The
Operations, Products and Equipment Which Might Feature in Sumerian Texts, Part 1: The Glume
Wheats. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 1:114–52.
Shahack-Gross, Ruth, Fiona Marshall, and Steve Weiner. 2003. Geo-Ethnoarchaeology of Pastoral Sites:
The Identification of Livestock Enclosures in Abandoned Maasai Settlements. Journal of Archaeological Science 30(4):439–59.
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Yellen, John E. 1977. Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models for Reconstructing the Past. New York:
Academic Press.
■ R U T H S H A H AC K- G R O SS
ETHNOGRAPHIC SOURCES
Studies of living populations provide important comparative data and insight into past
food practices. Food-related research occurs most often in the context of ethnoarchaeology, in which direct ethnographic observation is used to examine the material residues of
human behavior for application to the archaeological record. Such studies have focused
heavily on subsistence practices as a central economic activity; recently, however, increased
attention has been given to the social structures and cultural beliefs that imbue particular
foods, materials, behaviors, and spaces with significance.
Ethnoarchaeological studies are a particularly important source of analogs for interpreting the material remains and behaviors associated with prehistoric hunter-gatherer
and forager subsistence, though studies of pastoral and agricultural societies, as well as
preindustrial populations, are increasingly common. In this context, ethnographic studies have been used to investigate the range of material culture forms, technologies, and
practices associated with the procurement, production, and preparation of food, including
cooking and baking technologies (e.g., the tandur oven), food processing and preservation, and harvesting and threshing technologies. Because attention also is given to food
preparation and processing in households and domestic spaces, ethnographic studies provide evidence of women’s activities that received less scholarly attention in the past. Other
work has focused on the role of status or hierarchy—gendered, economic, political, social,
age-based, or other—in feasting, commensal dining, and alcohol consumption.
The integration of ethnographic and archaeological data is fraught with analytical and
theoretical pitfalls, but notable examples include a study of indigenous yam gardens in
Australia, including scheduling, use rights, and land management practices; a comparison
of griddle technology in Ethiopia with bread baking in Africa and the Near East to investigate the ways that technological constraints and the physical properties of available
ingredients shaped past food preparation methods and preferences, as well as the social
aspects of domestic labor associated with food production; and an examination of shifting
food markets and forms of economic exchange following an earthquake in southeastern
Iran that provided comparative data for the modeling of prehistoric exchange.
See also Ethnoarchaeology; Food and Status; Foodways and Gender Roles; Informal Economic Exchange; Ovens and Stoves; Subsistence Models
Further Reading
Hallam, Sylvia J. 1989. Plant Usage and Management in Southwest Australian Aboriginal Societies. In
Foraging and Farming: The Evolution of Plant Exploitation, edited by D. R. Harris and G. C. Hillman,
136–51. London: Unwin Hyman.
Lyons, Diane, and A. Catherine D’Andrea. 2003. Griddles, Ovens, and Agricultural Origins: An Ethnoarchaeological Study of Bread Baking in Highland Ethiopia. American Anthropologist 105(3):515–30.
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E X P E R I M E N TA L A R C H A E O L O G Y
Yazdi, Leila Papoli, Omran Garazhian, and Maryam Dezhamkhooy. 2011. Exchange System Patterns
in Bam, Southeastern Iran, after the Earthquake (December 2003): An Ethnoarchaeological Study.
Ethnoarchaeology 3(1):29–62.
■ KAREN BESCHERER METHENY
E XC H A N G E
See Informal Economic Exchange; Markets/Exchange
E X P E R I M E N TA L A R C H A E O L O G Y
Experimental archaeology traditionally refers to field experiments conducted with the
aim of replicating the material fingerprints of ancient human activities, structures, and
crafts. These experiments are generally conducted under relatively uncontrolled conditions (i.e., unlike controlled experiments in laboratories).
Research questions vary widely. Experiments related to Paleolithic archaeology mostly
focus on issues such as use marks on stone tools and effects of burning on various materials (e.g., bones). Experiments related to Neolithic and later periods tend to focus on
issues such as house construction, crafts such as metalworking, and agricultural practices
including crop cultivation and animal husbandry. Most experiments involve (re)creation
of tools/structures based on archaeological/historical data. These are then used to replicate past human activities. Certain studies may involve post-experiment, mostly laboratory-based analyses such as stable isotope analysis of cooked food residues or extraction
of phytoliths or starch granules from residues within cooking installations.
In the context of food, experimental archaeology contributes to our understanding
of food acquisition and preparation. Questions related to food acquisition include, for
example, whether there is a clear impact damage to spear points used in animal hunting,
how many grains of wild food plants can be harvested in a given amount of time, or what
parameters affect the formation of gloss on sickle blades. Certain experiments are also
designed to test hypotheses related to processes of plant domestication.
Experimentation is vast in relation to food preparation. Experiments that involve the
preparation of meat may include butchering of animals using stone tools, examination of
the use-wear on stone tools resulting from butchery activities, determination of which
tools were best designed for skinning versus filleting, examination of the cut marks left by
stone tools on butchered animal bones, determination of whether burnt bones indicate
meat roasting, and more. Studies concerning the preparation of vegetal foodstuffs have
included experiments involving the detoxification of certain foodstuffs, determination of
whether cooking promotes or destroys the adsorption of organic molecules into claybased pottery vessels, and the extraction of such adsorbed cooking residues for organic
residue analysis. Experiments may be conducted as part of ethnoarchaeological studies, for
example, testing the amount of time needed to grind a measured weight of maize grains
as one step in the preparation of maize for brewing chicha beer.
Experiments that are related to food technology include studies of the function of
cooking installations. Hearths are often prepared experimentally in order to investigate
parameters that relate to temperature and fueling—for example, the study of temperature
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Figure 21. An experimental pebble hearth designed to test the location of pebble shattering in
relation to temperature. The study demonstrated that open fires were built directly on Philistine
pebble hearths (Gur-Arieh et al. 2012). Courtesy of Ruth Shahack-Gross.
variation within hearths and the depth of penetration of heat below hearths. Experiments
have shown that bones may serve as a fuel source in addition to wood. Other experiments have shown that animal dung is a fuel source comparable to wood in characteristics
such as maximum temperature and fire duration. Still others have tested the differences
between the use of green versus dead wood. All these have important implications for
understanding archaeological finds associated with hearths.
A recent set of experiments looked into a special type of hearth from the Iron Age in
Israel that is associated with the Philistine culture (figure 21). These “Philistine hearths”
include a layer of limestone pebbles on which charcoal and ash have been found. Experiments with either new or archaeological pebbles have shown that fire lit directly on
the pebbles causes pebble shattering that is closely associated with the location of highest
temperatures. This led archaeologists to look for the exact location of shattered pebbles
within archaeological hearths, which indicated that fire was lit across the whole area of
Philistine hearths, and not just on their center. This information may be used to suggest
how cooking on these hearths may have been conducted in the past.
Experimental archaeology in relation to food is expanding in scope. It appears that
experimentation related to food consumption, storage, discard, and trade/exchange is still
relatively rare. While studies of butchering in relation to prehistoric hunting societies and
on thermal characteristics of hearths have been central to experiments in food processing,
increased attention centers on grain processing, bread baking, and the brewing of alcohol.
See also Bread; Brewing/Malting; Butchery; Clay Cooking Balls; Fermentation;
Fire and the Development of Cooking Technology; Fire-Based Cooking Features; Food Preservation; Food Storage; Milling; Ovens and Stoves; Philistine
Foodways; Plant Processing; Residue Analysis, Blood; Residue Analysis, Starch;
Use-Wear Analysis, Lithics
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E X P E R I M E N TA L A R C H A E O L O G Y
Further Reading
Canti, M. G., and N. Linford. 2000. The Effects of Fire on Archaeological Soils and Sediments: Temperature and Colour Relationships. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 66:385–95.
Coles, John Morton. 1979. Experimental Archaeology. London: Academic Press.
Gur-Arieh, Shira, Elisabetta Boaretto, Aren Maeir, and Ruth Shahack-Gross. 2012. Formation Processes
in Philistine Hearths from Tell es-Safi/Gath (Israel): An Experimental Approach. Journal of Field
Archaeology 37(2):121–31.
Gur-Arieh, Shira, Aren M. Maeir, and Ruth Shahack-Gross. 2011. Soot Patterns on Cooking Vessels:
A Short Note. In On Cooking Pots, Drinking Cups, Loom Weights and Ethnicity in Bronze Age Cyprus
and Neighbouring Regions, edited by Vassos Karageorghis and Ourania Kouka, 349–55. Nicosia: A.G.
Leventis Foundation.
Hart, John P., William A. Lovis, Janet K. Schulenberg, and Gerald R. Urquhart. 2007. Paleodietary
Implications from Stable Carbon Isotope Analysis of Experimental Cooking Residues. Journal of
Archaeological Science 34(5):804–13.
Hayashida, Frances M. 2008. Ancient Beer and Modern Brewers: Ethnoarchaeological Observations of
Chicha Production in Two Regions of the North Coast of Peru. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
27(2):161–74.
Simms, Stephanie R., Francesco Berna, and George J. Bey III. 2013. A Prehispanic Maya Pit Oven?
Microanalysis of Fired Clay Balls from the Puuc Region, Yucatan, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological
Science 40(2):1144–57.
■ R U T H S H A H AC K- G R O SS
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F
FA C T O R I E S
Factory food production is a relatively recent phenomenon in human consumption
patterns. The term is derived from the 16th-century Latin factoria, referring to factors or
merchants conducting business, usually in foreign countries.The term later was applied to
places of business involving large-scale production, as opposed to cottage industry. Early
mechanized grain milling technology, such as waterwheels, is known from Greece in the
first century BC, and milling sites at Herculaneum in the first century AD inform on
large-scale Roman production.
Factory production and large-scale farming for business rather than for limited household use or to support military exploits are traceable to European plantation systems
arising during the early 16th century. Initially, Spanish and Portuguese sugar enterprises
in the Caribbean and Brazil were really no larger than Greek and Roman examples. The
first mill was erected in Hispañola in 1513 and another animal-driven mill was excavated
in Jamaica, at Sevilla la Nueva. Ever increasing production of luxury food items, such
as sugar—the dominant commodity of the Atlantic trade in the 18th century—brought
about the modern factory. Coffee and tea stimulated the demand for sweetener in Europe.
At least four characteristics distinguish factory food: scale of production, centralization
of processing, distribution control, and the concentration of labor. A further distinction is
that supplies may originate in many different locales or be imported from distant shores
to be combined in the final product; factory landscapes are therefore intimately linked
to trade infrastructure.
Each factory type generates signature footprints on the landscape recognizable in
the spatial ordering of facilities (production units and distribution systems), buildings
or spaces designated for power generation or for specific aspects of production (which
may also include ordered residences for laborers), and specialized technologies and instruments unique to production. Factory operations have been applied to slaughtering
and meatpacking (especially beef and pork) since 1865. The Armour and Swift factories
in Chicago were infamous. Dairy products, sauces, and condiments reached markets
after 1880 owing to improvements in canning technology. Canneries processed and
packed salmon, fruits and preserves, and vegetables from the mid-19th century. The
Nestlé factory in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, England, investigated by industrial archaeologists, exemplifies a late-19th-century dairy factory, while archaeology at the site of the
153
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FA C TO R I E S
first production of Tabasco Sauce (1868) on Avery Island, Louisiana (USA), unearthed
foundations of the laboratory/house where the popular product was invented.
An example of production landscapes can again be drawn from the sugar industry,
which required land for cultivation, milling houses, and specialized equipment for processing. Archaeological analyses of food factory landscapes must take into account necessary supply chains, related peripheral industries, and associated infrastructure. Facilities
were located close to the fields in order for harvesting and crushing phases to be managed
with minimal wastage. Milling operations with vertical or horizontal crushers were powered by animals—horses, oxen, even camels—or by water or wind. Other characteristic
structures include clarification tanks, boiling houses, and cisterns, all situated adjacent to
milling structures. Multistoried structures were allotted for curing or storage prior to
distribution. Fuel was needed for the fires beneath the boiling cauldrons and, in the years
after 1825, for steam engines as well. Until the mid-17th century, sugar processing was
achieved with a so-called Spanish Train, with individual fires beneath a series of kettles of
diminishing size known as coppers. The Jamaica Train was a technological breakthrough
employing a single fire at one end of the boiling table and a flue at the opposite end
drawing heat under the cauldrons. These changes are easily recognized archaeologically
in reconfigured boiling house architecture. During the first quarter of the 19th century,
steam-powered mills brought considerable predictability to processing. With steam engines came new configurations for boilers, steam pipe systems, and fuel dumps. Chimneys
added to the unmistakable factory landscape of the Industrial Revolution. Excavated or
archaeologically documented sites include the Hamilton Estate and Bush Hill Estate on
Nevis, in the West Indies, with extant architecture and in situ steam engines; the Central
Aguire works in Puerto Rico (USA); and numerous sites in Florida (USA). The Dummet Sugar works near Tomoka State Park, for example, and the Cruger-Depeyster works
in New Smyrna Beach exhibit masonry remains of the boiling houses, and in the case
of Dummet, the associated distillery. Successful experiments to refine sugar from beets,
which can be grown in temperate climates with less labor and delivered by railroad to
receiving stations at processing plants, all but led to a collapse of traditional cane sugar
plantations in the late 19th century. Thus factory landscapes, through modification and
design, physically document changing technology, consumer trends, and economic conditions.The layout of these and other sites reflects the synergism of production with societal
values and evolving patterns of consumption as food producers struggled to find a market
niche or to control the market itself against competitors.
During the 19th century, grains were milled at factory scale, stimulated in part by
mass bread production to sustain soldiers during the American Civil War. Turbine mills
eventually supplanted watermills of traditional design, requiring significant landscape
modifications. General Mills, Kellogg, C. W. Post, Graham, Pillsbury, and others established large-scale facilities at various sites adjacent to rivers across the American Midwest,
harnessing waterpower for milling. Battle Creek, Michigan, made famous by the Kellogg
brand, for instance, had over 40 competing cereal companies at the start of the 20th
century. Factories were constructed near rivers not just for power but to facilitate transportation. The Mill Ruins Park, a National Register site on the Minneapolis riverfront,
interprets flour milling powered by the Mississippi’s St. Anthony Falls and illustrates the
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155
extent to which landscapes are configured by factory production. Social movements in
the 19th century advocating healthier diets and the virtues of whole grains contributed
to the growth in cereal production. Grain elevators came to be as common a sight as
chimneys. Steam milling allowed mills to be located farther from water. Rail lines complemented and later supplanted the need to be adjacent to waterways or canals. Transportation networks connected various manufacturing locations with distribution sites
and markets on a national and increasingly global basis. With decentralization as early as
the 18th century, a family was likely to have food on the table from distant shores and,
as today, from factories halfway around the world.
See also Architectural Analysis; Distillation; Food and Capitalism; Food as a Commodity; Globalization; Herculaneum and Pompeii; Industrialization of Food and
Food Production; Milling; Sucrose
Further Reading
Fernandez-Armesto, Felipe. 2002. Near a Thousand Tables. New York: Free Press.
Meniketti, Marco. 2006. Sugar Mills,Technology, and Environmental Change: A Case Study of Colonial
Agro-Industrial Development in the Caribbean. Industrial Archaeology 32(1):53–80.
Wayne, Lucy. 2010. Sweet Cane: The Architecture of the Sugar Works of East Florida. Tuscaloosa: University
of Alabama Press.
■ MARCO MENIKETTI
FA M I N E
A famine is generally defined as a period of severe food shortage that results in a significant mortality rate, normally caused by infectious diseases rather than starvation, on a
local or regional level. Famine often has a socioeconomic dimension wherein the most
vulnerable and disenfranchised groups in society are at greatest risk. While the ultimate
cause of a famine is lack of foodstuffs, such events are generally a consequence of a multitude of factors that are both independent and interrelating. Throughout history, famines
have occurred following the appearance and spread of plant diseases, climate changes, and
volcanic eruptions leading to crop failures, as well as from political and economic reforms,
war and conflict, and demographic circumstances. Famines have been common since
the introduction of agriculture, as populations became increasingly dependent on crop
production. The earliest of the surviving ancient textual sources mention famines, such
as the Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 2000–1400 BC), which told the story of a famine as a consequence of overpopulation, and the Famine Stela from Ptolemaic Egypt (332–31 BC) that
describes in hieroglyphs a seven-year-long period of famine as a result of drought during
the reign of King Djoser (ca. 2720–2700 BC) of the Third Egyptian Dynasty.
Direct studies of famines in archaeological societies often require broad contextual
and interdisciplinary approaches. Key research questions generally focus on aspects of
social, cultural, economic, and biological adaptations and consequences. These have included the material culture and landscape manifestations of cultural changes resulting
from depopulation and societal decline. As a catalyst of change, famines are believed
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FA M I N E
to have contributed to the complete collapse of whole civilizations and communities
such as, for example, the Classic Ancient Maya culture (ca. AD 250–900) and the Norse
colony in Greenland (AD 985–1450).
Recent studies have focused on bioarchaeological evidence, examining both victims
and survivors for famine-induced skeletal stress and migration patterns. Paleopathological analyses of victims of famine include, for example, the study of nearly 1,000 victims
of the Great Famine (AD 1845–1852) in Ireland that have been excavated from mass
burials in Kilkenny City. This analysis revealed high rates of so-called famine diseases
such as metabolic pathological conditions resulting from nutritional deficiencies, and
also skeletal manifestations of infectious disease and other stress markers such as hypoplastic defects on the enamel of teeth. Isotopic analyses and analyses of carbon (13C)
and nitrogen (15N) ratios in bones and teeth have been used to detect both the human
physiological response to starvation and dietary change resulting from famine. The latter relates to the use of “famine foods”—forced alternative food sources in periods of
subsistence crises that are highly dependent on cultural preferences. Such indications of
alternative foodstuffs also are potentially detectable in the archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and archaeoentomological evidence. Famine-induced shifts in consumption
may even be manifested in archaeological cases of cannibalism, such as the cut marks
observed on the skull belonging to an adolescent female whose corpse, it is believed,
was partly consumed during the so-called starving time in the winter of AD 1609–1610
at Jamestown in the colony of Virginia (USA).
Additionally, famine-induced mortality rates—generally the direct result of epidemics—often display a specific pattern with high death rates among the most frail and
vulnerable members of a population (i.e., the children and the elderly). Life-table and
paleodemographic analyses of skeletal populations are therefore a potential means for
studies of famines in archaeological societies, particularly if integrated within a multi- and
interdisciplinary approach.
See also Bioarchaeological Analysis; Cannibalism; Food and Inequality; Insects;
Jamestown; Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approaches; Paleodemography; Paleopathology; Stable Isotope Analysis
Further Reading
Beaumont, Julia, Jonny Geber, Natasha Powers, et al. 2013.Victims and Survivors: Stable Isotopes Used
to Identify Migrants from the Great Irish Famine to 19th Century London. American Journal of
Physical Anthropology 150(1):87–98.
Geber, Jonny, and Eileen Murphy. 2012. Scurvy in the Great Irish Famine: Evidence of Vitamin C
Deficiency from a Mid-19th Century Skeletal Population. American Journal of Physical Anthropology
148(4):512–24.
Margerison, Beverley J., and Christopher J. Knüsel. 2002. Paleodemographic Comparison of a
Catastrophic and an Attritional Death Assemblage. American Journal of Physical Anthropology
119(2):134–43.
Minnis, Paul E. 1985. Social Adaptation to Food Stress: A Prehistoric Southwestern Example. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ó Gráda, Cormac. 2009. Famine: A Short History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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157
Orser, Charles E., Jr. 1996. Can There Be an Archaeology of the Great Irish Famine? In “Fearful Realities”: New Perspectives on the Famine, edited by Chris Morash and Richard Hayes, 77–89. Dublin:
Irish Academic Press.
■ JONNY GEBER
FA R M A N A ( I N D I A )
See Curry
FA R M I N G
See Agriculture, Origins of
F A U N A L A N A LY S I S
See Zooarchaeology
FEASTING
Feasts, broadly defined as the communal consumption of food and drink outside the context of a daily meal, have stimulated lively debates and inspired methodological and theoretical developments in archaeology over the last two decades. Since the publication of
Michael Dietler and Brian Hayden’s edited volume Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic
Perspectives on Food, Politics, and Power, archaeologists of every theoretical persuasion—from
cultural ecologists to political economists to practice theorists—have considered the explanatory potential of feasting when framing their research questions and interpretations
of the material record. The study of feasts is also a highly collaborative and interdisciplinary endeavor involving contributions from paleoethnobotanists, zooarchaeologists,
bioarchaeologists, ceramic and lithic analysts, ethnographers, and historians.
While debates continue as to what exactly constitutes a feast, these special or unusual events typically leave behind a rich and distinctive material record that distinguishes them from daily meals. In order to facilitate their identification and comparison
across time and space, archaeologists have developed a number of feasting signatures.
For example, evidence of feast preparation may include the following: storage facilities
for feasting foods and beverages; special constructions such as suprahousehold kitchens;
large or numerous cooking and brewing features or facilities (e.g., hearths, roasting pits);
special or large types of vessels used in preparing feasting foods or beverages; exotic
or labor-intensive foods and beverages; and wasteful behaviors during food preparation (e.g., unprocessed bones). Also, particular cooking techniques may be reserved for
special meals. For example, the Taraco Archaeological Project found that boiling was
common for both daily and special meals, but roasting and steaming were reserved
for feasts during the Formative period in the Lake Titicaca Basin. Feast consumption,
the focus of many early ethnographic and archaeological studies, has been identified
through the following: the presence of special structures, sometimes with display components for food or prestige items; evidence of feasting outside of habitation areas (e.g.,
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public spaces, monuments, tombs); large quantities, unusual sizes, or special serving
vessels for both food and beverages (e.g., decorated or made of rare materials); and the
presence of ritual paraphernalia such as costumes or masks. Finally, feast disposal can be
distinguished from the accumulation of discarded remains from daily meals. Archaeologists have identified middens with high densities of special foods (sometimes burned);
dumps associated with feasting locations; and evidence of destruction of prestige or
wealth items in the context of the feast. For example, accumulated refuse from a series
of feasting events was recovered from a stratified midden associated with the principal
plaza at the Mississippian center of Cahokia. While there are general frameworks for
classifying archaeological feasts that seek to facilitate cross-cultural comparison, there
are also those who argue that feasts should be treated on a case-by-case basis to avoid
obscuring differences in their identification and interpretation.
Why did (or do) people feast? Early studies primarily focused on commensal politics—large and elaborate meals used to create and maintain political relationships—
and the role of feasting within complex societies. Over the last two decades, however,
feasting has been implicated in virtually every major debate in archaeology, including
the origins of domesticated plants and animals, technological innovations in crafting
and cooking, shifts in food preference and cuisine, reorganization of household economies (e.g., labor mobilization, sponsorship of specialist production), identity formation,
and ritual performance. While feasts are often interpreted as contexts for competition
and individual aggrandizement, they may also serve to reinforce group identity and
reproduce social norms, as has been documented through communal potluck-style
feasts in the prehistoric American Southwest. Also, it is essential not to assume that all
suprahousehold meals were politically or ritually significant. For example, evidence for
large-scale meal preparation has been interpreted as a component of the economic and
social negotiations among a diverse group of craft producers at Huaca Sialupe on the
north coast of Peru. Last, scholars emphasize that the study of feasts must consider both
the intended short-term and unintended long-term consequences of financing, hosting,
and participating in these events.
Archaeological evidence for the communal consumption of food now dates to as early
as 12,000 BP (the burial cave of Hilazon Tachtit in Israel), and archaeologists are recovering new evidence of feasting practices from contexts across the globe. As indicated by the
steady stream of case studies and edited volumes over the last decade, efforts to understand
the ubiquity and relevance of feasting have encouraged new perspectives and more holistic approaches to prehistoric foodways. For example, household-level or daily meals have
gained new attention outside of the traditional discussions of subsistence practices and
diet. Quotidian practices of food preparation and consumption are now recognized as important contexts for exploring the relationship between food, identity (e.g., gender, class,
and ethnicity), and politics at the household level. Also, as the archaeological correlates of
daily meals continue to be refined, this will contribute to more systematic approaches to
differentiating and interpreting other types of meals, including feasts.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Commensality; Food and Identity; Food and Politics; Food and Ritual; Foodways and Religious Practices; Hilazon Tachtit
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Further Reading
Bray,Tamara L., ed. 2003. The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires. New
York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Dietler, Michael, and Brian Hayden, eds. 2001. Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food,
Politics, and Power. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Hayden, Brian, and Suzanne Villeneuve. 2011. A Century of Feasting Studies. Annual Review of Anthropology 40:433–39.
Klarich, Elizabeth A., ed. 2010. Inside Ancient Kitchens: New Directions in the Study of Daily Meals and
Feasts. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Mills, Barbara J., ed. 2004. Identity, Feasting, and the Archaeology of the Greater Southwest. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Pollock, Susan, ed. 2012. Between Feasts and Daily Meals: Towards an Archaeology of Commensal Spaces.
eTopoi, special issue, 2. http://journal.topoi.org/index.php/etopoi/issue/view/3.
Twiss, Katheryn C., ed. 2007. The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
■ ELIZABETH A. KLARICH
F E C A L A N A LY S I S
See Paleofecal Analysis
FEDDERSEN WIERDE (GERMANY)
The Feddersen Wierde belongs to a very special group of settlements that are situated
in the salt marshes along the German and Dutch North Sea coast. They are dwelling
mounds (wurten) that were continuously built up through extended occupation and in
response to the rising sea level. The Feddersen Wierde, located north of Bremerhaven, is
the only dwelling mound to have been completely excavated. Seven habitation layers with
complete villages on top of each other reached a height of around four meters above the
surrounding surface. Occupation levels span the period from the first century BC to the
fourth–fifth centuries AD.
The combined assemblage from the Feddersen Wierde suggests that the inhabitants of
this site subsisted on agricultural produce and the meat and secondary products from their
domesticated livestock, supplemented by fish and fowl, for half a millennium. Altogether,
205 farmhouses were identified. The inhabitants lived mainly on cattle that they raised.
This was confirmed by the excavation of more than 50,000 animal bones. Domesticated
species made up 98 percent of the assemblage, including cattle (50 percent), sheep (29
percent), horse (11 percent), and pig (10 percent). Wild mammals, both marine and terrestrial, constituted only 2 percent of the faunal material.
The salt marshes around these dwelling mounds were regularly farmed. Food production was extremely difficult, however; the soils were regularly flooded with salt water
in wintertime and sometimes in spring. Only crop species that were to a certain degree
salt-resistant could be grown; winter crops were excluded. Farmers cultivated small fields
on slightly elevated levees around the village. Plow marks were recorded, and both crop
plants and weeds were identified in archaeobotanical samples, confirming that the food
plants that were recovered from the site were grown in the salt marshes around the
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Figure 22. Left: Carbonized specimens of Vicia fabia (broad or fava bean), one of the two
most important cultivated plants grown in the brackish environment surrounding Feddersen
Wierde, a dwelling mound located on the North Sea. Farmers inhabited the mound from the first
century BC to the fourth–fifth centuries AD. Right: A sample of fruit stones from Damson plums
(Prunus domestica spp. insititia) from the Viking Age site of Haithabu in Germany. Courtesy of
Niedersaechsisches Institut fuer historische Kuestenforschung.
settlement. This interpretation is further supported by the recovery of large amounts of
the vegetative parts of these plants, in particular stems from Vicia faba (broad or fava bean)
(figure 22). Cereal threshing was documented on-site as well. Because of environmental
constraints, only a few crop species were grown; most important were Vicia faba, hulled
Hordeum vulgare (barley, for bread), Avena sativa (common oats), Camelina sativa (dodder,
used for oil), and Linum usitatissimum (flaxseed, a fiber). In addition, small amounts of Panicum miliaceum (common millet), little Triticum dicoccon (emmer wheat), and Isatis tinctoria
(woad, for dyeing) were recorded.
Despite considerable evidence for animal husbandry and agricultural production,
there is no evidence at the Feddersen Wierde or other dwelling mounds for the exchange
of food products with neighboring areas outside the salt marshes. Secale (rye), for instance,
was a very important cultivated plant, used primarily for bread, in contemporary settlements built on Pleistocene upland less than four kilometers from the Feddersen Wierde,
but is completely absent at this site as well as the other dwelling mounds. Other species
such as Corylus avellana (hazelnut), though known at these nearby settlements, were
extremely rare at the Feddersen Wierde as well. Despite the presence of nonfood trade
goods, the combined evidence suggests that the farmers of Feddersen Wierde subsisted
on food they produced themselves.
See also Agriculture, Procurement, Processing, and Storage; Animal Husbandry
and Herding; Archaeobotany; Barley; Cereals; Legumes and Pulses; Macroremains;
Wheat; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Haarnagel, Werner. 1979. Die Grabung Feddersen Wierde: Methode, Hausbau, Siedlungs- und Wirtschaftsform
sowie Sozialstruktur. Feddersen Wierde 2. Wiesbaden: Steiner.
Körber-Grohne, Udelgard. 1967. Geobotanische Untersuchungen auf der Feddersen Wierde. Feddersen
Wierde 1. Wiesbaden: Steiner.
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161
Reichstein, Hans. 1991. Die Fauna des germanischen Dorfes Feddersen Wierde, Teil 1. Feddersen Wierde 4.
Stuttgart: Steiner.
■ KARL-ERNST BEHRE
F E R M E N TAT I O N
Fermentation is one of the oldest methods of food preparation and preservation practiced
by human societies. Although it is not known when humans consciously started making
fermented food and drinks, controlled food fermentation dates back to the earliest agricultural settlements. Trial and error, and the need for foods in times of scarcity, probably
resulted in the first attempts. Initial efforts possibly involved food preservation in seawater
or (evaporated) salt.
Ferments modify the physical structure of molecules, such as protein and starches.
Inside the human body these nutrients become more accessible for enzymatic digestion
or fermentation in the body. Outside the body, if plant and animal foods are exposed to
microbes, fermentation occurs naturally. The outside action of living organisms also takes
place if foods are deliberately exposed to microbes or microorganisms. This exposure
softens food, makes it easier to bite and chew, is known to increase taste and texture as
well as the shelf life of foods, and can increase nutrient value. The fermentation process
reduces cooking times, denatures toxins, and makes raw foods palatable for humans.
The wide spectrum of fermented foods predates modern science and the recognition
of the existence of microorganisms (e.g., bacteria, yeasts, molds) and encompasses alcohol, puddings or pastes, breads, vinegar, pickled fish and vegetables, cheeses, yogurts, and
sausages. Fermented foods are organized into classes (beverages, cereal products, dairy
products, fish products, fruit and vegetable products, legumes, and meat products), by
commodity, or by type of fermentation. The lines between classes are not always distinct.
Most fermented foods leave no archaeological traces. Consequently, to understand
their role in prehistory, researchers rely upon the detection and identification of residues
within dental calculus and coprolites, in (cereal) seeds and other preserved foodstuffs, and
in residues on stone tools, pottery, and other artifacts. The earliest evidence of food fermentation comes from the Solomon Islands in the Pacific; phytolith and starch remains
on stone tools were dated to 28,700 BP and provide evidence for the exploitation of
roots and tubers. Excavations at the wetland archaeological site of Kuk Swamp (Papua
New Guinea), one of the world’s oldest centers of agricultural development, recovered
stone pestles and mortars from around 10,200 years BP. These were used to pound taro
(L. Colocasia) and other plants to produce starchy fermented pastes or puddings such as
those still prepared in the Pacific region today. Indigenous communities also have used
pit fermentation for roots and tubers such as cassava, taro, yam (L. Dioscorea), sweet potatoes and potatoes, breadfruit (L. Artocarpus), coconut, and bananas. This type of lactic
acid fermentation turns foods into fermented pulps, pastes, or porridges. It is used on
most continents, and although its origins have not yet been established, pit fermentation
is believed to be one of the oldest methods of fermentation used by humans. Examples
of lactic acid fermentation include pickles (cucumbers, radishes), sauerkraut (cabbages),
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and milk products such as kefir, yogurts, and cheeses, but also soybeans, fish, sausages, and
pork. This method was used to process a range of foods in the past, most notably vinegar
(rice), wine, beer, and (sourdough) breads from cereals. Early evidence for leavened breads
comes from Egypt and Neolithic Europe.
In Asia the Chinese exposed cooked grains to a wide variety of molds, yeasts, and
bacteria to make alcoholic beverages (e.g., rice wines) and to produce a wide variety of
soybean, vegetable, meat, and fish preserves. Fermented soy and fish sauces were important
condiments in Chinese cuisines. The soybean was perceived as a primary grain, and consumed as tou fan or tou chu (bean conge). Soybean fermentation (tofu) dates back to the
early Han period (165 BC).There is evidence for Tou chiang (soy milk) during this period
as well. The Chinese people also came in contact with milk products such as soured milk,
cream, butter, and kumiss or koumiss from the nomadic people from the northern steppes.
Since the domestication of milk-producing mammals around 10000 BC, dairy foods
have constituted a vital part of human diet. The earliest use of milk fermentation dates
to ca. 8000 BC and comes from archaeological findings in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the
Indian subcontinent, where the ancient Veda scriptures and Ayurvedic texts mention the
fermented milk dadhi (modern dadi or dahi) and buttermilk. Other ancient traditional
fermented milks include Scandinavian villi, Russian kefir and koumiss, eastern European
yogurt, Middle Eastern laban (or leben), and Turkish ayran.
Acetic acid or vinegar fermentation is mentioned as early as 4000 BC in Babylonian
texts describing date vinegar.Vinegar was also used as a pickling agent for fish, vegetables,
and meat. In antiquity it was a poor person’s drink. The Romans produced four kinds of
vinegars as condiments, preservatives, and medicine and introduced vinegar making in
northern Europe. Most cultures used locally available produce to prepare vinegars, including barley (malt vinegar), grapes (balsamic vinegar), and apples (cider vinegar).
The use of salt to conserve and flavor foods dates back to the Neolithic. The origin
of salty (fermented) soy sauce stretches back to the Chinese Han Dynasty, as noted, and
the development of fermented fish products in Southeast Asia dates to the Jōmon period.
Around the Mediterranean, fish sauce was ubiquitous. Fish sauce appeared in Greek cuisine in the fourth century BC, and the Romans produced and traded several kinds (garum,
liquamen, allec, and muria). Before its destruction in AD 79, Pompeii was well known for
manufacturing fish sauce. Both the Greeks and Romans understood salting as a means
of preservation and produced hams in brine and sausages with salt and fat. The Romans
introduced these and other food preservation techniques to northern Europe.
See also Biomolecular Analysis; Bread; Condiments; Dental Analysis; Food Preservation; Food Storage; Legumes and Pulses; Manioc/Cassava; Milk and Dairy Products;
Phytolith Analysis; Residue Analysis, Dairy Products; Residue Analysis, Starch; Root
Crops/Tubers; Salt; Sweet Potato; Taro; Umami/Glutamates;Yam;Yeast
Further Reading
Battcock, Mike, and Sue Azam-Ali. 1998. Fermented Fruits and Vegetables: A Global Perspective. FAO Agricultural Services Bulletin 134. Rome: Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/x0560e/x0560e00.htm#con.
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Huang, H. T. 2000. Science and Civilisation in China.Vol. 6, Biology and Biological Technology, Part V: Fermentations and Food Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kulp, Karel, and Klaus J. Lorenz, eds. 2003. Handbook of Dough Fermentations. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Lee, Cherl-Ho, Keith H. Steinkraus, and P. J. Alan Reilly, eds. 1993. Fish Fermentation Technology. Tokyo:
United Nations University Press.
Steinkraus, K. H. 2002. Fermentations in World Food Processing. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science
and Food Safety 1:23–32.
■ K A R I N VA N E K E R
F E R M E N T E D B E V E R AG E S
See Beer; CHICHA; Mead; PULQUE
FERTILIZER
See Manures and Other Fertilizers, Identification and Analysis; Manuring and
Soil Enrichment Practices
FIRE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COOKING
Although traditional hunter-gatherers use fire for a variety of applications, cooking is
likely the most common. Currently, however, there is surprisingly little reliable evidence
upon which archaeologists can base an understanding of when cooking first appeared
in prehistory. This is mainly because basic fire residues, charcoal and ash, preserve very
poorly. There are a small number of claims for other types of fire residues (such as burned
bone or heated lithics that have better preservation potential) associated with early hominin sites in Africa dating to ~1.5 MYA (e.g., Swartkrans in South Africa and Koobi Fora
in Kenya) and 800 KYA at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov in Israel. However, all early claims are
contentious because of the difficulty in distinguishing anthropogenic fire residues from
natural fire residues (wild fires are frequent in Africa). Recent work at Wonderwerk Cave
in South Africa has uncovered burned bones dating to 1 MYA that are deep inside the
cave where natural fires could not reasonably occur.
Several researchers have pointed out that cooking improves the digestibility of meat
and plants.The result is improved efficiency in the extraction of calories and a net increase
in energy to run the body. Based on this, it has been suggested that the advent of cooking
could explain the sudden increase in body and brain size associated with Homo erectus
around 1.5 MYA. The very small number of possible examples of fire dating to before
250,000 years ago makes this theory highly questionable.
Currently, the earliest examples of undoubted hearths are at Qesem Cave (~300 KYA)
and Hayonim Cave in Israel (~250 KYA). Determining the use of such fires is not straightforward, however. Most researchers assume that early fires were used, at least in part, for
cooking, but it is very difficult to demonstrate this. The presence of burned bones might
be the result of cooking meat, but there is good evidence that people sometimes used bone
as a fuel, especially when wood was scarce. It has also long been assumed that the earliest
evidence for fire use/cooking marks the point at which these activities became permanent
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and widespread. This is also questionable as some hominin groups may have begun using
fire while others did not, and hominins in general may have depended on natural sources
of fire (lightning strikes) for a long time before they developed fire-making techniques.
Although fire and potential evidence for cooking continue to become more common
during the Middle Paleolithic period, there is still a significant percentage of archaeological sites with no fire residues. For example, researchers have long assumed that Neanderthals (250 to 30 KYA) were regularly cooking meat because they were successful hunters
and sometimes used fire. Many of the layers from their cave sites that contain evidence
of intense occupations have little or no evidence of fire, however. That Neanderthals
sometimes cooked food is supported by the identification of cooked starch grains in Neanderthal dental calculi. However, it is also clear that they were not cooking all the time.
In the Upper Paleolithic (starting 40 KYA), when modern humans appear in Eurasia,
fire use became more common and there is much better evidence for cooking. Stonelined hearths appear and people began constructing earth ovens for baking plants (e.g.,
tubers) and meat and boiling pits for extracting fat from animal bones. Besides cooked
meat, bone grease was likely a major source of nutrition among later prehistoric cultures,
especially in colder environments. Good examples of this can be seen in late prehistoric
sites in the North American Plains where archaeologists find the remains of boiling pits.
These were dug into the ground, lined with a hide, and filled with water that was brought
to a boil with heated stones. Bones were smashed up and dropped in, releasing the bone
grease that could then be skimmed off the surface.
Other important food processing techniques are drying and smoking, which can make
foods (especially meats) storable for extended periods. These techniques are widespread
ethnographically but are also difficult to identify in the archaeological record. There is no
good evidence for smoking/drying prior to the Upper Paleolithic; although, if it were
done on a small scale prior to this, it is likely that identifiable traces would not survive.
A major cooking innovation, pottery, appeared in East Asia 20,000 years ago. Pottery
made cooking easier as more control was possible over temperature, quantities, mixing of
ingredients, and cooking methods (e.g., boiling, steaming, baking). Because of its fragility,
however, pottery does not suit mobile adaptations and generally coincides with the appearance of sedentary lifeways.
While many researchers think that cooking is an ancient human behavior, the earliest
uncontroversial evidence for human use of fire dates to only ~250,000 years ago, and clear
evidence for cooking does not appear until after 40,000 years ago. It might be just in the
last 40,000 years that all the traditional forms of cooking were developed and cooking
became a ubiquitous component of human culture.
See also Bone Fat Extraction; Fire and the Development of Cooking Technology;
Fire-Based Cooking Features; Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov; Wonderwerk Cave
Further Reading
Berna, Francesco, Paul Goldberg, Liora Kolska Horwitz, et al. 2012. Microstratigraphic Evidence of
In Situ Fire in the Acheulean Strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape Province, South Africa.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 109(20):E1215–20.
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Henry, Amanda G., Alison S. Brooks, and Dolores R. Piperno. 2011. Microfossils in Calculus Demonstrate Consumption of Plants and Cooked Foods in Neanderthal Diets (Shanidar III, Iraq; Spy I and
II, Belgium). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 108(2):486–91.
Sandgathe, Dennis M., Harold L. Dibble, Paul Goldberg, et al. 2011. On the Role of Fire in Neandertal
Adaptations in Western Europe: Evidence from Pech de l’Azé IV and Roc de Marsal, France. PaleoAnthropology: 216–42. doi:10.4207/PA.2011.ART54.
Wrangham, Richard, and NancyLou Conklin-Brittain. 2003. Cooking as a Biological Trait. Comparative
Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology 136(1):35–46.
■ D E N N I S M . S A N D G AT H E
FIRE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF COOKING TECHNOLOGY
Cooking via fire-generated heat treatment is the most widespread, ubiquitous, and oldest
technique habitually used by hominids to enhance the energy value (i.e., nutrition) of
raw foods. By successfully controlling temperature, moisture, pH, and surface area of food,
cooking changes the physical and chemical structure of raw foods, thereby rendering
them more energy rich. Heat treatment may also detoxify food, render it more chewable,
kill food-borne pathogens, and prolong storage life. Undercooking limits energy yield, as
does overcooking to the point of burning.
Raw foods contain varying amounts of carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, minerals, enzymes, and water that respond differently to heat treatment aimed at increasing nutrient
intake. Much of the potential nutrition in raw foods occurs in forms chemically or structurally too complex or too toxic to be utilized effectively during digestion. It is through
extrasomatic (i.e., outside the body) and somatic (i.e., digestive track) hydrolysis that
complex tissue polymers (i.e., multiple repeating units) in raw food are broken down by
addition of a water molecule into simpler, readily used forms. Heat treatment facilitates
extrasomatic hydrolysis, for example, by rupturing starch granules, denaturing (loss of
native-state structure) secondary compounds in inulin (a complex storage carbohydrate),
weakening cell walls, denaturing lipid enzymes, dispersing tissue fat, and unfolding complex chains of amino acids in animal and plant proteins.
Desired chemical and structural changes occur during dry-heat cooking, wherein
raw-food moisture is adequate for hydrolysis; methods include parching, broiling,
grilling, and roasting above, on, and in a burning open-air hearth, along with frying in
vessels and baking inside aboveground, enclosed ovens (i.e., bread ovens). These changes
also occur during wet-heat cooking, including stewing, boiling, and other immersion
methods, as well as during moist-heat cooking, a technique that includes steaming
in containers and pits and baking in earth ovens (i.e., underground) wherein food is
packed between moist leaves and water is often added. It is noteworthy, however, that
cooking terminology in the archaeological literature is not standardized; terms that are
used interchangeably or defined differently by researchers include roasting and baking,
grilling and broiling, and earth oven and roasting pit.
Some carbohydrates, particularly sugars in sweet-tasting berries and fruits, are energy-dense in their raw forms. Others, including starches in domestic cereals and potatoes, become more nutritious after 15 to 40 minutes of wet cooking at low to high
temperatures (ca. 40–100°C) or by dry cooking in an oven for 15 minutes or more.
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Inulin, the primary carbohydrate in underground storage organs of many wild plants
(i.e., root foods), requires moist baking for several hours to three days in an earth oven
at moderate to high temperatures (ca. 60–100°C) to maximize energy yield. Protein
in lean meat is denatured and hydrolyzed by dry cooking for a few minutes at low
to moderate temperatures (ca. 40–70°C); collagen denaturing and gelatin production
occur at somewhat higher temperatures. Lipids in wild plant and animal foods with
primarily unsaturated fatty acids are denatured and hydrolyzed by dry cooking at high
temperatures (ca. >95°C) for a few minutes or earth-oven baking for several hours,
depending on size and moisture content of the food.
Ethnographic and ethnohistorical descriptions of many different cooking facilities
highlight the concept that different food tissues require different heat-treatment methods, durations, and temperatures (figure 23). Dry heat from surface hearths is perhaps
the most common method of cooking animal and plant foods, although site-formation
processes often render such features archaeologically obscure. Stone boiling (use of
heated stones to boil liquid in nonceramic/nonmetal containers), moist baking in earth
ovens, and dry-heat grilling on hot rocks are readily identified by the configuration of
cooking stones (i.e., fire-cracked rocks) or manufactured clay balls that served as heating
elements. Fragments of most culinary pottery vessels represent boiling or frying with
heat from surface hearths.
Dispersed lenses of burned bone and sediment, along with charcoal, ash, phytoliths,
and other fuel remains indicate dry cooking meat and are suggestive of expedient surface
hearths too disturbed for recognition. The oldest of these are deposits in caves and rockshelters in Israel and South Africa dated to ca. 790 KYA and 1.0–1.7 MYA, respectively.
Unambiguous hearths in shallow basins, with well-defined, combustion-caused stratigraphy (i.e., oxidized sediment overlain by ash), and usually containing burned bone and
various plant materials, demonstrate that dry cooking was well established by 400,000
years ago in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. Researchers agree that meat was cooked
in these features, but it remains unclear whether charred seeds and fruitlets represent
plant-food cooking or other purposes (e.g., fuel or nearby bedding).
Recent comparisons between experimentally heated stones and archaeologically recovered fire-cracked rocks from shallow-basin hearths at a cave site in South Africa suggest cooking stones of some type were in use by 72,000 years ago. Insofar as hot rocks can
retain heat longer than burning fuel, they enable fuel conservation and prolong cooking
time. Comparatively complex wet- and moist-heat facilities that require cooking stones,
including earth ovens with rock heating elements and possibly stone-boiling pits, date
to 35,000 years ago in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Pacific and to 10,500 years ago in
North America. Cooking food in ceramic containers was under way in China by 20,000
years ago and 7,000 and 4,500 years ago in South and North America, respectively. With
subsequent development of ceramic griddles, aboveground bread ovens, and metalwares,
cooking worldwide became much more intensive and complex.
See also Archaeology of Cooking; Clay Cooking Balls; Cooking Vessels, Ceramic;
Cooking Vessels, Metal; Cooking Vessels, Other Materials; Ethnoarchaeology;
Ethnographic Sources; Experimental Archaeology; Fire and the Development of
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Figure 23. Working model, based on generalized heat-exchange efficiency and archaeological
data, for expected temporal patterns in the onset of various heat-based cooking methods. There
is debate (e.g., Wrangham 2009) as to the degree to which fire may have been used for warmth
prior to its use in cooking. Drawing by Alston V. Thoms, modified from Thoms 2009:487, fig. 16.
Reprinted with permission of Elsevier Ltd.
Cooking; Fire-Based Cooking Features; Ovens and Stoves; Use-Wear or Use-Alteration Analysis, Pottery
Further Reading
Atalay, Sonya, and Christine A. Hastorf. 2006. Food, Meals, and Daily Activities: Food Habitus at Çatalhöyük. American Antiquity 71(2):283–319.
Mentzer, Susan M. 2012. Microarchaeological Approaches to the Identification and Interpretation of
Combustion Features in Prehistoric Archaeological Sites. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
21(3):616–68.
Nelson, Kit. 2010. Environment, Cooking Strategies, and Containers. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29(2):238–47.
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Oestmo, Simen. 2013. Digital Imaging Technology and Experimental Archaeology: A Methodological
Framework for the Identification and Interpretation of Fire Modified Rock (FMR). Journal of
Archaeological Science 40(12):4429–43.
Thoms, Alston V. 2009. Rocks of Ages: Propagation of Hot-Rock Cookery in Western North America.
Journal of Archaeological Science 36(3):573–91.
Wandsnider, LuAnn. 1997. The Roasted and the Boiled: Food Composition and Heat Treatment with
Special Emphasis on Pit-Hearth Cooking. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 16(1):1–48.
Wrangham, Richard. 2009. Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. New York: Basic Books.
Wu, Xiaohong, Chi Zhang, Paul Goldberg, et al. 2012. Early Pottery at 20,000 Years Ago in Xianrendong Cave, China. Science 336(6089):1696–1700.
■ A L S T O N V. T H O M S
F I R E - B A S E D C O O K I N G F E AT U R E S
Fire-based cooking features are readily categorized morphologically and technologically
according to whether they are open, enclosed, or tethered (figure 24). Open fires (i.e.,
hearths) disperse heat directly into the atmosphere and are suited for fast, dry-heat cooking with flames or above, on, or in hot coals. Hearths also provide heat for grill stones
and for boiling in ceramic, metal, or stone vessels. In situ hearths are recognized archaeologically by their combustion-caused stratigraphy, minimally a heat-oxidized layer of
sediment overlain by a lens of ash-rich sediment that is characteristic of combustion in
oxygen-rich (i.e., open) settings. Foods cooked in hearths and other features are identified
by charred remains (i.e., macrofossils) and through microscopic or spectrometry analysis
of residues in charcoal and ash layers.
Family-size hearths (ca. 0.4–0.6 meters in diameter) can be built expediently on a
damp or dry surface or, when sediments are dry, in a shallow basin. These small features are characteristic of temporary residential sites and are often poorly preserved.
Prepared/maintained family hearths are typical of semipermanent and permanent residences; they tend to be better preserved and often are confined by a constructed clay
rim or in a rock-lined basin. Most large hearths (ca. >1.5 meters in diameter) were
located beyond residential structures, given they are fire hazards and generate considerable debris. They usually represent communal cooking for immediate consumption
or bulk processing for storage purposes. Hearths sometimes contain a few fire-cracked
rocks (FCRs) of undetermined function, or fired-clay balls, their manufactured equivalent. In general, FCR (i.e., cooking stone) retained fire-generated heat that otherwise
escaped to the atmosphere. As such, cooking stones conserved fuel, prolonged cooking
time, facilitated steaming, and made boiling possible.
Enclosed features, primarily earth ovens (i.e., roasting pits or pit ovens) and steaming
pits, effectively hold moist heat for fast- and slow-cooking foods (ca. 20 minutes to three
days). Earth ovens are multilayered, but only layers below the food remain in situ: (1) the
oven bottom, evidenced by oxidized sediment or a rock lining; (2) fuel, represented by a
charcoal- and ash-rich lens and carbon-stained sediment characteristic of combustion in
oxygen-poor environments; (3) typically, a rock heating element, evidenced by a lens of
FCR; (4) a layer of green/wet leaves to protect food from burning and provide moisture
for moist-heat baking (water is sometimes added) that could be represented by a phyto-
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Figure 24. Examples of generic cook-stone facilities: (a) closed earth oven with a fired-in-situ
rock heating element; (b) closed, steaming pit with a tethered rock-heating hearth; (c) openair griddle with in situ rock heating element; and (d) open-air, stone-boiling pit with a tethered
rock-heating hearth. Drawing by Alston V. Thoms. Reprinted from Thoms 2008:446, fig. 3, with
permission of Elsevier Ltd.
lith-rich lens of sediment but as yet has not been demonstrated; (5) food packets, possibly
indicated by charred remains or microscopic and molecular residues; (6) a layer of green/
wet leaves and sometimes bark to hold in heat, protect food from sediment and provide
moisture, mostly removed when accessing the food; and (7) an earthen cap that held in
heat and was removed when opening the oven. Earth ovens vary from family size, suitable
for baking a few kilograms of animal or plant foods (ca. 0.75–1.0 meter in diameter), to
those used to bake 1,000 kilograms or more of root foods (ca. 2.5–4.0 meters in diameter).
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The quantity of fuel and packing material needed for most earth ovens ensures they were
located outside residential structures.
Steaming pits known from ethnographic records tend to be family size and were built
outside and inside residences. They may not be archaeologically distinguishable from
earth ovens because the layer sequence in both feature types can be identical.The primary
difference is that enough water was added through a temporary hole in the earthen cap
to reach the hot rocks and still-burning coals, creating sufficient steam and hot vapor to
fast-cook food before the heat sources cooled.
Tethered features are those that employ heat released from hot stones rather than
burning fuel per se to bake, steam, or boil food for a few minutes to several hours. In
these cases, cooking stones were heated in an open fire and transferred to a to-be-enclosed pit or water-filled pit or vessel, where they functioned as the heating element.
Stone-boiling is archaeologically indicated by (1) an in situ fire large enough to heat
boiling stones ca. 5–15 centimeters in size; (2) a nearby unfired pit that may contain
used boiling stones and is sometimes lined with stone slabs, for pit boiling; and (3) a
surface concentration of used boiling stones lacking evidence of in situ combustion,
and sometimes by a small, basket-holding pit, also unfired, for vessel boiling. Family-size
stone-boiling features were built outside and inside residential structures. Stone-boiling for communal purposes (e.g., feasting or rendering fat) was done in large wooden
troughs or canoes as well as by repeatedly using various vessels and pits. Fireless earth
ovens and steaming pits are indicated by (1) an in situ fire large enough to heat a suitable number of rocks ca. 15–30 centimeters in size and (2) a nearby pit of requisite size
that appears to be lined with FCR but lacks combustion stratigraphy. These family-size,
fireless cooking pits were built outside and inside residential structures; fires for heating
larger rocks were likely built outside.
Knowledge about the cooking requirements of foods in a given region helps predict
the nature and distribution of cooking features in the archaeological record. They are
targeted for excavation because of their potential to yield data on occupation chronology, subsistence, spatial and social organization, and site-formation processes. Insofar as
cooking features provide warmth and light, they were also focal points for manufacturing and maintaining sundry items and for socializing. As such, they often contain
items unrelated to cooking.
See also Archaeology of Cooking; Clay Cooking Balls; Ethnographic Sources; Fire
and the Development of Cooking; Fire and the Development of Cooking Technology; Ovens and Stoves; Soil Microtechniques
Further Reading
Black, Stephen L., and Alston V. Thoms. 2014. Hunter-Gatherer Earth Ovens in the Archaeological
Record: Fundamental Concepts. American Antiquity 79(2):203–26.
Graff, Sarah R., and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, eds. 2012. The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological
Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation. Boulder: University of Colorado Press.
Hawkes, Alan. 2013. The Beginnings and Evolution of the Fulacht Fia Tradition in Early Prehistoric
Ireland. Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 114C:1–51.
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Thoms, Alston V. 2008. The Fire Stones Carry: Ethnographic Records and Archaeological Expectations
for Hot-Rock Cookery in Western North America. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 27:443–60.
Thoms, Alston V., and Patricia A. Clabaugh. 2011. The Archaic Period at the Richard Beene Site: Six
Thousand Years of Hunter-Gatherer Family Cookery in South-Central North America. Bulletin of
the Texas Archaeological Society 82:77–115.
■ A L S T O N V. T H O M S
FISH/SHELLFISH
Fish and shellfish are major aquatic food resources and have played a significant role
in human diet. Homo erectus and other early hominins exploited a varied diet that included aquatic species such as fish. Currently, the oldest evidence of fish use is from the
Oldowan site of FwJJ20 in Kenya, which dates to 1.95 MYA. At most Oldowan sites,
however, including FwJJ20, over 80 percent of these fish remains were catfish, which
could be captured by hand.
After 160,000 BP, aquatic resources become regularly visible in the diets of some
groups of hominins, including modern humans. Key Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites
along the South African coast include Klaises River Cave and Blombos Cave. These sites
produced over 18 species of marine shellfish. Blombos also produced over ten species
of marine fish from MSA layers, but catfish or shallow-water species were predominant.
Catches of fish and shellfish by ancient humans were likely made by gathering and spear
technology during the MSA. A number of bone spears were also found in MSA layers
in Blombos, and sophisticated barbed bone spears were found with catfish remains at
Katanda (90 KYA) in central Africa. In Late Stone Age sites after 50,000 BP, further development of fish capture methods occurred during the migration by modern humans
to Eurasia and the Pacific. The oldest evidence of fast-swimming fish such as tuna was
found at Jerimalai (42 KYA) at East Timor in the West Pacific. The site also produced
shell-made fishhooks after 23,000 BP. Early fishhooks appeared in Europe by the Late
Paleolithic (after 14 KYA) and from eastern Asia to the North Pacific after 9,000–8,000
BP. During the Holocene (after 12 KYA), various capture technologies were invented,
allowing modern humans to exploit a great variety of fish and shellfish.
See also Fishing; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Jerimalai Cave; Shell Middens;
Tools/Utensils, Organic Materials; Weapons, Bone/Antler/Ivory; Weapons, Stone;
Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Erlandson, Jon M. 2001. The Archaeology of Aquatic Adaptations: Paradigms for a New Millennium.
Journal of Archaeological Research 9(4):287–350.
O’Connor, Sue, Rintaro Ono, and Chris Clarkson. 2011. Pelagic Fishing at 42,000 Years Before the
Present and the Maritime Skills of Modern Humans. Science 334(6059):1117–21.
Stewart, Kathlyn M. 1994. Early Hominid Utilization of Fish Resources and Implications for Seasonality and Behaviour. Journal of Human Evolution 27(1-3):229–45.
■ R I N TA R O O N O
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FISHING
The term fishing is used here to describe the act of sourcing and catching fish. This includes catching fish to eat but can also include fishing for sport. In other contexts it may
be used to describe the gathering of shellfish, the catching of aquatic crustaceans, and
even in some cases the exploitation of other aquatic animals.
Fishing has provided a reliable and nutritious source of food to past human populations across the globe, and continues to do so today. The earliest evidence for fish
exploitation dates back to the Paleolithic period, with evidence for early hominin fish
procurement at Olduvai Gorge,Tanzania, and eastern Africa, and by anatomically modern
humans ca. 125,000 years ago (during the Middle Stone Age) at Blombos Cave, South
Africa. At many older sites, the question of whether fish assemblages resulted from fishing
by humans and their ancestors or from the collection of dead fish from the shore remains
difficult to answer. In addition, studies of fish remains from many archaeological sites of
any period, but especially those with complex stratigraphy, are hindered by difficulties
in the separation of remains deposited by people and those accumulated by other means
(e.g., animals such as bears, otters, and predatory birds; water; and wind). It is current
standard practice on archaeological sites to collect the remains of fish both by hand
(larger fish remains) and through sieving and flotation of sediments (remains of smaller
fish). In the past, however, systematic sampling and sample processing was not always the
case, and attention should be drawn to possible biases toward larger fish (where any fish
remains have been recovered) and the possibility that fish remains may have been missed
completely during excavations in some cases. It is likely that past consumption of fish has
been underestimated as a result of poor recovery of fish remains from archaeological sites.
The study of fishing in the archaeological record can take many forms and utilize
a number of sources of evidence that provide insight into fishing methods and the
importance of fish as a dietary resource in the past. Archaeological evidence includes
fish bones, otoliths (structures of the inner ear, translating literally as ear stones), dermal
denticles (placoid scales, found on the skin of cartilaginous fishes), scutes (external bony
plates found in some fish species), scales, and artifacts associated with fishing (e.g., fishing
weights, floats, gorges, hooks, and harpoons). Stone-built features, once used as fish traps
(and still used in some cases), can survive in shallow coastal waters. Cut marks from butchery, evidence for burning, and skeletal part representation observed in archaeological fish
remains can also provide evidence for methods of processing and preservation.
Direct evidence for the processes of drying, salting, pickling, smoking, and freezing is
rarely found in the archaeological record. In some cases, however, it is possible to infer the
use of preservation techniques by considering skeletal element representation. Examples
of this can be seen at three Upper Paleolithic cave sites located on the southern margins
of the Fucino Basin, central Italy: Grotta di Pozzo, Ortucchio, and Maritza. Fish bone
assemblages from all three sites consist of a single species, brown trout (Salmo trutta fario),
and are dominated by cranial elements, while vertebrae are underrepresented. This has
been interpreted as evidence for the large-scale removal of fish heads at these sites for
preservation and transportation of the flesh (along with the vertebrae) to other locations
for consumption. Similarly, element representation has provided evidence for the trade
of dried Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) in northern Europe during the medieval period,
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allowing for the identification of production sites (with abundant cranial bones) and
consumption sites (with abundant vertebrae).
The archaeological interpretation of fishing practices in the past can often be enhanced through consultation of historical documents and ethnographic sources (records
of contemporary observations of fishing and fish processing). In the historical period,
place names can indicate areas that have been important locations for fishing activities
in the past. Experimental studies that reconstruct the catching, processing, cooking, and
disposal of fish and fish remains also aid in the interpretation of the archaeological evidence. If one assumes that human consumption of fish implies fishing, the analysis of
carbon and nitrogen in collagen extracted from human remains (teeth and bones) can also
provide evidence for fishing. Similarly, residue and use-wear analyses on tools and vessels
can indicate fishing, fish processing activities, and the consumption of fish in the past.
In addition, representational art provides indirect evidence of fishing practices in the
past. Parietal art from the Upper Paleolithic period includes images of fish, notably the
engraving at El Pindal cave, Asturias, Spain. Carvings on portable items also depict fish
and fishing, as seen in the carving on reindeer antler recovered from Upper Paleolithic
deposits at Grotte de Lortet, France. Fish and fishing scenes are seen in art across the
world, from the Paleolithic through modern times. These can provide useful insight into
the types of fish available in the past, as well as the methods used to catch them.
See also Fish/Shellfish; Food Preservation; Marine Mammals; Representational
Models of Food and Food Production; Rock Art; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Gabriel, Otto, Klaus Lange, Erdmann Dahm, and Thomas Wendt, eds. 2005. Von Brandt’s Fish Catching
Methods of the World. 4th edition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rau, Charles. 1884. Prehistoric Fishing in Europe and North America. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Wheeler, Alwyn C., and Andrew K. G. Jones. 1989. Fishes. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
■ HANNAH RUSS
F L O TAT I O N
Flotation is one of the most widely used archaeological techniques for the recovery of
plant macroremains (visible to the naked eye) and operates on the principle that these
remains float in water. Flotation was pioneered at Apple Creek, Illinois (USA), and Ali
Kosh, Iran, in the 1960s. To fill gaps in our understanding of ancient environments and
plant use, particularly subsistence, collection of samples for flotation has become common.
Flotation works as follows: a sample of archaeological matrix (commonly one to ten
liters) is added to water in a flotation device and then agitated. Plant remains and other
buoyant materials (light fraction) float to the surface and are poured through a fine-mesh
screen, normally 0.5 millimeter or smaller. Soil, sediment, and other nonbuoyant items
(heavy fraction) sink and are sieved by a 0.4–1.0 millimeter screen above the bottom of
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the tank. Usually the entire light fraction and a sample of the heavy fraction are dried and
examined using stereoscopic incident light microscopes (10x–50x). Materials typically
recovered using flotation include charcoal, seeds, wood, leaves, roots, tubers, stems, fibers,
flowers, fruits, nuts, and shells. Tiny fish bones can also be recovered in the light fraction.
Three flotation methods are common. Manual flotation is relatively inexpensive, using
a bucket with a screen bottom (where the sample is floated) inside a larger container.This
method does not work well with clayey matrix, however, and recovery rates are highly
variable. Machine-assisted flotation has higher equipment costs, uses water pressure via
gravity or a pump to break up matrix, can process larger volumes of matrix per day, and
tends to have the highest recovery rate. Froth flotation uses an air pump to generate fine
bubbles in a mixture of water and a frothing agent, generates poor results with wet soils,
and has a variable recovery rate.
Flotation is not effective where samples are waterlogged or desiccated, as the former will
not float in water (and requires using heavy liquids) and the latter may disintegrate when
exposed to water. Additionally, clayey matrix is difficult to separate from plant macroremains
and may require sample preprocessing and additional examination of heavy fractions.
See also Archaeobotany; Macroremains
Further Reading
Fritz, Gail J. 2005. Paleoethnobotanical Methods and Applications. In Handbook of Archaeological
Methods, edited by Herbert Maschner and Christopher Chippendale, 773–834. Walnut Creek,
CA: AltaMira Press.
Pearsall, Deborah M. 2000. Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures. 2nd edition. New York: Academic
Press.
■ JON HAGEMAN
F O L K L O R E / F O L K N A R R AT I V E S
See Oral and Folk Narratives
F O O D A N D C A P I TA L I S M
Capitalism had a profound influence on food and foodways, particularly in Europe and
regions of the world that fell under its influence in the colonial era. From the ingredients
used to the methods of cooking them, and from the style of dining to the order of meals,
almost no area of this central part of human culture went untouched.The following entry
will review these changes and how archaeological studies of capitalism have approached
the subject of food.
First and foremost, capitalism had a direct influence on the global availability of foodstuffs. Colonialism, expanding trade networks, market forces, and the commodification
of food were factors that increasingly governed what was eaten. New World crops such
as potatoes, tomatoes, and maize became important staples in Europe and transformed
traditional diets. Unprecedented variety was offered by an array of new meats, fruits, veg-
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etables, and luxuries such as chocolate, tea, coffee, and particular spices. Expanding trade
networks and rising incomes also popularized ingredients that had previously been items
of extreme luxury, such as certain fruits, nuts, spices, and sugar. The commodification
of these luxuries in turn helped new markets to develop, trade networks to strengthen,
incomes to rise, and empires to grow.
The increasing diversity of foodstuffs available in the West in this period did not
improve diets for all sectors of society, however. Indigenous peoples and members of the
lower socioeconomic orders suffered a dramatic decline in nutrition in many instances.
As traditional staples were commodified, they were exported across empires and became
trade goods that were often no longer consumed in their regions of origin. In Ireland,
for example, potatoes (a New World foodstuff) came to dominate the diet of the poor,
as the traditional nourishing staples of beef and dairy were still produced but reserved
as trade goods and thus, for many, were too valuable to consume. Poor rural laborers, or
cottiers, could feed their families off a small plot of land by cultivating potatoes, while
simultaneously providing a cheap pool of labor for farmers and landlords whose produce was exported around the British Empire. When the potato blight struck in 1845,
the overreliance on one crop for subsistence had tragic results. Whereas the premodern diet had been more balanced and certainly more sustainable, the market demands
and consequent export of the now commodified traditional staples, coupled with the
unforgiving colonial mentalité of many landlords, had dire consequences. Furthermore,
the inadequate response of the British government in dealing with the crisis stemmed,
at least in part, from a capitalist ideology and a laissez-faire approach. Their reluctance
to interfere with the market sealed the fate of millions and led to profound changes in
Irish society and to rural settlement patterns, and a decimation of the population from
which Ireland has never recovered.
Archaeological investigations of the Great Famine (an Gorta Mór) are only beginning
in Ireland but are yielding significant results. Charles Orser’s excavations of houses from
which families were evicted in Ballykilcline, County Roscommon, have revealed fascinating details about this period in which the population was reduced by approximately
two million people through starvation, disease, and forced emigration. In many ways, sites
like Ballykilcline can be interpreted as part of an archaeology of the absence of food, in
which capitalism had a direct hand. Sites like Ballykilcline remind us that, far from being
a tale of ever rising incomes and living standards, the redistribution of resources, capital,
and markets had dire consequences for many.
The market also controlled food consumption in more subtle and insidious ways in the
past. Archaeologists working in this area have described the rise of materialism and consumerism as integral components of the capitalist ideology. It is important to note, however, that
when archaeologists discuss the emergence of these trends they are not simply referring to
increased production and consumption, but to the process whereby material things came to
be central components of identity. Food, beverages, and their related suite of material culture
were used to express and forge different forms of identities, which were being reworked in
the capitalist era. We will use the case of tea to illustrate this point.
Tea became an important signifier of class, gendered, and national identities from
the 18th century on. Originally an expensive luxury item, tea was at first embraced by
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the elites as a marker of wealth and status, but as the market made it more attainable,
other classes incorporated it into their meal systems and, ultimately, their identities. For
the upper and middle classes, teawares and the suite of objects involved in the tea ritual
were imbued with notions of wealth, gentility, civility, and domesticity—values that also
became enmeshed in emerging conceptions of femininity. Thus, at least in middle- and
upper-class contexts, tea-related objects represented the refinement of women, often in
juxtaposition to men and their supposedly barbarous behavior. Archaeological investigations of this subject have taken place globally, but sites excavated in New York City (USA)
have been particularly influential and forged much of this theory.
By the 19th century, as market forces made tea and sugar more widely accessible,
these commodities also became central components of working-class identity, and in
many cases they remain so to this day. For example, the contemporary vernacular term
“Builder’s Tea” refers to very strong and sweet tea, which is seen as an identity signifier
of the working classes in Britain and Ireland, demonstrating the ongoing influence of
this history. It should not be assumed, however, that tea was used in the same way by the
working classes, merely to ape their class superiors, as it filtered down the socioeconomic
spectrum. Tea may originally have held appeal to the working classes as a luxury good
associated with the upper echelons of society, but it came to be used differently and was
embedded with a unique, class-relative set of meanings. Tea, like alcohol and tobacco, was
a comforting and recreational substance used to foster and express a sense of class solidarity, much to the disapproval of the middle and upper classes, who saw the enjoyment
of these luxuries as evidence of the wasteful profligacy of the lower orders. Studies of
food-related artifact assemblages from rural Cheshire have shown that material culture
reflects the sociocultural identity of the working classes and is embedded with meanings
uniquely relative to them. Similar studies have taken place globally, frequently drawing
on theory forged in the analysis of assemblages from boardinghouses associated with the
Boott Mills in Lowell, Massachusetts (USA). Notable Australian sites where artifacts associated with tea and other areas of food and foodways have been studied in relation to
working-class identity include Little “Lon,” Melbourne, and the Cumberland/Gloucester
Street site in The Rocks, Sydney.
Food also was used in the construction of national and imperial identities in the past.
Commodities like tea and coffee helped to bond the British Empire together and linked
perceptions of it to consumerism, so that imperial concerns and consciousness infiltrated
the daily routines of its citizens. It has been shown that symbols of empire were actively
used to promote these commodities to British consumers on forms of advertising such as
18th-century trade cards. For example, as Troy Bickham has demonstrated, stereotypical
images of Chinese peasants, docks, junks, and caddies were used to promote tea, reinforcing its exotic appeal and strengthening the sense of pride and participation in empire;
consumers in London could quite literally savor its wares. And so, under the direction of
the market and commercial interests, tea, but also curry and other imported commodities,
became intimately tied to not simply a British but, ultimately, an imperial identity, and
they remain cornerstones of food identity in parts of the United Kingdom today.
Capitalism also changed how and where people prepared food. The onset of modernity, and by extension capitalism, brought an increasing segregation between the
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activities of cooking and eating in Europe and in many other parts of the world. Similarly, whereas there had once been little distinction between table- and kitchenwares,
cooking and serving vessels began to be differentiated from one another. Ultimately,
cooking activities and utilitarian vessels were removed from living spaces altogether
and were relocated to a designated kitchen. A series of house sites excavated throughout the Scottish Highlands has demonstrated this redesignation of the cooking area.
They reveal that there was a gradual movement from a centrally located hearth, to an
end-wall hearth with a chimney and ultimately to a separate kitchen during the 18th
and 19th centuries. This change has been connected to the notion of “improvement,”
fundamentally tied to Enlightenment thought and concerned with the efficiency of
space in the household, but also with the larger landscape.
The concept of improvement is connected to food production and raises the issue of
how the agricultural landscape was restructured to become more efficient in the capitalist
era. Rural settlement patterns in parts of Europe changed dramatically as states and the
elite classes implemented policies to eke more profit from the land.This led to the dispossession and dislocation of rural people, increasing urbanization, and unprecedented emigration to the New World. In Britain and Ireland, landscapes were restructured through
practices such as the enclosure movement, the foundation of model villages, and the implementation of new industrialized agricultural methods. Other countries experienced a
dramatic “emptying out” effect, including Scotland, where the Highland Clearances have
also been an important area of research into “improvement.”
Modernity, and ultimately capitalism, also influenced cookery itself. There was a
gradual movement away from communal dishes such as joints of meat or undifferentiated soups and stews toward more individualized portions. A shift in butchery occurred
as traditional chopping methods, which produced large joints, were replaced by sawing,
which produced individual portions. This change in butchery also meant that the natural,
animal origins of the meat were masked, demonstrating a movement toward artificiality.
James Deetz first noticed these patterns in his study of 18th-century material culture in
New England (USA). It should be stressed that his heavily critiqued conceptualization
was not concerned with market capitalism specifically, but the patterns of individualism
he described are of relevance to this subject.
Cookery also became much more complex as a result of capitalism. As food became
more readily available for the general population, elites needed to enhance social distance,
sheer abundance having lost its prestige. This led to greater elaboration of “high cuisine.”
New ingredients were introduced, elaborate cooking methods were developed, fashionable cookery books were published, and strict table manners emerged, all of which forged
a cuisine and method of dining that was out of reach of the masses. Recent research in
Ireland has shown that upper-class women used manuscript recipe books as status objects,
to reinforce class, gender, and ethnic identity in the context of incipient modernity and
ultimately capitalism.These same books also demonstrate an increasing fixation with food.
From the 18th century on we see the emergence of “celebrity chefs” and a heightened
concern with food, as cookery books became one of the most successful genres in the
history of Western publishing. Their popularity demonstrates a growing sense of materialism and a change in the way people thought about food. People were exhibiting a
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heightened concern with their food and paying increased attention to cookery. This was
particularly important in a period of great social flux, as the middle classes struggled to
compete for social and cultural capital. In many ways this was the beginning of the age
of the “foodie” and the dawn of that cultural phenomenon.
Under the influence of capitalism, the bodily experience of dining also was transformed, and this is where archaeologists have made the biggest contribution to this
area of study. The dining ritual of elites gradually became a much more exclusive event,
limited in numbers and closed to those outside the upper echelons. The classes became
physically divided as the communal nature of the home and, by extension, the meal
were replaced by individualistic and private alternatives. Specialized and private dining
rooms also came to be furnished with material culture that forced diners into a highly
individualistic bodily ritual. Guests, previously seated on shared benches, were given their
own chairs; communal dishes of food eaten by hand were replaced by individual utensils,
personal plates, and portions. By the Georgian period there was a marked increase in the
different types of tablewares available, each piece having a highly specialized function.The
dining table became increasingly cluttered with a vast array of utensils and new forms
of material culture. These goods, and the strict set of rules and rituals for their use (table
manners), were integral to modern notions of productivity, a concept that has consistently
fascinated archaeologists. The home, and ultimately the dining table, became a sort of
panoptic environment in which the individual was subjected to society’s constant gaze.
The constant repetition of daily tasks forced the individual to internalize these ideologies
and become self-disciplined. Furthermore, the proliferation of objects instilled a sense of
materialism and a consumer identity in diners. In Annapolis, Maryland (USA), the suite
of material culture related to dining was connected to the emergence of etiquette guides,
and archaeologists have argued that the focus on table manners and how to use these
new forms of material culture demonstrates a desire to exercise a tighter control over the
body through the establishment of daily rituals. These rituals instilled in the participant
the disciplined consumer identity that was fundamental to the functioning of the capitalist
system. More recent studies from Massachusetts (USA) have built upon this theory and
considered how various types of manners were tied to the quest for cultural legitimacy
by elite classes through displays of gentility.
A final change to dining brought about by capitalism was the timing of meals. The
breakfast, lunch, and dinner model with which we are now familiar was only established
at the end of the 19th century. This can be connected to the emergence of the modern
industrial workday. Artificial lighting meant that natural cycles no longer dictated working hours, which were now controlled by the clock. As people began to work for longer
periods and away from home, their meal times came to reflect these new patterns.To date,
few archaeologists have engaged with this issue, but investigations of the development of
new meal systems (e.g., ready-made, transportable consumables) and associated material
culture could prove fascinating.
Given the dominance of capitalism as a theme in historical archaeology, it is perhaps
surprising that very few archaeologists have approached the subject of its influence on
food directly. This is even more intriguing given that, as we have seen, its impact on food
and foodways was all encompassing. Given this dearth of direct research, the findings
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outlined here do not stem, in most cases, from examinations of this subject specifically,
but from broader considerations of the material manifestations of capitalism. It is clear
though that, given the broad scope and variety of approaches listed here, more targeted
enquiries would prove to be fruitful, engaging, and critical areas for future research. Such
studies would also help us to understand the human experience of capitalism in one of
the most central components of culture.
Anthropologists and other social scientists have devoted considerable attention to the
study of food and foodways in the context of advanced capitalism, and archaeologists
would benefit from engaging with this literature. Studies of the market and its complex
web of commodity and supply chains, and the ways these systems govern consumption
patterns and manipulate cuisines globally, are of particular relevance. For example, Theodor Bestor’s examination of Tokyo’s Tsukiji, the world’s largest seafood market, shows how
commodity chains and cultural capital merge at and are controlled by this central trade
hub and, ultimately, how Tsukiji has shaped both the nature but also conceptualizations of
Japanese cuisine nationally and internationally. Studies such as Bestor’s provide conceptual
models and methodological tools for the analysis of the complex, multisited transactions
that characterize many forms of capitalism in the past. Many of the issues raised here
in relation to archaeology are also pertinent themes for anthropologists looking at food
in contemporary society, including the impact of class structure and the globalization
of food. Recently, scholars have observed a growing emphasis on food values such as
community, regionality, national cuisine, heritage, tradition, authenticity, and originality
that combine to create an aesthetic ideal that is increasingly important, particularly in
middle-class contexts. The vast body of literature related to the anthropology of food,
and food studies generally, reminds us that the effects of capitalism in the past could be
complex and highly nuanced. Future archaeological research will hopefully bring the
relationship between capitalism and food into focus.
See also Cacao/Chocolate; Coffee; Cookbooks; Food and Colonialism; Food and
Dining as Social Display; Food and Identity; Food and Inequality; Food and Politics; Food and Power; Food and Status; Food as a Commodity; Food as Sensory
Experience; Food Technology and Ideas about Food, Spread of; Globalization;
Markets/Exchange; Recipes; Spices; Sucrose; Tea; Trade Routes
Further Reading
Dalglish, Chris. 2003. Rural Society in the Age of Reason: An Archaeology of the Emergence of Modern Life in
the Southern Scottish Highlands. New York: Kluwer/Plenum.
Delle, James A., Stephen A. Mrozowski, and Robert Paynter, eds. 2000. Lines That Divide: Historical Archaeologies of Race, Class, and Gender. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Goodwin, Lorinda B. R. 1999. An Archaeology of Manners:The Polite World of the Merchant Elite of Colonial
Massachusetts. New York: Kluwer/Plenum.
Johnson, Matthew. 1996. An Archaeology of Capitalism. Oxford: Blackwell.
Leone, Mark P., and Parker B. Potter Jr. 1999. Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism. New York: Kluwer
Academic/Plenum.
Mayne, Alan, and Tim Murray, eds. 2001. The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Mrozowski, Stephen A. 2006. The Archaeology of Class in Urban America. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shackel, Paul A. 1993. Personal Discipline and Material Culture: An Archaeology of Annapolis, Maryland,
1695–1870. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Shanahan, Madeline. 2013. Dining on Words: A Discussion of Manuscript Recipe Books, Culinary
Change and Élite Food Culture in Ireland (circa 1660 to 1830). Irish Architectural and Decorative
Studies: The Journal of the Irish Georgian Society 15:82–97.
Symonds, James, ed. 2010. Table Settings: The Material Culture and Social Context of Dining, AD 1700–
1900. Oxford: Oxbow.
Wall, Diana diZerega. 1994. The Archaeology of Gender: Separating the Spheres in Urban America. New York:
Plenum.
■ MADELINE SHANAHAN
FOOD AND COLONIALISM
In its broadest sense, archaeological investigation of European colonial expansion has
sought to understand cultural connections and interactions of the modern world through
material culture. Food, but, more important, foodways, as a shared system between the
colonizer and the colonized, allows researchers to observe social phenomena associated
with contact and cultural transformation.While historical archaeology in the sub-Saharan
region of the African continent has focused on the ways Europeans have impacted local
African societies as a result of contact and cultural interactions, mainly within the broad
contexts of trade, food-related research has yet to be fully realized. Research has predominantly concentrated on the reconstruction of dietary practices of European colonists,
Native Americans, and Africans and their descendants across the Atlantic.
Foundational interpretive models of food studies were in keeping with prehistoric
archaeology, focusing on diet, subsistence practices, and environmental reconstruction.
In terms of colonialism, archaeological food studies, particularly in the New World, are
generally based in two overarching theoretical approaches. The first is most commonly
associated with theoretical paradigms from the 1960s to the 1980s that centered on socioeconomic status and ethnicity patterning of food consumption and disposal. Furthermore, intercultural relationships were best understood in epistemologies of acculturation,
center–periphery exchanges, and world systems theory.
However, by the late 1980s, there was a theoretical shift away from a processual
approach that coincided with new studies of colonialism in association with cultural
syncretism and identity formation processes. A greater archaeological focus on the past
lifeways of enslaved Africans, their descendants, and other disenfranchised groups inspired
new questions about colonialism, otherness, and cultural relationships. The overreliance
on testing the predictability of ethnic affiliation and economic status as well as the inherent flaws of this processually grounded perspective were incompatible with topics of
contestation and accommodation by colonized peoples. Furthermore, analyses of cultural
processes and behaviors were critiqued for a lack a diachronic scope, a myopic focus, and
problematic deductive reasoning. This limited overview of intercultural studies tended to
present a unidirectional process in which the colonist is in a political position of power
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to distribute his or her material culture, and thereby influence and impose the colonizer’s
culture upon the colonized. In the 1980s, this focus was most prevalent in investigations
of Native American diets and Chinese immigrant foodways. Changes were interpreted as
aspects of acculturation, and few studies examined the colonists on the western frontier.
Rarely did this research acknowledge colonialism as a long-term process or address the
dynamic and active roles of non-Europeans and native peoples within the colonial system.
Later, theoretical perspectives were shaped by anthropologists such as Sidney Mintz, who
situated food, particularly sugar, not only as a process and as a commodity but also as
meaningful material culture in the context of cultural, historical, and economic practices
within colonialism. Mintz also demonstrated the profound effect of slavery and Indian
indenture on the modern industrial world.
By the late 1990s, expanding theoretical frameworks mirrored a more holistic
emphasis, as seen in social anthropology. Grounded by new questions about diasporic
identities, hybridity, and gender, archaeological studies of food began to emphasize a
reconstruction of past lifeways that embraced a more sophisticated interdisciplinary
study influenced by food and nutritional anthropology and postcolonial studies. Women’s studies and feminist theories also contributed to the broader scope by legitimating
the place of women in various activities associated with food systems. This work challenged uncritical assumptions of the division of labor and women’s roles in the politics
of culture production and identity formation.
A significant new interpretive approach in historical archaeology moved beyond food
consumption and production to include the concept of foodways. This multidisciplinary
approach furthered an understanding of foodways as replete with symbols and meanings
associated with social power that may serve as a marker of difference via exclusion or
inclusion, as seen in Maria Franklin’s work on soul food and the social politics of African
Americans. This approach requires a holistic and flexible set of theoretical and methodological tools to investigate the spectrum of food remains, other food-related material culture, and food-related activities. Multidisciplinary research strategies have been applied to
the study of dietary practices and colonial systems elsewhere, including the Dutch in New
Amsterdam and the Spanish, French, and English in North America and the Caribbean.
In the last decade of the 20th century, more nuanced approaches have focused on
the relationship between foodways and identity, demonstrating the need for flexibility
in studying how social categories of ethnicity and race marked symbolic distinctions
between European colonists and disenfranchised groups. For example, contemporary
scholars investigating Spanish colonial sites often incorporate a transculturation model
with the understanding that cultural change is not unidirectional but rather a two-way
process affecting the cultures involved. These studies expand on the concept of foodways
and diasporic identity formation and their relation to colonial power as a process of creolization.The concept of creolization has been used to understand the role of colonial power
in transatlantic expansion via plantation economies and the African response to slavery.
Using the archaeological record, for example, researchers have addressed the ways slave
foodways demonstrate a distinct black identity while actively engaging in sociopolitical
interactions, such as cultural resistance against the white planter class.
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See also Creolization; Diaspora Foodways; Food and Capitalism; Food and Gender;
Food and Identity; Food and Inequality; Food and Power; Food Appropriation
and Culinary Imperialism; Foodways; Globalization; Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approaches; Slave Diet, on Southern Plantations; Slave Diet, on West Indian
Plantations
Further Reading
Cusick, James G., ed. 1998. Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology. Center
for Archaeological Investigation, Occasional Paper 25. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
Dietler, Michael. 2007. Culinary Encounters: Food, Identity, and Colonialism. In The Archaeology of
Food and Identity, edited by Katheryn C. Twiss, 218–42. Center for Archaeological Investigations,
Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
Franklin, Maria. 2001. The Archaeological Dimensions of Soul Food: Interpreting Race, Culture, and
Afro-Virginian Identity. In Race and the Archaeology of Identity, edited by Charles E. Orser Jr., 88–107.
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Mintz, Sidney W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Viking.
Wilk, Richard R. 1999. “Real Belizean Food”: Building Local Identity in the Transnational Caribbean.
American Anthropologist 101(2):244–55.
■ PEGGY BRUNACHE
FOOD AND CONFLICT
The relationship between food and conflict has primarily received attention under the
rubric of warfare studies, with food most often presented as a goal of raiding parties.
Only recently have scholars more explicitly highlighted the role that food economies play
within regions undergoing an intensification of intergroup violence and warfare. Perhaps
the best-known articulation of food and conflict comes from Robert Carneiro’s thesis
that increasing population pressure within environmentally or socially circumscribed environments leads to increased conflict between groups. In a setting where the human population is growing beyond the limits of the natural food supply, people are faced with a set
of key decisions: (1) they can do nothing, and starve, bringing the population back down
to supportable levels; (2) they can move to another region, unless they are surrounded
either by geographical features preventing migration (e.g., oceans, deserts, mountains) or
by other groups of people who have already staked claim to all the surrounding lands; (3)
they can intensify agricultural production; or (4) they can raid neighboring groups for
their food resources. In some cases, groups may intensify food production but still suffer
shortfalls, leading to decisions to raid and pilfer nearby settlements.
Carneiro’s model implies that warfare emerges out of a struggle for limited resources,
ultimately caused by population densities that cannot be supported by the natural environment. This model is thus inadequate for explaining rampant warfare in regions with
abundant natural resources and low population densities. Moreover, Carneiro’s model
emphasizes the causes and goals of warfare, a focus that has driven the majority of archaeological research on war for decades. Unfortunately, it is difficult to pin down causes of
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warfare or to define the goals of ancient people who lacked systems of writing. Thus,
more recent archaeological research has shifted its focus toward examining the effects of
warfare and chronic violence on afflicted social groups, using a lens of food security.
The late prehistoric (AD 1100–1300) Central Illinois River Valley (CIRV) presents
a case of intensive regional violence in an area with a fairly low population density. The
region boasted abundant and diverse wild plant and animal populations, which people
exploited alongside a domestic economy based on farming maize and native seed crops.
Warfare appears to have been particularly intense in the CIRV in comparison to neighboring regions, where more highly populated settlements served to deter potential raiding
parties. Prior to the increase in violence that precipitated the shift to living in palisaded
villages, most people in the CIRV lived in small, dispersed farmsteads and ate a diverse
diet that included farmed produce (maize and native seeds) and a variety of wild plants
(fruits, nuts, wild greens) and animals (mammals, birds, fish). Around AD 1200, nucleated,
palisaded villages replaced the previous settlement pattern of dispersed communities. Additional evidence of escalating violence after AD 1200 consists of several catastrophically
burned villages as well as some of the highest rates of blunt-force cranial trauma observed
for the Eastern Woodlands. Analysis of subsistence remains from sites occupied after the
intensification of regional warfare reveals that diet suffered rather dramatically after people
began living behind walls. After these groups coalesced into larger defensible communities, there was a clear reduction in wild plants and fish—food resources that would have
required people to leave the safety of their village walls. Indeed, the numbers and types of
foods upon which people subsisted shrank to encompass maize (which could have been
grown directly outside the walls) and mammals (which could have been trapped within
maize fields and hunted along the field/forest edge). This lack of dietary diversity likely
impacted the quality of the diet in terms of meeting nutritional requirements, especially
for children and childbearing women. Moreover, the data reveal that people were not able
to offset the reduction of wild foods by producing more maize; maize production levels
did not increase with the shift to palisaded villages. This pattern suggests that villagers
living in the war-torn CIRV likely suffered periodic food shortages.
This example illustrates the significance of food security for those on the receiving
end of campaigns of violence. It is important to note that the relationship between
food security and intergroup conflict is situational, depending on the level of violence,
the nature of the response to threat, the local subsistence economy, and the abundance
of potential food resources in the natural environment. For example, in the prehistoric
American Southwest, where agriculture was more marginal and wild food resources
more limited, people living under the constant threat of attack abandoned entire settlements and regions instead of sheltering behind village walls. Living behind palisade walls
requires ample timber (for building those walls) and presumes that the environment can
support long-term, siege-like conditions. Finally, a consideration of food security within
the context of warfare demands that we consider the broader context of war. War is not
just the domain of soldiers, warriors, and men, nor is it simply about battles or tactics.
War has broader, deleterious impacts on families and communities living under the threat
and in the wake of violence.
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See also Bioarchaeological Analysis; Cannibalism; Famine; Food and Inequality;
Food and Power; Paleonutrition; Paleopathology
Further Reading
Billman, Brian R., Patricia M. Lambert, and Banks L. Leonard. 2000. Cannibalism,Warfare, and Drought
in the Mesa Verde Region in the Twelfth Century AD. American Antiquity 65(1):145–78.
Carneiro, Robert L. 1970. A Theory of the Origin of the State. Science 169(3947):733–38.
Milner, George R. 2007.Warfare, Population, and Food Production in Prehistoric Eastern North America. In North American Indigenous Warfare and Ritual Violence, edited by Richard J. Chacon and Ruben
G. Mendoza, 182–201. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
■ A M B E R M . VA N D E R WA R K E R
F O O D A N D D I N I N G A S S O C I A L D I S P L AY
Food not only functions as a source of nutrition but serves as a means of displaying
wealth, power, religion, conviction, and other aspects of the sociocultural status of the
consumer. For this reason, food has long attracted the attention of scholars of the social
and historical sciences and, in their wake, archaeologists. By 1910 the German philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel (1858–1918) had underlined in his pioneering
essay “Sociology of the Meal” the significance of the distinction between communal
and individual dining. He concluded that eating from a communal dish with the hand
was a simpler, more “down-to-earth” form of dining, involving direct contact with
the food, as opposed to individuals eating from a single plate with knife and fork. The
individual plate symbolized for Simmel Ordnung (order) as it showed the appropriate
portion of food for one person.
Simmel’s view anticipated the more detailed work of the German sociologist Norbert
Elias (1897–1990) on the development of dining as social display. Elias’s most important
work, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, was published in German in 1939, but it only
reached a wider audience after its republication in English in 1969 as The Civilising Process:
The History of Manners. Elias argued that the development of table manners was a significant component of the civilizing process as it formalized and regulated the consumption
of food. Although some aspects of his work were clearly erroneous or are now proven
to be untenable (among which is his view on the linear progress of civilization), Elias
rightly pointed to the cultural importance of dining habits and the social significance of
the ritualized display of food consumption (e.g., in feasts and banquets). He argued that
once men and women ceased to eat from the same dish or drink from the same cup, the
refinement of table manners was part of a general process in the Western world of distancing oneself from others, erecting walls of restraint, and developing higher thresholds
of embarrassment, which he saw as markers of “civilization.”
The last 50 years have seen a steady rise in anthropological and historical studies on
food consumption and dining habits, some of which had a clear impact on archaeology. Especially important were the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss (who introduced his
famous culinary triangle on the raw and the cooked), Mary Douglas, Roland Barthes,
and Jack Goody. The work of the British social anthropologist Mary Douglas stands
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out as particularly influential, specifically her study Purity and Danger (1966). Douglas
explored the relations between the classification of food, the rituals of cooking, the
arrangement of meals, and the display of food consumption on one hand, and social
hierarchy, social grouping, as well as notions of purity and pollution, general cognitive
processes, and the worldview of the cultures involved on the other hand. In Implicit
Meanings: Essays in Anthropology (1975), she approached food consumption as a “code”
that must be deciphered to fully understand the principles by which people order their
world. She argued that study of the “protocol” of food consumption (what is eaten and
when, in what order, who is taking part, in which part of the house, what recipes are
used, etc.) makes it possible to use food as a marker of ethnic, cultural, generational,
and gender differences in a society.
Other scholars (e.g., Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Bronisław Malinowski, Roland Barthes, Stephen Mennell) have also pointed out the central role of foodstuffs, food preparation, and food consumption in the construction of the social order. More recently,
and in a less poststructuralist way, the influential British social anthropologist Jack
Goody also has explored the theme of the relation between food consumption and
social identity. Goody argued that the consumption of food not only highlights social
attitudes but functions also as a horizontal (e.g., class) or vertical (tribal, regional, ethnic,
etc.) group identity signifier.
In recent years archaeologists have increasingly explored the complexities of food
consumption and dining habits. Much attention has been given to the concept of feasting
in ancient and (pre-)modern societies, for instance. Studies have also examined material
and other forms of evidence related to food consumption in medieval England, as well
as pottery and table manners in the eastern Mediterranean from Byzantine to Ottoman
times. In this last instance, the study focused specifically on dining practices as such, by
analyzing changing consumption patterns through archaeological artifacts (especially tablewares), written texts, and pictorial evidence, with an emphasis on the variations over
time between communal and individual dining in the eastern Mediterranean and in the
Aegean in particular (figure 25). This study shows that the changing forms and fabrics of
the tablewares can be related to a gradual but fundamental shift from exclusively communal dining in the 7th–12th centuries (based on sharing food from single large plates) to
a transitional form of Western-style, noncommunal dining (based on individual cups and
small plates) in the 13th–15th centuries, and back to communal dining again in Ottoman
times (characterized by large open dishes from the 16th century onward). The archaeological record and written sources suggest that this transition took place at a different
pace in various parts of the eastern Mediterranean.
It is now generally accepted that changes in pottery shapes may be highly informative
about changes in diet, cooking techniques, and eating habits. Nevertheless, the relationship between archaeological finds and food, eating habits, and dining as social display in
past societies is very complex, and theories do not always mesh easily with the realities
of the physical evidence.
See also Commensality; Feasting; Food and Identity; Food and Status; Material
Culture Analysis
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Figure 25. Consumption patterns may be studied using the evidence of material culture
(especially tablewares), food remains, written texts, and pictorial evidence. This figure depicts
variations over time between communal and individual dining in the eastern Mediterranean
and in the Aegean. Top: Dining scene and schematic table setting in Middle Byzantine times.
Painting: Miniature of Job’s Children, St. Catherine’s Monastery (Cod. 3, fol. 17v), Sinai, 11th
century, artist unknown. From Weitzman and Galavaris 1990, Color Plate XVII. © Princeton
University Press. Reprinted with permission of Princeton University Press. Bottom: Dining scene
and schematic table setting in Late Byzantine times. Painting: Miniature in a croce dipinta (nr. 15),
Museo Nazionale di San Matteo, Pisa, ca. late 12th–13th century, artist unknown (after SandbergVavalá 1929, fig. 164; Vroom 2003, fig. 11.28). Schematic table settings by Joanita Vroom.
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Further Reading
Jervis, Ben. 2012. Cuisine and Urban Identities in Medieval England: Objects, Foodstuffs and Urban Life
in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Hampshire. Archaeological Journal 169:453–79.
Sandberg-Vavalá, Evelyn. 1929. La croce dipinta italiana e l’iconografia della passione. Verona: Casa editrice
Apollo.
Vroom, Joanita. 2000. Byzantine Garlic and Turkish Delight: Dining Habits and Cultural Change in
Central Greece from Byzantine to Ottoman Times. Archaeological Dialogues 7(2):199–216.
———. 2003. After Antiquity: Ceramics and Society in the Aegean from the 7th to the 20th Centuries A.D.: A
Case Study from Boeotia, Central Greece. Leiden: Archaeological Studies, Leiden University. http://
hdl.handle.net/1887/13511.
———. 2007. The Changing Dining Habits at Christ’s Table. In Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19):
Food and Wine in Byzantium, edited by Leslie Brubaker and Kallirroe Linardou, 191–222. Aldershot,
UK: Ashgate.
Weitzman, Kurt, and George Galavaris. 1990. The Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai: The Illuminated Greek Manuscripts. Vol. 1, From the Ninth to the Twelfth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
■ J O A N I TA V R O O M
FOOD AND GENDER
During the early 1980s, feminist critiques questioned the objectivity of archaeological
study, charging that too often issues of social inequality were not thoroughly explored.
Furthermore, sexist and androcentric perspectives were deeply embedded into the socalled scientific interpretation of our cultural past. Margaret Conkey and Janet Spector
addressed this problem in the early era of feminist writings in archaeology in a landmark
article, “Archaeology and the Study of Gender” (1984). Later, Joan Gero and Margaret
Conkey called for new epistemologies in the discipline, which sparked influential paradigms of gender and feminist research in prehistoric archaeology. Minor backlashes against
these theoretical frameworks did occur, criticizing the feminist approach for merely
choosing to (re)present women only, while excluding men. The complex relationship between different gender roles in social groups was not explored in the early feminist work.
These epistemologies evolved and strengthened over time, however, becoming more flexible in their approaches, which include but are not limited to asserting gender as a social
construction, gender as an equally social and biological scheme, and gender as a process.
In some of the earliest studies, feminist-inspired archaeological theories looked to
challenge gender assumptions about women’s activities, such as traditional considerations about the division of labor, specifically regarding food. Although it has been
understood generally that foodways are inherently bound to gender categories in most
cultures, feminist archaeologists found that androcentric views on women’s role in
food systems were too prevalent, and they looked to create more nuanced methods of
analysis. Gendered food studies embody a variety of approaches that include a focus
on material culture, such as pottery production, cooking activities, food-related activity
areas, and feasting behaviors.
Within prehistoric archaeological practice, for example, Christine A. Hastorf has been
at the forefront of developing engendered methodologies that include, but are not limited
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to, investigating women via artifact patterning and the use of space and by examining the
nature of foodways. Through investigations of Pre-Columbian sites in the central Andes,
Hastorf used several lines of evidence, including that of public and restricted spaces, as
effective tools for perceiving gender relations and gendered landscapes. Hastorf not only
made women’s roles in maize chicha (beer) production in Inca society visible but also
revealed that chicha production was often the focus of intense political and economic
tensions, demonstrating the possibilities of food production investigation as a tool for
reassessing presupposed societal roles.
In general, historical archaeologists have avoided the pitfalls of conflating men’s behaviors with those of women, by looking to identify the presence of women and assert the
significant value of their activities within society. Historical productions of knowledge are
driven by an analysis of the intersectionality of gender with other social categories such
as race, class, and ethnicity. Historical archaeologists combine material culture and spatial
analysis with documentary evidence in the study of food and gender. Researchers incorporate multiscaled analytical approaches to address questions of social contestation, differential use of power, agency, and other economic and sociopolitical indicators of variation
located in the archaeological record. Some historical gender studies, for example, also
ground their methodological approaches within the parameters of gendered landscapes.
Often, the study of gender is inherently linked to discourses of foodways through the
analysis of food-related materials such as ceramic vessels and glassware, making the connection between food and gender implicit rather than explicit to the investigation. Researchers Diana Wall and Anne Yentsch looked to both men’s and women’s roles in private
domestic space versus public commercial space to understand how individuals articulated,
reproduced, or redefined their gendered social positions. Wall’s work on 19th-century
New York City surmised that food-related practices contributed to the dialogue on
women’s agency and choices. Her nuanced analysis of ceramics and glassware with relation to the intersection of gender and class shed light on women’s shifting status within
the middle class and on varying social meanings. Yentsch’s explicitly feminist approach
to the study of 18th-century dairy vessels and activity areas within public versus private
space allowed her to track gendered shifts in vessel use from male association to female
association, while questioning current archaeological categories for food-related material
culture and their gender assignments. Her emphasis on food and gender in the context
of the African Diaspora has enabled Yentsch to develop a more sophisticated interpretive framework. In the Chesapeake region of the United States, Yentsch investigated the
foodways (particularly food procurement and distribution) of enslaved men and women,
with particular attention to activities performed by both genders. She also underlined the
difficulty post-emancipated black women faced living in rural poverty. While trying to
maintain culinary continuities, Yentsch asserts that black women effectively circumnavigated the racial and social constraints of the Jim Crow era to develop alternative gender
ideologies within public spheres.
Within prehistoric and historical archaeology, researchers understand that food is a
significant unit of study that determines and maintains gender relations. Gendered food
studies have moved beyond the search for gender attributions in the archaeological record. Instead, researchers strive for more nuanced methods of analysis to develop a more
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explicit and sophisticated interpretive framework that articulates the ways gender is a
socially constructed and transitioning process of human behavior and identity.
See also Archaeology of Household Food Production; Food and Identity; Food
and Inequality; Food and Politics; Food and Power; Foodways and Gender Roles;
Household Archaeology; Material Culture Analysis; Spatial Analysis and Visualization Techniques
Further Reading
Conkey, Margaret W., and Janet D. Spector. 1984. Archaeology and the Study of Gender. Advances in
Archaeological Method and Theory 7:1–38.
Hastorf, Christine A. 1991. Gender, Space, and Food in Prehistory. In Engendering Archaeology:Women and
Prehistory, edited by Joan M. Gero and Margaret W. Conkey, 132–63. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wall, Diana diZerega. 1994. The Archaeology of Gender: Separating the Spheres in Urban America. New York:
Plenum.
Yentsch, Anne E. 1991. Engendering Visible and Invisible Ceramic Artifacts, Especially Dairy Vessels.
Historical Archaeology 25(4):132–55.
———. 1994. A Chesapeake Family and Their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
■ PEGGY BRUNACHE
FOOD AND IDENTITY
Identity is fundamentally about affiliations and rejections: the social groups in which a
person or a community participates, and those in which it does not. Group memberships may be voluntary—for example, political affiliations in some cultures—or involuntary—for example, gender identity in some societies. They may be aspirational, with
nonmembers imitating the practices and material culture of a particular group in hopes
of entering it, or merely being mistaken for a member; they may be accepted only within
small groups; or they may be widely accepted. Identities are materially expressed, as both
consciously and unconsciously members of a group echo each other’s practices and set
themselves apart from members of other groups. The archaeology of food and identity is
thus an archaeology of similarity and distinction, wherein similarities of food practice are
interpreted as similarities of identity (and the converse).
Identities are composed of numerous affiliations: any individual simultaneously belongs to a gender, an age group, and one or more ethnicities, classes or status groups, belief
systems, political entities, and more. Archaeologists generally do not investigate individual
identities, however, but focus on collective or communal affiliations and on one or two
selected facets of identity at a time, such as gender, status, ethnicity, or religion.
Researchers then proceed along various lines. Some examine how food practices differ between assemblages produced by members of different social groups. For example,
scholars might study ethnic identity maintenance versus assimilation in an ancient city
by examining whether houses containing many imported artifacts and houses of similar
economic status but with few or no imports contain similar food remains. Or they might
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compare the stable isotopic values of male and female skeletons in order to assess the
extent, and health implications, of ancient gender distinctions (or the skeletons or burials
of rich and poor, to examine status differences).
Other researchers test models of how a specific group eats against archaeological
assemblages produced by that group. Since many culturally specific food practices are
not archaeologically visible, and most are observed to varying degrees in varying circumstances, such testing is not usually done in order to identify the presence of a particular
group in the archaeological record. Rather, archaeologists explore the extent to which
externally derived models of a group’s foodways diverge from archaeologically revealed
patterns within a community. To what extent did medieval Jewish or Muslim groups exclude pork from their diets, or Catholics observe church fasting rules? Finally, archaeologists explore the deliberate construction of identities via food: the ways people used food
to position themselves in society. Scholars examine not only how people purposefully
adopted the foods of groups with whom they wanted to claim affiliation—lower-class
citizens taking up the food habits of elites, for example—but also how members of some
desired groups strove to distance themselves anew, adopting new culinary signatures in an
attempt to maintain social distinction. Foodstuffs (e.g., plant and animal remains), human
skeletal remains, and tools linked to food preparation are commonly used data sets, but
any data interpretable as reflecting food choices or behaviors may theoretically be used.
Identity may be expressed through many different aspects of food: the forms, locations, timing, organization, symbolic and linguistic associations, and ideological correlates
of food production, preparation, consumption, storage, and discard have all been used to
convey group affiliations and distinctions. In archaeology, three foci of investigation are
particularly apparent: commensal consumption, labor organization, and diet. Commensality is a literal expression of group membership: those who eat together share some
affiliation (although at any event subgroups are often simultaneously identified through
differential seating, menus, etc.). The scale and organization of commensalism is typically
studied using the size and locations of cooking and dining facilities and the volume of
discarded food remains. Food-related labor responsibilities vary between social groups, so
archaeologists use skeletal activity markers (e.g., pathologies) and the spatial distribution
of cooking equipment to look at gender and hierarchy in particular. Finally, studies of
food and identity that focus on diet assess species (and to a lesser extent, preparations)
consumed or prohibited, and the degree to which those vary across/between sites and
areas, searching for patterned variation that can be linked to particular identity groups.
Diet is investigated both directly, primarily via stable isotopic ratios in human remains,
and indirectly, using faunal or botanical remains.
Identity is multifarious both in nature and in expression, requiring archaeologists to
consider a tremendous range of data sets and social possibilities if (unwisely) attempting to
analyze it as a whole. Individual facets of identity are archaeologically accessible, however,
and food—virtually the only archaeological data set that plausibly reflects all members of
a society—is excellently suited to their investigation.
See also Bioarchaeological Analysis; Commensality; Creolization; Food and
Gender; Food and Politics; Food and Status; Foodways and Religious Practices;
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Material Culture Analysis; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions, Taboos; Stable
Isotope Analysis
Further Reading
Franklin, Maria. 2001. The Archaeological Dimensions of Soul Food: Interpreting Race, Culture, and
Afro-Virginian Identity. In Race and the Archaeology of Identity, edited by Charles E. Orser Jr., 88–107.
Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Mills, Barbara J., ed. 2004. Identity, Feasting, and the Archaeology of the Greater Southwest: Proceedings of the
2002 Southwest Symposium. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Scott, Elizabeth M. 1996. Who Ate What? Archaeological Food Remains and Cultural Diversity. In
Case Studies in Environmental Archaeology, edited by Elizabeth J. Reitz, Lee A. Newsom, and Sylvia J.
Scudder, 339–58. New York: Plenum.
Stein, Gil J. 2012. Food Preparation, Social Context, and Ethnicity in a Prehistoric Mesopotamian
Colony. In The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation, edited
by Sarah R. Graff and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, 47–63. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Twiss, Katheryn C., ed. 2007. The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
———. 2012. The Archaeology of Food and Social Diversity. Journal of Archaeological Research
20(4):357–95.
Urem-Kotsou, Dushka, and Kostas Kotsakis. 2007. Pottery, Cuisine and Community in the Neolithic
of North Greece. In Cooking Up the Past: Food and Culinary Practices in the Neolithic and Bronze Age
Aegean, edited by Christopher Mee and Josette Renard, 225–46. Oxford: Oxbow.
■ K AT H E R Y N C . T W I S S
FOOD AND INEQUALITY
Archaeologists have examined food as an avenue to understand the contours of social
inequality in complex societies. Although it would be reasonable to assume a direct relationship between the degree of social complexity and the degree of inequality manifested
in patterns of food consumption, this is not the case. Likewise, the way patterns of food
consumption play themselves out in diverse social settings is intricate and not always tied
to overall patterns of economic inequality.Thus the analysis of food consumption patterns
has added an important dimension to our understanding of the way quotidian activities
serve to delineate status while pointing to the multidimensional nature of inequality.
The study of food and social inequality consolidated in archaeology in the 1990s,
along with developments in household archaeology. Previously, regional studies of agrarian landscapes or general resource distribution dominated the approach to food and social
complexity. These studies were more centered on production than on consumption. In
the context of household archaeology, scholars found a window into consumption as they
were able to associate food remains with specific households and to assess intrahousehold
variability in food consumption patterns. The main lines of evidence that archaeologists
have used to this end include archaeobotanical remains (both macroremains and microremains such as pollen, phytoliths, and starches) and zooarchaeological remains. Archaeologists also use bioarchaeological analyses of bone chemistry to assess the contribution
of diverse kinds of foods to the diets of individuals. In addition, ceramic forms provide
insights into food preparation, serving, and contexts of consumption.
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One of the key contexts in which archaeologists have examined the relationship
between food and inequality is early complex societies. A central question in this regard
concerns the economic foundation of early social differentiation, specifically the extent
to which subsistence practices were intensified through food production or other food
provisioning strategies in order to sustain emerging social hierarchies.The examination of
this question in diverse parts of the world suggests that the emergence of early complex
societies was associated with a range of economies, some of which included novel food
provisioning strategies such as agriculture, and some of which did not.
Likewise, the association between practices of food consumption and emerging social
hierarchies is not always discernible. Research in coastal Ecuador, for example, shows
that the Valdivia Culture, one of the earliest cases of emerging complexity in the Americas, was linked to incipient agriculture, but that agriculture did not displace or come to
dominate diversified economies that included maritime and inland fishing, and hunting
and gathering, until millennia after its inception. Further, the early patterns of social differentiation throughout the Valdivia occupation are more of a ritualistic nature; they do
not involve differential consumption of certain food items across social sectors. A similar
case has been documented for the Southern Levant, where no direct association has been
found between the social and political dynamics of early complexity and the emergence
of food production. In general, the very protracted nature of agricultural adoption, which
has been characterized as a form of low-level food production in a variety of world settings, followed a distinctly paced temporal rhythm that does not match the more dynamic
sequences of sociopolitical change that accompanied the emergence of complexity and
inequality in various parts of the world. As such, the delineation of social hierarchies
through food practices in this context has not been demonstrated.
Another key context in which archaeologists have examined the relationship between
food and inequality is that of established complex societies. Questions regarding the extent to which expanding states affected the structure of food production and consumption (and by extension, the structures of gender and labor) are among the most commonly
investigated. The Mantaro Valley of Peru under Inca occupation is a case in point. Here,
consumption of maize in the form of maize chicha beer signaled state incorporation and
was most common among the local elites that bridged provincial populations with the
state. Interestingly, it was men in particular who may have served in that broker role,
as male skeletons display greater maize consumption, while ethnohistory suggests that
women’s labor was recruited for massive state production of maize beer. In the Aztec
empire, women’s labor was also affected by state expansion, as the labor obligations that
commoner men owed the state implied greater time investment on the part of women to
produce a portable type of food, the tortilla.When examining food and inequality in these
contexts, therefore, archaeologists not only look at indicators of differential consumption
across social sectors or even across sexes, but also at the way state demands around food
production and processing generate inequalities.
In general, one of the most revealing conclusions derived from the examination of
food and social structure in ancient societies is that the degree of inequality expressed
in food practices does not increase stepwise along with the scale or complexity of societies observed. Likewise, although elites often had access to a wider range of food types,
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or better access to some food types, it is rare to find an archaeological case suggesting
radical differences in access to food items—most differences are of degree, even in very
hierarchical societies. The radical way social inequality is marked by food practices in the
present was rare in the ancient past, as self-sufficiency in production gave most people
access to basic and good-quality staples.
See also Archaeology of Household Food Production; Food and Identity; Food and
Politics; Food and Power; Food and Status; Food Production and the Formation
of Complex Societies; Household Archaeology
Further Reading
Bray,Tamara L., ed. 2003. The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires. New
York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Cuéllar, Andrea M. 2013. The Archaeology of Food and Social Inequality in the Andes. Journal of Archaeological Research 21(2):123–74.
Hayden, Brian. 2003. Were Luxury Foods the First Domesticates? Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives
from Southeast Asia. World Archaeology 34(3):458–69.
Smith, Monica L. 2006. The Archaeology of Food Preference. American Anthropologist 108(3):480–93.
Twiss, Katheryn C., ed. 2007. The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
Van der Veen, Marijke. 2003. When Is Food a Luxury? World Archaeology 34(3):405–27.
■ ANDREA M. CUÉLLAR
FOOD AND POLITICS
Archaeologists working in a broad variety of contexts and time periods have analyzed
food in relation to politics, broadly defined as the management of conflict and relationships between people. Keeping in mind biological, ecological, and other needs and constraints for humans, archaeologists have shown that food production, cooking and food
preparation, and patterns of consumption are not just adaptations to the environment
defined by biological parameters. They are also involved in interpersonal politics and in
strategies of statecraft and historical processes of social inequality.
Hunters and gatherers were once (and in some circles still are) seen as people whose
mode of production was adaptive to the environment but not particularly political. Archaeologists have argued, however, that in addition to ecological and biological strategies
and concerns, foragers have long-term political histories of engagement with other societies, including agricultural ones. They often produced food, herded animals, worked for
wages, and in other ways interacted with people who lived primarily from agriculture.
Their decisions, productive strategies, and actions have been historically shaped by interaction with other societies, bringing history and politics to an important place among the
categories we need to examine when studying foragers in the past.
Agriculture, once also seen as a particular adaptation to the environment, has been
considered in relation to politics. Among the many theories for the beginning of agriculture, some argue that it began as a result of competition between people: those who
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wanted a greater number of followers promoted agricultural production as a way to
support greater populations. At the same time, they benefited from the production of
surplus for feasts and ceremonies, and solidified their position as managers of surplus
that could be presented as for the common good but also used to bolster the social
standing of the leaders. Processes of agricultural intensification have been related to the
way that states extract staples from rural communities to provision cities and elites, but
also to rural farmers who produced independently from state interests to protect their
own political and economic interests.
Archaeologists have associated cooking and food preparation with political life in the
past in different contexts and scales of analysis, from households to state-run institutions.
Cooking spaces and tools have sometimes been found in areas of the house where cooks
could observe other activities taking place in and outside of the house and sometimes
even see and communicate with cooks in other houses. Christine Hastorf has argued
that being able to observe household activities placed cooks in Neolithic Çatalhöyük in
a position of power in the household, where they could control other activities. She has
also shown that cooking areas in households in Çatalhöyük were decorated in a manner
that reflects their ritual importance. Thus cooks could exert power in the household and
in ritual. Observations of the location of cooking areas in archaeological contexts and the
decoration of other artifacts and architecture can sometimes aid inference regarding the
role of cooks in household politics.
Cooking also has been important at the level of state and imperial politics. Sometimes
cooks were conscripted to process food, cook, and brew beverages for state-sponsored
events, including feasts and rituals. Tamara Bray studied the distribution of Inca pottery to argue that in some contexts the Inca state controlled female labor in cooking,
brewing, and serving. Women’s labor was central to imperial feasts and ceremonies that
helped subordinate subject communities, elaborate social inequality, and construct the
Inca Empire. Bray showed that empire building was not just a military (male) enterprise
but also depended on the work of female cooks under the direct control of state officials.
Elizabeth Brumfiel studied the cooking pots used by Aztec women and argued that as
Aztec tribute demands increased and men worked far from the house in public works and
military campaigns, women in some regions of the empire changed the foods that they
cooked. They increased production of dry, portable foods that they could take to markets
and sell or that they could send with their husbands when they worked away from the
house. This study emphasized that political changes affected housework and the domestic
economy through time and across the geography of the Aztec Empire.
In recent years archaeologists have dedicated much attention to feasting as a political
strategy. Feasts can help those who seek status to establish broad social networks, manage labor, and obtain a variety of material and immaterial rewards in their community
and beyond. Some archaeologists have associated feasting with the emergence of social
inequality. As aggrandizers controlled labor and resources for feasts and other communal
events, and as they showed their hospitality to others, they earned prestige and status that
could be ephemeral, but also could eventually turn into more durable status and social
inequality. Archaeologists have also associated feasting with the negotiation of power in
states and empires, as rulers or other interested parties hosted celebrations with their
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subjects, offered food and gifts, gained prestige by hosting successful celebrations, and
promoted ideologies of interest to them, ideologies that sometimes supported social
inequality and the status quo. Material indicators of feasts may include special, rare, or
otherwise expensive food and fancy, decorated pottery, among other things.
Access to food, whether in communities or within households, also has been related
to politics and to how food is distributed or accumulated strategically. Osteological
research, including research on pathologies, growth, and chemical composition, can
furnish clues about the availability of food within a community, among households, and
even between different genders and age groups. The distribution of storage facilities in
a site, the proximity to food production areas, and other indicators of access to food
production have enabled archaeologists to study how political processes can result in
a division of risk in relation to food security. For example, elites may provision themselves to be able to withstand periods of food shortage or famine. The opposite pattern
has been observed archaeologically in Joya de Cerén, El Salvador, where commoners
engaged in food production and maintained a degree of independence from elites,
which may have enabled them to negotiate with elites or even oppose elites that were
abusive. Archaeological examples of differential access to food within communities and
households abound, showing the potential for archaeology to impact current debates
on food security in the contemporary world.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Archaeology of Household Food Production;
Bioarchaeological Analysis; Çatalhöyük; Feasting; Food and Conflict; Food and
Identity; Food and Inequality; Food and Power; Food and Status; Food Storage;
Foraging; Joya de Cerén; Spatial Analysis and Visualization Techniques
Further Reading
Bray, Tamara L., ed. 2003. The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires.
New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Graff, Sarah R., and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, eds. 2012. The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological
Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Morrison, Kathleen D., and Laura L. Junker, eds. 2002. Forager-Traders in South and Southeast Asia: LongTerm Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
■ ENRIQUE RODRÍGUEZ-ALEGRÍA
FOOD AND POWER
Post-processual studies of food have focused on the variety of ways food consumption,
like other aspects of material culture, structures relations of power through the creation,
maintenance, and manipulation of identity and meaning. This work recognizes that people use perceived differences in food consumption patterns to define social boundaries,
such as status, gender, and ethnicity; thus, studies of food distribution and consumption
have the potential to provide significant insight into power relations and politics.
Jack Goody was among the first to consider how control of the production, distribution, and consumption of food may be used to create and maintain social hierarchy.
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Although criticized for overgeneralizing, Goody’s work demonstrated that the cuisine of a
given society may reflect its social organization. Pierre Bourdieu significantly contributed
to the theoretical discourse on food and power by examining how food consumption is
involved in the construction of identity and meaning. Bourdieu’s novel approach to the
study of modern French consumption patterns suggested that food choices are influenced,
if not largely dictated, by internalized, class-specific social conditioning (i.e., habitus). Although individuals may have a range of food choices, in practice they are subconsciously
constrained to a certain extent by doxa, a set of core beliefs and values that are taken to be
inherently true and favor the dominant class. Access to and appreciation for certain foods
often mark the tastes of the elite as distinct from other social groups, providing them with
cultural capital; this most basic form of capital ascribes value to certain culturally authorized
tastes, skills, or knowledge and helps to legitimize or naturalize differences in social status.
The dominant power position of the upper class or other institutions (religious, political,
or social) provides the authority to designate what legitimate capital is (in this case, which
foods are socially valued), ultimately perpetuating relations of domination and inequality.
Emulation of upper-class tastes by the lower class necessitates the introduction of novel
consumptive practices by the elite to maintain their distinct status.
Bourdieu’s work has been criticized for failing to adequately account for the role of
individuals in social change, focusing heavily on how inequality is maintained rather than
how it might be resisted. His work has also been criticized for reducing human motivation
to Western notions of self-interest linked to economic or political gain, as well as an emphasis on inequality in terms of class distinctions while largely overlooking other forms of
inequality stemming from gender or ethnic differences. Despite these shortcomings, Bourdieu’s insight remains a useful starting point for archaeologists exploring how access to food
and food choices articulates with the construction and maintenance of political authority.
Other anthropologists have highlighted the ways that changes in food habits may
reflect larger social, political, or ideological changes. Sidney Mintz’s study of the history
of sugar consumption following its introduction to Europe is a revealing example of how
power relations structure patterns of food consumption. Given the cost of procuring sugar
from the early colonies, it was initially a luxury affordable only for the wealthy, and its
consumption came to symbolize a kind of power. As production increased and prices fell,
desire for this symbolically charged food associated with elite identity resulted in emulation, and sugar trickled down to the lower classes.
Archaeological application of these theoretical concepts has come in many forms.
Many have focused on the power of food in political transformations, especially in
regard to feasting. This work draws on the theoretical frameworks provided by Bourdieu and by Marcel Mauss, who was the first to write about the social and political
significance of feasting events. The earlier works of John Clark and Michael Blake as
well as Michael Dietler are influential examples within this area of research. Clark and
Blake studied the emergence of social complexity in lowland Mesoamerica (1550–1150
BC). Their analysis of changes in ceramic assemblages and the intensification of maize
agriculture demonstrated that feasting events may have provided local aggrandizers a
platform to parlay prestige into political power. Dietler examined the distribution of
vessels and used historical texts associated with the consumption of imported Greek
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and Etruscan wine to reveal the varying ways Iron Age Celtic populations in France
used exotic alcohol to create political power.
In addition, researchers have become increasingly interested in household archaeology
and the micropolitics of ancient societies, exploring how social transformation was experienced by different factions of society according to gender, class, and ethnicity. Newer
technology, such as the use of stable isotopic indicators of diet, has greatly contributed
to this area of research, providing increasingly nuanced insight into food consumption at
the level of the individual. Informative examples of such isotopic-based studies of food
and power include the work of Christine Hastorf and colleagues, who studied changes in
food consumption patterns within the Xauxa population of the Mantaro Valley of Peru
following Inca colonization around AD 1430, as well as that of Carrie Anne Berryman,
who examined changes in food consumption patterns within the Bolivian altiplano coinciding with the rise and fall of Tiwanaku political authority (100 BC–AD 1400). Both
studies use additional, complementary lines of evidence, including paleobotanical, faunal,
and ceramic analyses, as well as ethnohistorical sources.
See also Feasting; Food and Inequality; Food and Politics; Household Archaeology;
Stable Isotope Analysis
Further Reading
Berryman, Carrie Anne. 2010. Food, Feasts, and the Construction of Identity and Power in Ancient Tiwanaku:
A Bioarchaeological Perspective. Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology,Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03152010-132352/unrestricted/BERRYMAN_
DISSERTATION_FINAL.pdf.
Clark, John E., and Michael Blake. 1994.The Power of Prestige: Competitive Generosity and the Emergence of Rank Societies in Lowland Mesoamerica. In Factional Competition and Political Development
in the New World, edited by Elizabeth M. Brumfiel and John W. Fox, 17–30. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dietler, Michael. 1996. Feasts and Commensal Politics in the Political Economy: Food, Power, and Status
in Prehistoric Europe. In Food and the Status Quest, edited by Polly Weissner and Wulf Schiefenhövel,
87–125. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Hastorf, Christine A., and Sissel Johannesen. 1993. Pre-Hispanic Political Change and the Role of Maize
in the Central Andes of Peru. American Anthropologist 95(1):115–38.
■ CARRIE ANNE BERRYMAN
FOOD AND RITUAL
Food is powerfully symbolic because it is essential to life, and because we incorporate
it into our bodies. Moreover, food is central to many social interactions, from nurturing
children to hosting guests. These links to life and identity offer a rich source of metaphor
and give food an important role in many rituals. The properties of foods are amenable
to communicating a wide range of messages: sweet or bitter, common or rare, raw or
cooked, and so on.
Ritual has been defined in various ways, focusing on ceremonial performance, religion, or regular repetition. We can think of ritual as a performance that is meant to effect
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change in the world. For archaeology, Catherine Bell’s concept of ritualization is helpful:
rather than trying to delineate ritual neatly, we examine the extent to which actions are
framed as rituals through devices such as formality, traditionalization, and emphasis. Ritual
framing has material correlates (e.g., marking off ritual space, costumes and paraphernalia,
special treatment of ceremonial remains) that archaeologists can recognize, even without
fully understanding the content and meaning of the ritual.
The acquisition of food may be ritualized, as with agricultural magic and harvest ceremonies. Hunting is particularly rife with ritual, given the uncertainty of success and its
basis in taking an animate life to sustain one’s own. Hunters may use magic, dreams, and
prescribed behavior (such as refraining from sex before a hunt) to increase their success.
There is also a widespread belief that the prey must be treated respectfully after the kill,
through prayers and offerings (e.g., tobacco or corn pollen), preventing inappropriate
contact with the carcass (e.g., by dogs or menstruating women), and placing selected
body parts in trees, in bodies of water, or on special shrines. Such hunting shrines have
been identified in the Puebloan American Southwest and for recent Maya. Bison skulls
placed at drive sites in the American West, sometimes marked with painted signs, are also
remains of this kind of ritual. These rituals seek to communicate with the animal’s spirit
or with a spirit master of animals.
The sharing of food constructs and maintains human relations and is often ritualized
to varying degrees. Mary Douglas famously analyzed the prescribed structure of everyday
English meals to show that such structures transform eating into meals. There are always
rules about food sharing and always the possibility of cementing relations through appropriately generous sharing, or sundering them through insultingly inappropriate sharing
practices. Hospitality requires the proper offering of food or drink, and households must
be sure they are ready to offer suitable hospitality. For instance, in elite Maya households, it
was important to acquire cacao to be elaborately and performatively prepared by women
to offer to guests and the resident nobility.
Food is also a vehicle for communication with the gods. Food offerings and sacrifice
open the lines of communication and may influence divine action. Communication may
return from the other world via divination associated with these offerings, as in extispicy,
the reading of the entrails of sacrificial victims. Sacrifice and offerings can occur on many
scales and in many contexts, from the daily household offering of a small amount of food
at the hearth or a splash of a beverage before drinking, to public performances tied to
life-cycle events or religious observances.
Sacrifices often lead to feasts, although not all feasts follow from sacrifices. Feasting
can be variously defined according to scale, content (different foods from daily meals),
or ritualization, but they are marked as different from everyday meals, and most feasts
contain all three distinctive elements. Other performances such as ceremonies, music, and
dance very often accompany the food. Since feasts generate large amounts of food waste
and often special cooking and serving vessels, along with other ritual paraphernalia, they
tend to be visible archaeologically. Feasting food will of course vary in different times
and places, but most often feasts are marked with large amounts of meat and, frequently,
large amounts of alcoholic beverages. Substantial archaeological attention to feasting in
recent years has yielded many examples from diverse societies. For example, at Missis-
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sippian Cahokia near St. Louis, a large burnt deposit contains short-term refuse from a
feast, with a much narrower focus on deer and a few large birds than represented in most
Mississippian food-related deposits; the plant remains include large amounts of fruit and
ritually important tobacco.
The medicinal use of food has largely been overlooked in archaeology but is widely
attested ethnographically. Psychotropic or otherwise sacred substances such as tobacco
smoke figure largely in healing ceremonies and are often grown specifically for ritual use.
This also may be true of some grains raised only or chiefly for making beer or liquor,
for instance. Beyond these more general drugs used to sacralize healing or to achieve the
altered state that permits the healer to channel therapeutic power, many plants and animal
parts have been used to treat illness.
See also Ethnographic Sources; Feasting; Food as Sensory Experience; Food Sharing;
Foodways and Religious Practices; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Maize; Offerings and Grave Goods; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions, Taboos; Psychoactive
Plants; Tobacco
Further Reading
Bell, Catherine M. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brown, Linda A., and Kitty F. Emery. 2008. Negotiations with the Animate Forest: Hunting Shrines in
the Guatemalan Highlands. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 15(4):300–337.
Douglas, Mary. 1971. Deciphering a Meal. In Myth, Symbol and Culture, edited by Clifford Geertz,
61–82. New York: W. W. Norton.
Hamilakis,Yannis. 1999. Food Technologies/Technologies of the Body:The Social Context of Wine and
Oil Production and Consumption in Bronze Age Crete. World Archaeology 31(1):38–54.
Hastorf, Christine A. 2010. Sea Changes in Stable Communities: What Do Small Changes in Practices at
Çatalhöyük and Chiripa Imply about Community Making? In Becoming Villagers: Comparing Early Village Societies, edited by Matthew S. Bandy and Jake R. Fox, 140–61.Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1997. The Culinary Triangle. In Food and Culture: A Reader, edited by Carole
Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, 28–35. New York: Routledge.
Sutton, David E. 2010. Food and the Senses. Annual Review of Anthropology 39:209–23.
■ NERISSA RUSSELL
F O O D A N D S TAT U S
From the earliest days of the discipline, anthropologists were quick to make a connection
between the food one eats and one’s social status. More recently, scholars have come to
understand that human food systems are both socially structured and socially structuring.
Put differently, while we may be what we eat, what we eat also helps to produce who we
are, both as individuals and as members of a given society.
While we are all familiar with the phenomenon of creating, signaling, or reflecting
one’s ethnic or religious identity or heritage through food, intrasocietal status difference
is also created and communicated by food. For example, gender identity can often be
created or buttressed by means of strictures regarding what foods are appropriate for
consumption by men versus women.
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In addition to diet’s role in the constitution of gender identity, anthropologists frequently have observed and commented on the ways dietary differences can mirror, reinforce, or even establish vertical status inequalities. In some instances, elite individuals will
go so far as to effectively monopolize certain foodstuffs, especially if that food is a symbol
of their position in society. This monopolization gives rise to an internally differentiated
cuisine, a food system in which not all people have equal access to all foodstuffs, as determined by their social status. It is this use of food as ammunition in internal conflicts over
cultural or economic resources that Arjun Appadurai (1981) aptly labeled gastro-politics.
In examining this phenomenon, it is first necessary to acknowledge that no food
system is ever truly undifferentiated. In no society will everyone always eat the exact
same thing; different individuals will always have access to different food resources.
Food taboos are one mechanism commonly used in egalitarian societies to provide
differential access to specific types of food. Even taking into account such instances, it
remains true that in egalitarian societies, far more so than in stratified ones, there exists
a pervasive ethic requiring the giving and sharing of food. Commonly cited instances
of dietary differentiation in egalitarian societies do not suggest that different individuals
necessarily have access to different foods, but instead that certain individuals may have
access to more of the same foods than others. Access to different quantities of the same
foods, while meaningful, nevertheless communicates a different message than is found
in cases in which a true haute cuisine exists.
It is also the case that one can identify highly stratified societies that have never
developed a differentiated food system. That not all societies do stratify their food is
likely a reflection of the fact that there are many possible paths by which a society may
become stratified, and that it is not necessary for cuisine to follow the broader patterns
of social stratification. Nevertheless, it is quite often the case that the advent of cuisine
differentiation is coeval with the development of precocious stratified societies. Given
the intertwined complexities of both diet and social stratification, however, it is often a
difficult task, especially in archaeology, to determine which foods may have been the most
desirable to a society and thus may have been used solely by higher-status individuals.
Recently Curet and Pestle proposed a set of eight quantitative and qualitative criteria
(scarcity, abundance, diversity, cost [labor investment], periodicity, place of origin, taste,
and symbolic potency) by which archaeologists might determine both the economic and
social value of different foods from archaeological contexts and thereby identify the preferred foods of high-status individuals. The challenge of such studies is to avoid the tautological trap in which foods from elite contexts are deemed as being de facto elite foods,
and archaeologists must be cognizant of recent theoretical discussions on, for instance,
the nature of luxury and luxury goods. In the end, the rigorous application of a combination of economic, gustatory, and symbolic criteria arguably provides the best means for
identifying those foods associated with high-status individuals. The application of these
criteria to faunal remains from Tibes, a Ceramic Age Puerto Rican site associated with the
incipient moments of social hierarchy in the region, confirmed the a priori assumption
that certain taxa (e.g., guinea pigs, sea turtles, and sharks) were high-status foods, but also
raised the intriguing possibility that other less obvious taxa may have been a preferred
food of the site’s elites. The West Indian Turretsnail (Turritella variegata), a relatively small
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and unremarkable marine gastropod, was found to be extraordinary both in terms of its
abundance in certain excavation units and the labor investment required for extraction
of its relatively small package of edible meat.
The social potency of food in human societies demands the attention of archaeologists interested in studying hierarchy in ancient societies. Profitable research in this
arena will result, however, only when (1) exhaustive qualitative and quantitative data
on the different types of foods recovered are collected and published; (2) the various
taxa recovered from these excavations are considered in reference to their appropriate
ecological context; and (3) archaeologists fully consider in all stages of their research
that foods have multiple intangible meanings that are critical factors in many social and
political relations within any given society.
See also Food and Gender; Food and Identity; Food and Inequality; Food and Politics; Food and Power; Food Sharing; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions,Taboos
Further Reading
Appadurai, Arjun. 1981. Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia. American Ethnologist 8(3):494–511.
Curet, L. Antonio, and William J. Pestle. 2010. Identifying High Status Food in the Archaeological Record. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29(4):413–31.
Danforth, Marie Elaine. 1999. Nutrition and Politics in Prehistory. Annual Review of Anthropology
28(1):1–25.
deFrance, Susan D. 2009. Zooarchaeology in Complex Societies: Political Economy, Status, and Ideology. Journal of Archaeological Research 17(2):105–68.
Dietler, Michael. 1996. Feasts and Commensal Politics in the Political Economy: Food, Power and Status
in Prehistoric Europe. In Food and the Status Quest: An Interdisciplinary Perspective, edited by Polly
Wiessner and Wulf Schiefenhövel, 87–125. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books.
Jackson, H. Edwin, and Susan L. Scott. 2003. Patterns of Elite Faunal Utilization at Moundville, Alabama.
American Antiquity 68(3):552–72.
Thomas, R. M. 2007. Food and the Maintenance of Social Boundaries in Medieval England. In The
Archaeology of Food and Identity, edited by Katheryn C. Twiss, 130–51. Center for Archaeological
Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
■ W I L L I A M J. P E ST L E A N D L . A N TO N I O C U R E T
F O O D A P P R O P R I AT I O N A N D C U L I N A R Y I M P E R I A L I S M
Many of the foods that are considered iconic of certain modern nation-states or regions, such as spaghetti marinara for Italy, rice and beans for the Caribbean, or the
classic American hamburger and fries, are recent innovations made possible by colonial
interactions within the last 500 years. The exchange of flora and fauna, as well as ideas
about obtaining, preparing, serving, and consuming food among people from different
cultures, is likely an ongoing part of the human experience throughout the Holocene,
if not earlier. Food appropriation is the process by which people from one culture
adopt ingredients, cooking techniques, or material culture related to food from another
culture. Culinary imperialism is a form of food appropriation that involves an unequal
power dynamic between the cultures involved. This can include transporting domes-
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ticated plants and animals from a homeland to a colony, enforcing changes in dietary
habits, bringing exotic ingredients back to a colonial metropole, or encouraging the
creation of new cuisines at home or abroad.
Culture contact is part of the long-term history of humanity, perhaps stretching
back over 40,000 years in some places. Archaeologists have yet to examine in much
depth the role that food may have played in ancient cross-cultural encounters, however.
Even where domesticated animals and plants came to dominate subsistence in certain
parts of the world, archaeologists have been reluctant to attribute the spread of these
resources definitively to cross-cultural interaction. This is because of old models in
archaeology that relied on the theory of diffusion, the spread of certain traits from a
cultural “homeland” to other cultures. The underlying assumptions of diffusionism are
extremely problematic in application. That said, one interesting potential line of future
research would be to apply more sophisticated theoretical and methodological tools to
understand the role that processes such as food appropriation might have played in the
spread of domestication around certain regions.
Food appropriation could be an integral part of colonial encounters, especially where
interethnic households (households composed of men and women from different cultures, along with their “mixed” children) were formed. Often, though not always, these
households formed of local women and nonlocal men. Archaeological evidence for food
production and consumption in such households is generally marked by local preparation techniques and ingredients but nonlocal forms of consumption, especially in public
arenas, such as feasts. Some of the earliest evidence of the ways that food shaped colonial
encounters comes from the site of Hacenebi in Anatolia, Turkey, which was colonized by
Uruk traders from southern Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium BC. Relationships between the Uruk traders and local Anatolians were fairly egalitarian and peaceful.
Archaeological evidence suggests this kind of colonialism was bolstered by the formation
of interethnic households. The Uruk enclave at Hacenebi was marked by Anatolian styles
of cooking pots but Uruk styles of storage and serving vessels. Faunal remains reflected
a preference for certain species (notably sheep and goats) and exhibited butchery marks
with greater similarity to Uruk assemblages than local ones. This is one example of
the ways that colonial encounters brought different cuisines into contact, as Uruk men
doubtless sometimes dined in local households, and local people would have likewise
taken meals in the interethnic households of the Uruk enclave. Over time, these types of
interactions can lead to the creation of new, creolized cuisines that mix ingredients and
techniques from different culinary traditions in innovative ways.
Of course, colonial interactions were not always so benign, and in many cases the
kinds of innovation that occurred in the cuisines of both colonizers and colonized were
inflected by unequal power relationships. At times, transformations of local cuisine may
have had nothing to do with food at all. For example, the eventual adoption of beef in
the diet of O’odham people in the American Southwest under Spanish colonialism was
more the result of the growing hide and tallow industries with which they became involved rather than a culinary preference. It appears that the O’odham avoided introduced
livestock for some time until pressures from Spanish missionaries, demographic changes,
and economic necessity forced them to change their habits. In contrast, native inmates
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of the 19th-century Hawaiian leprosarium at Kalaupapa, Moloka‘i, may have been early
“adopters” of beef in the diet. Domestic assemblages from this institution also show
continuities in Hawaiian culinary preference, however. Native Hawaiians continued to
gather traditional marine resources such as fish and shellfish, and chose ceramic bowls
that were better suited to their preferred stews and puddings such as poi, a starchy staple
usually made from taro. Continuity likewise marks early colonial ceramic assemblages in
the Orinoco region of South America, though drastic changes in material culture later on
are interpreted as part of long-term patterns of visiting and hospitality within local communities, as when local chicha (homemade maize beer) is replaced with imported liquor.
Globalization is increasingly a force driving culinary change in the 21st century.
Contemporary archaeology could show McDonald’s wrappers in Cuzco and quinoa (an
Andean grain) on the tables of fancy restaurants in New York. Yet even today, local culinary traditions shape the ways that these global commodities are appropriated, resisted,
transformed, and consumed.
See also CHICHA; Columbian Exchange; Creole Cuisines/Foodways; Creolization; Diaspora Foodways; Feasting; Food and Capitalism; Food and Colonialism; Food and
Inequality; Food and Power; Food Technology and Ideas about Food, Spread of;
Globalization; Immigrant Foodways; Material Culture Analysis; Old World Globalization and Food Exchanges; Pacific Oceanic Exchange; Taro; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Flexner, James L. 2011. Foreign Animals, Hawaiian Practices: Zooarchaeology in the Leprosarium at
Kalawao, Moloka‘i, Hawaii. Journal of Pacific Archaeology 2(1):82–91.
Pavao-Zuckerman, Barnet, and Vincent M. LaMotta. 2007. Missionization and Economic Change in
the Pimería Alta: The Zooarchaeology of San Agustín de Tucson. International Journal of Historical
Archaeology 11(3):241–68.
Stein, Gil J. 2012. Food Preparation, Social Context, and Ethnicity in a Prehistoric Mesopotamian
Colony. In The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation, edited
by Sarah R. Graff and Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, 47–63. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Tarble, Kay. 2008. Coffee, Tea, or Chicha? Commensality and Culinary Practice in the Middle Orinoco
following Colonial Contact. In Desencuentros Culturales: Una Mirada desde la Cultura Material de las
Américas, edited by Apen Ruiz Martinez, 53–71. Barcelona: Universidad Pompeu Fabra.
■ JAMES L. FLEXNER
FOOD AS A COMMODITY
Archaeologists have long studied food’s rich cultural, social, and ecological meanings, and
the central importance of food has made it one of the most intensively studied commodities. A commodity is a thing that is given an exchange value defined by a social and
marketing system. Commodities derive their values from an economic system that ideally
reflects rational supply and demand, but infinite idiosyncratic factors shape a commodity’s relative worth. Trade networks reaching through empires were bound by relatively
consistent market forces and in some cases significant centralized control, but some commodification patterns are distinct to foods. For instance, before reliable food preservation
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some fresh foods could not be shipped in significant quantities, if at all, and many fresh
foods were consumed in relatively local markets. In a study of cattle consumption in
medieval Ireland, Finbar McCormick argues that the expense of salting 400 pounds of
meat for transport and trade was prohibitive, so most meat was eaten fresh in communal
feasts. This is a break from the numerous mass-produced goods that had been shipped
over broad spaces since antiquity; in contrast, perishable food has often been produced
and consumed in relatively localized commodity economies.
Commodity values for food typically reflect a confluence of ecological conditions and
exchange networks bound in somewhat unpredictable patterns in demand: for example,
modest oystering had been done in the Chesapeake Bay since prehistory, but industrialization supported a massive oyster trade beginning around the Civil War. This shift made
oysters very inexpensive in regional cities and readily available in some high-traffic ports
like New York City.
Many modestly consumed local foods likewise became mass-consumed commodities
from the 19th century onward. For instance, a study of Iceland in the late 19th and early
20th centuries by Gavin Lucas and Elín Hreiðarsdóttir underscores that the Icelandic
economy was dependent on imported goods, and fish exports provided Icelandic traders
an economic foothold in that global consumer marketplace. In a similar fashion, the modest local demand for olive oil in medieval Crete mushroomed during the postmedieval
period when a demand emerged in places like France.
Straightforward analyses of supply and demand are not especially effective tools for
interpreting the ways foods become commodified with particular values, because foods
can be quite idiosyncratic targets for desire. Demand is especially difficult to predict,
which makes commodity values for food dynamic. On the one hand, there is permanent
demand for food in general, so it always has the potential to assume an exchangeable
commodity value; on the other hand, a supply of a particular consumable is not always
sufficient to induce people to eat it.
Staple fresh foods were often exchanged in relatively local markets, but in complex
societies consumers commonly have not eaten food they produced. In her study of
18th- and 19th-century food containers, Olive Jones argues that almost no household
in Britain or America could be characterized as having “self-sufficient” foodways, with
a vast array of foods purchased as commodities. This transition to increasingly nonlocal
foods separating consumers from producers was a gradual transformation that changed
food consumption quite radically by the end of the 19th century. Karl Marx foresaw this
trend in his 1859 Critique of Political Economy when he identified wheat as a typical “fetishized” commodity; that is, a consumer could not discern who had produced the wheat
they were consuming. Instead, a consumer encountered a material commodity and gave
it meaning disconnected from its roots in labor: the vast quantity of mass-produced beef
on late-19th-century archaeological sites came to consumers without any clear indication of its origins, and when it reached markets it was sold by cut and price. Brand foods
projected especially loaded symbolism onto prosaic foods: for instance, Gold Medal flour
was first sold in 1880 by touting awards won in the International Miller’s Exhibition and
evading its producer’s poor labor safety record. The desire for food is so idiosyncratic that
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it is readily fetishized, but commodity values that disconnected producers and consumers
shaped, without utterly determining, the experience of consuming food.
See also Food and Capitalism; Food Preservation; Industrialization of Food and
Food Production; Markets/Exchange; Stores/Markets; Trade Routes
Further Reading
Botwick, Bradford, and Debra A. McClane. 2005. Landscapes of Resistance: A View of the Nineteenth-Century Chesapeake Bay Oyster Fishery. Historical Archaeology 39(3):94–112.
Hamilakis,Yannis. 1999. Food Technologies/Technologies of the Body:The Social Context of Wine and
Oil Production and Consumption in Bronze Age Crete. World Archaeology 31(1):38–54.
Jones, Olive R. 1993. Commercial Foods, 1740–1820. Historical Archaeology 27(2):25–41.
Miracle, Preston, and Nicky Milner, eds. 2002. Consuming Passions and Patterns of Consumption. McDonald Institute Monographs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
■ PA U L R . M U L L I N S
FOOD AS SENSORY EXPERIENCE
The archaeology of food has been shaped primarily by the paradigm of “subsistence,”
which relies on the discourse of optimization and of formalist economics, that is, the
assumption that past peoples managed resources for optimal output. Some of the consequences of this managerial discourse have been to prioritize procurement and production,
but also to ignore the fundamental fact that eating and drinking are acts of incorporation: they are primarily about the circulation of substances through bodies. In this flow
of substances that, more often than not, takes place in the social arena, the bodily senses
are of fundamental importance. An archaeology of sensoriality goes beyond the Western
canon of the five senses, however, and against the singularization and enumeration of
sensorial modalities. The synaesthetic field of sensoriality involves bodies, things, and
food and drink substances. In addition to the senses of taste and smell, eating involves
several recognized and unrecognized senses in a commingled manner: from tactility and
tactile visuality, to the sense of emplacement that eating and drinking produces, to the
sense of intoxication and altered states of consciousness that certain substances generate,
and, of course, to the metasense of memory. Indeed, food and memory are closely linked.
It is often through the sensorial experience of eating and drinking, and the conviviality
and affectivity that accompanies them, that prospective remembering is generated. This
affective and mnemonic horizon incorporates, in addition to food substances and human
bodies, artifacts, things, places, and performances, creating a sensorial assemblage.
Through this framework of sensoriality, several novel interpretative possibilities are
opened. For example, cooking and food preparation practices will be shown to be not
simply functional measures to make food digestible, nor purely symbolic attempts to
render foods socially acceptable, but efforts to accentuate and enhance the sensorial
effects of eating and drinking, and thus its mnemonic and affective qualities. Or, at
the methodological level, the study of food remnants will be done on the basis of the
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sensorial assemblage to which they belong, bringing together artifactual and bioarchaeological studies, without, however, fetishizing the object, the thing, or the isolated
substance, but foregrounding instead the in-between space of flows, and affective and
mnemonic encounters and interactions.
Archaeologists have attempted to apply some of these ideas to ritual deposits associated with feasting at the site of Nopigeia-Drapanias in West Crete, specifically the deliberately accumulated deposits that were the outcome of eating and drinking episodes.
It is well known that public, ritualized commensal events often produce an intentionally
created mnemonic record on the ground in the shape of pits, ditches, or other features
that contain and preserve the remnants of such episodes. Such features commemorate
these occasions and at the same time produce and materialize sensorial and mnemonic
history. By treating the deposits from Nopigeia-Drapanias as a unified sensorial assemblage, archaeologists hope to find the connections among materials and objects, and show
how the sensorial affordances and agentic qualities of one reinforce and accentuate the
sensorial possibilities and effects of the other. For example, animal bones, cooking pots,
charcoal, and drinking cups found in the same pit as a result of a singular episode are not
treated as diverse archaeological assemblages on the basis of their material, destined thus
for the respective specialists who will transform them into separate reports, but rather as
elements of the same sensorial assemblage with affective and mnemonic implications.This
approach allows us to examine these intentional deposits as an assemblage that might also
have been intended to present and materialize immaterial sensorial and affective flows.
See also Beer; Black Drink (Cassina); Cacao/Chocolate; Coffee; Distilled Spirits;
Feasting; Fermentation; Food and Ritual; Fungi; Middens and Other Trash Deposits; Psychoactive Plants; Tobacco; Wine
Further Reading
Hamilakis, Yannis. 2013. Archaeology and the Senses: Human Experience, Memory and Affect. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Hamilakis,Yannis, and Kerry Harris. 2011. The Social Zooarchaeology of Feasting: The Evidence from
the “Ritual” Deposit at Nopigeia Drapanias. In Proceedings of the 10th International Cretological Congress, 1:199–218. Khania, Greece: Fillologikos Syllogos Chrysostomos.
Sutton, David E. 2010. Food and the Senses. Annual Review of Anthropology 39:209–23.
■ YA N N I S H A M I L A K I S
FOOD OFFERINGS
See Offerings and Grave Goods
F O O D P R E S E R VAT I O N
Food preservation is a transformative process that, through time and space, has encompassed various different technologies. These technologies are designed to conserve
the calories, nutrients, and fat of foodstuffs readily available in the present, in order to
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preserve them for consumption in the future when food availability is unknown or
expected to be scarce. The shift to a more sedentary lifestyle that incorporated storage
as a major subsistence strategy contributed to the development of a wide range of food
preservation techniques.
To increase their shelf life, raw edibles must be protected from scavengers and food
spoilage.The two major causes of food spoilage are microbial attack, which causes food to
rot, and oxidation, which causes staling and rancidity. The archaeological record contains
evidence of many technologies that prolong the shelf life of food, including but not limited to freezing, drying, salting, smoking, fermenting, brining, pickling, burial, sealing, and
caching. Modern archaeological interpretations are the result of site excavations, artifact
assemblages, residue analysis, oral histories, ethnographic research, and analogy.
Because of the organic nature of food, much of the early evidence of food preservation
has been eroded from the archaeological record. Even so, the archaeology of food preservation is a topic that spans tens of thousands of years. Although most direct evidence of early
food preservation is derived from sedentary groups in the Neolithic, earlier hunter-gatherer
populations would have carried some form of preserved food with them as they moved
across the landscape. For instance, researchers suggest that meat-eating Neanderthal populations must have preserved meat by drying it, to increase portability and avoid spoilage
while bringing the meat back to camp. To remove the moisture that would cause microbial
growth and spoilage, the technology likely included heat drying, sun drying, or smoking.
Early archaeological evidence of meat smoking from the Incipient Jōmon period in
Japan includes a ventilated hearth dating to about 13,000 years ago. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers from around the world would have used similar techniques. For example,
evidence suggests that residents of Çatalhöyük, Turkey (9,000 BP), smoked meat, which
can provide antimicrobial properties to the outer layers of the meat. One of the oldest definitive examples of meat drying is provided by the extraordinary discovery of a well-preserved man, “Ötzi,” found within a melting glacier along the Austrian–Italian border. Ötzi
lived about 5,200 years ago and carried with him dried ibex meat similar to jerky. On the
North American Plains, Native Americans transformed their dried meat into pemmican
by pounding it into a powder, adding copious amounts of fat, and forming a compressed
mass. Pemmican often included berries and herbs, and the fat prevented the oxidation of
fatty oils that cause rancidity. Ethnographic sources from North America describe drying
as a preferred method of fish preservation in many areas of North America and China.
Freezing makes water unavailable to spoilage microbes. Archaeofaunal data from
bone beds at the Agate Basin and the Colby sites in Wyoming suggest that Paleoindians stored bison and mammoth meat in frozen winter caches about 10,000 years ago.
Freezing meat in caves was still practiced in the region 4,000 years ago. Ethnographic
studies indicate that arctic peoples have been freezing meat in scavenger-resistant storage features for hundreds of years.
Salt concentrations in food preparation areas have been recovered from diverse archaeological sites around the world. Salting preserves meat and fish by drawing out moisture
through the process of osmosis, while high salinity levels inhibit or kill pathogenic microbes. An interesting example of salt preservation comes from the Great Salt Lake region
of Utah, where evidence of sun-dried, salted grasshopper storage dates back 5,000 years.
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Apparently the grasshoppers flew into the lake, where high salt concentrations killed and
preserved them. Native Americans in the region harvested the insects and stored them in
local caves. Brining is a related technology that uses a mixture of salt, water, and sometimes
sugar to cure meats or vegetables.
Storage technology expanded during the Neolithic Revolution as agriculture was
introduced and people became more sedentary while living in larger groups. Storage shelters and buried caches protect food from rainfall, insects, and scavengers; as a consequence,
they preserve nutrients and the shelf life of the food. Ceramic containers that held food
were sometimes hermetically sealed with lac (a resinous insect secretion), clay, or soil to
protect contents from rodents, oxidation, and staling.
A potential result of meat or grain storage is fermentation, a natural process by which
yeast or bacteria feed off sugars to produce alcohol or lactic acid. These end products
preserve foods by inhibiting microbial growth through increased acid content. The oldest
evidence of alcohol fermentation comes from China about 8,500 years ago. A drink was
made with hackberries, rice, and honey, making it a wine, beer, and mead. Mesopotamians
and Egyptians brewed beer, and the importance of the social, religious, political, and economic aspects of alcohol production is documented in their early writings. Other fermented
products include yogurt, cheese, and pickled vegetables, such as kimchi and sauerkraut. Early
versions of yogurt and cheese were probably the result of milk storage in animal stomachs or
intestines, and early artifacts from eastern Europe include ceramic sieves with milk residue.
Archaeological evidence indicates that food preservation technologies changed through
time according to the needs of local people and the abundance of raw foods.
See also Agriculture, Procurement, Processing, and Storage; Çatalhöyük; Fermentation; Fire and the Development of Cooking Technology; Food Storage; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Meat; Milk and Dairy Products; Salt; Storage Facilities
Further Reading
Atalay, Sonya, and Christine Hastorf. 2006. Food, Meals, and Daily Activities: The Habitus of Food
Practices at Neolithic Çatalhöyük. American Antiquity 71(2):283–319.
Curtis, Robert I. 2001. Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill.
McGovern, Patrick E., Juzhong Zhang, Jigan Tang, et al. 2004. Fermented Beverages of Pre- and Proto-Historic China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 101(51):17593–98.
Sørenson, Bent. 2009. Energy Use by Eem Neanderthals. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(10):2201–5.
Steinkraus, K. H. 2002. Fermentations in World Food Processing. Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science
and Food Safety 1:23–32.
Testart, Alain. 1982. The Significance of Food Storage among Hunter-Gatherers: Residence Patterns,
Population Densities, and Social Inequalities. Current Anthropology 23(5):523–30.
■ E D WA R D W. H E R R M A N N
FOOD PROCESSING
See Bone Fat Extraction; Butchery; Fermentation; Food Preservation; Milling;
Plant Processing
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OF COMPLEX SOCIETIES
Since V. Gordon Childe first proposed the concepts of the Neolithic and Urban Revolutions, archaeologists have devoted considerable energy to the study of the relatively recent
process of food production and its implications in the formation of complex societies.
Childe’s Marxist perspectives led him to assume a steady progression of archaeological
cultures, and his work had a strong influence on the interpretations of many archaeologists
who studied the implication of surpluses generated from agriculture or agropastoralism in
the evolution of complex socioeconomic developments, including harnessing, organizing,
and controlling a large labor force beyond the household level or local community (e.g.,
Jericho in Israel and Çatalhöyük in Turkey). While Childe considered monumental architecture to be a hallmark of social complexity and food production, recent studies have
shown that monumental works were achieved before the shift to agriculture in both the
Old World (Stonehenge, UK) and the New World (Poverty Point, Louisiana, USA), and
even much later after the intensification of agriculture in Mesoamerica.
New theoretical approaches (such as the identification of heterarchies rather than
hierarchies) and analytical methods (such as the recovery and identification of maize
phytoliths in food residues preserved in cooking vessels, seed recovery in soil flotation,
and tighter chronological controls) are changing our understanding of the transition to
food production and social complexity, such that it is now seen as a process, rather than
a revolution, with many variations and trajectories. As an example, this entry reviews
research in the south-central Andean region.
The central Andes region is among the very few nuclear areas in the world where
the earliest domestication of plants and animals developed independently. Maize (Zea
mays L.) spread to the Andes about 5,000 years ago, where it underwent further selection. Unlike early Old World civilizations where cereal grains are a key factor in
the rise of civilization, the development of monumental architecture and ceremonial
centers in Central Coast Peru during the Late Preceramic Period (5,000–3,600 BP)
was made possible by the exploitation of the abundant and reliable marine resources
generated by the Humboldt Current. Furthermore, prior to the arrival of maize, the
independent domestication of a number of roots (potato, oca, ulluco, jicama), grains
(quinoa, amaranth, cañihua), legumes (lupine, peanut, common bean), spices (a range
of chili peppers), and fruits (chirimoya, pacay, lucuma) was already under way in the
Andes. Many of these species, including maize, did not assume an important dietary role
until much later, when they were incorporated at different rates within a broad range
of anthropogenic agro-ecological habitats.
Recent archaeological and ethnographic investigations carried out at and near the
core regions of the early Tiahuanaco and later Inca empires show that the earliest introduction and cultivation of maize (2,750–2,410 BP) was directly associated with religious ceremonies that involved feasting and probably also drinking of fermented maize
beverages in temples or sacred centers. This evidence derives from the identification of
microscopic opal phytoliths preserved in food residues on cooking vessels associated
with the Yaya-Mama religious tradition and directly dated to ca. 800 BC. It was approximately at this time when stone-faced terraces, raised fields, and circular depressions were
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constructed in the northwestern portion of the Lake Titicaca Basin for the cultivation of
plants, including native grains and tubers (likely also maize).
The transition of maize to a staple food was likely a gradual process during the Tiahuanaco (ca. AD 500–1000) and later periods, but its continued importance as a staple
food and its use in rituals achieved its greatest expression in Inca times (AD 1450–1532).
As documented by the Spanish and, later, a few native chroniclers, maize (rather than
the native grains and tubers) became a highly desired ingredient in rites and ceremonies
associated with the Inca agricultural calendar, royal Inca rituals linked to warfare, public
ceremonies, offerings in human burials, sorcery, the ritual called Mama-Sara (Mother
Maize), and a “preferred” food ration for the Inca armies.
Quechua- and Aymara-speaking people in the Lake Titicaca Basin continue to cultivate a high-altitude variety of maize (along with other native and foreign plants) from
lake level (3,810 meters above sea level) to 4,100 meters above sea level in the stonefaced steep terraces that were introduced 3,000 years ago. These terraces were expanded
by later polities on a monumental scale. Maize production supplements their diet, and
the surplus is sold or bartered, especially during local and regional fairs. The harvested
corncobs are sun dried and consumed by boiling and roasting, or germinated in water to
make corn beer. Flour is ground using the traditional stone rocker mill, and a thick soup
and tamales are made by grinding dry or fresh kernels. In addition, the dry stalks are used
as fodder, the cobs as fuel, and the corn silk to make a tea for lowering fevers and for
people who urinate blood. Maize, known in the Quechua and Aymara languages as sara
and tunqu, respectively, continues to be used in rituals, ceremonies, and dances associated
with native and Catholic activities, such as during Holy Week when people visit fictive
coparents and godparents, bringing gifts of maize and other products. Other traditional
ceremonies include the use of a stuffed skin of the wild cat titi, with each paw holding
an ear of maize aimed at keeping the spirit of tunqu and ensuring its annual production;
placing maize cobs along with other foods in the coffins of human burials; and the use
of cobs in harmful magic rituals.
See also Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Agriculture, Origins of; Archaeobotany; Bioarchaeological Analysis; CHICHA; Ethnographic Sources; Feasting; Food
and Politics; Food and Ritual; Foodways and Religious Practices; Irrigation/
Hydraulic Engineering; Maize; Sedentism and Domestication
Further Reading
Chávez, Sergio J. 2012. Agricultural Terraces as Monumental Architecture in the Titicaca Basin: Their
Origins in the Yaya-Mama Religious Tradition. In Early New World Monumentality, edited by Richard L. Burger and Robert M. Rosenswig, 431–53. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Chávez, Sergio J., and Robert G. Thompson. 2006. Early Maize on the Copacabana Peninsula: Implications for the Archaeology of the Lake Titicaca Basin. In Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches
to the Prehistory, Linguistics, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize. Walnut Creek, CA: Left
Coast Press.
Cohen, Mark N., and George J. Armelagos, eds. 1984. Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture. New
York: Academic Press.
Gibbons, Ann. 2009. Civilization’s Cost: The Decline and Fall of Human Health. Science 324(5927):588.
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Pearsall, Deborah M. 2008. Plant Domestication and the Shift to Agriculture in the Andes. In Handbook
of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell, 105–20. New
York: Springer.
Quilter, Jeffrey. 2014. The Central Ancient Andes. New York: Routledge.
■ S E R G I O J . C H ÁV E Z
FOOD PRODUCTION AND THE ORIGINS OF WRITING
I N M E S O P O TA M I A
Early agriculture and sedentism started in Mesopotamia around the seventh millennium BC. The first settlements of families grew progressively into small villages and
eventually developed as urban centers, where the division and specialization of work
and the development of trade with neighboring countries resulted in complex societies
organized with multilevel hierarchies. Accounting originated from the needs of administration and trading, beginning with simple receipts represented by seal impressions on
clay. These forms were replaced in the middle of the fourth millennium BC by sealed
bullae (hollow clay spheres) with calculi inside to represent quantitatively the commodities sold or on loan (figure 26).
The need for more accurate recording of accounts was one, but not the sole, driving factor for the invention of writing in the second half of the fourth millennium BC.
Indeed, together with the first administrative tablets, we find school texts that list, for
instance, names of plants not attested in the accounts. In a land lacking in stones, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers were an inexhaustible source of clay, which was used to build
houses, city walls, and other implements, including tablets where the signs of writing were
Figure 26. An open bulla (hollow clay sphere) with two calculi at the side (CUSAS 21). In the
middle of the fourth millennium BC, sealed bullae with calculi inside were used to represent
quantitatively commodities sold or on loan. This method of accounting preceded the invention
of writing in the late fourth millennium BC. Courtesy of David I. Owen, Curator of Tablet
Collections, the Jonathan and Jeannette Rosen Ancient Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Cornell
University, Ithaca, New York.
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drawn on the still-wet clay with the impression of a stylus, that is, a pointed rod. The
tablets were then dried by exposure to the sun and kept in proper archives.
The original signs of writing were pictograms; their semantic value corresponded to
what was depicted—the pictogram DUB ( ), “tablet,” for example, represents a clay
tablet with horizontal and vertical dividing lines. In order to limit the total number of
signs, most of them were also used as ideograms, that is, with semantic values, derivatives
of the depicted object. For instance, the pictogram DU ( ), which represents a foot,
is used to indicate motion, such as “to go,” “to bring,” “to carry.” The shape of the signs
evolved over time, losing the original pictographic appearance and becoming more and
more schematic, until the object represented by the sign was no longer recognizable. By
the end of the third millennium BC, most of the signs were only used for their phonetic
values. As an example, the sign SAR (
), which pictographically represents a plot of
cultivated land and had the semantic value of “garden,” was also used thereafter for the
homophone SAR, meaning “to write.”
Clearly, literacy was not generalized, nor was it the prerogative of a single class of
officers. Indeed, most of the functionaries of the central administration were capable of
writing: for instance, the field inspectors who went around to measure lots of land had
to record, together with the relevant measurements, the name of the inspected geographical site as well as the name of the owner of each lot. Later on, illiterate people
relied on a class of professional writers, mainly for the drafting of legal documents such
as sales/purchases of plots of land, houses, and other commodities. These professionals, who were paid for their work, were called DUB SAR (
, “scribes,” literally
“(those who) write tablet(s).”
The first administrative tablets, because of their extreme concision, were probably only
hand notes, but by the end of the fourth millennium BC they became more complex
and included administrative terms to identify the type of recorded transactions. Planning
was an essential duty for town administrators, since cereals were stored in centralized granaries as seed, fodder for oxen, and rations for the workers. Agriculture was the primary
source of food, and the importance of food production is reflected in early written forms.
Cereals, represented by the pictogram ŠE ( ), a spike of grain/barley, were not only
the base for the preparation of food but were also used for payment of salaries and the
purchase of fields, houses, and other commodities. The ideogram for sale/purchase was
a bag containing grain ( ). This practice remained in use during the third millennium
BC, when it was only partially replaced by the adoption of silver. Basic cereals were grain
(or barley) and emmer, which were produced roughly in the same quantity (figure 27).
Emmer and the cereal derivative malt were not identified by dedicated pictograms but
by modified numerical signs representing the weight of these cereals: , the basic unit of
weight for grain/barley; , the modified unit of weight for emmer, representing the spike
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Figure 27. Left: An account of barley and emmer, qualified as “food for the queen” (ACTPC
87). Uruk III (ca. 3200–3000 BC). Excavated from the site of Tell Jokha, possible site of Umma.
Courtesy of Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, UCLA. Center: Tablet with an account of wine (IM
134635). Uruk IV (ca. 3350–3200 BC). Excavated from Uruk, on the modern-day site of Warka.
Original in Iraq Museum, Accession No. W 21002,1. Image courtesy of H. J. Nissen. Right: A tablet
recording 410 dry fishes and 240 baskets of fresh fish (ACTPC 77). Uruk III (ca. 3200–3000
BC). Excavated from Tell Jokha, possible site of Umma. Courtesy of Cuneiform Digital Library
Initiative, UCLA.
with double kernel; , the modified unit of weight for malt, the small diagonal segment
representing the sprout of a germinated grain.
Among the cereal derivatives, bread and beer are the most frequently attested in the
administrative tablets. Bread and beer (dry ingredients only, to be mixed with water) were
also the standard provisions for messengers who traveled between towns. Cereal products
were normally distinguished by their grain/barley content. Different types of bread are
identified by special ideograms:
GAR (
), standard bread, represented by a bowl, which, together with the pictogram
for head, composed the ideogram for food, GU7 (
)
GUG2 ( ), a specially baked bread
GAR U4 (
), “white bread,” with the basic sign GAR in composition with the
pictogram for the rising sun, which is the ideogram for day/light/white
ŠE+GARa ( ), ŠE+GARb (
used as rations for children
), small-sized breads of different weight, normally
Grain/barley, malt, and water were the standard ingredients for the production of
beer; sometimes aromatic spices were added. The pictograms for the generic container
DUG ( ) and for a container with barley inside KAŠa ( ) identified the standard
beer. Other types of beer are represented by pictograms of different vessels with barley
inside, such as ZATU710 (
) or ŠEN ( ), or by ideograms composed by the basic
sign KAŠa plus the pictograms for the rising and setting sun (
), the last being the
ideogram for evening/dark/black: for example, KAŠa U4 (
KAŠa SIG (
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), “lager beer,” and
), “dark beer.”
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Wine is represented by the ideogram DIN (
), which probably identified a special
cup or vessel where wine was usually kept (figure 27).
Agriculture was not the sole source of food. Herding provided the necessary complement in terms of meat, in addition to skins and wool for the manufacture of clothes.
Administrative texts contain accounts of cattle, sheep, and goats as well as pigs. One
tablet from Uruk is an accounting of more than 1,400 sheep. Dairy products are often
recorded alongside counts of domesticated animals, for example, milk (GA,
(KISIM,
), cream (GARA2,
), oil (NI,
), butter
), and dairy fat mixed with barley (KAŠb,
). There is no evidence in the archaic texts that equids, which are recorded in dedicated accounts, were ever bred for the purpose of providing food.
The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, as well as canals, provided fresh fish, which were
dried for transportation to distant sites. The Persian Gulf was the source for sea fish. Several tablets are accounts of fresh fish (pictogram KU6,
) and dried fish (pictograms
SUHUR,
, and UBI,
, which show the fish split for drying) (figure 27). Fish were
transported in baskets, which pictographically identified the stored fish (GA2xKU6,
,
a container for fresh fish; GA2xSUHUR, , a container of dried fish). These containers
were of standard capacity/weight, since fish were also counted by the number of baskets.
Birds are also recorded in the archaic tablets. The pictogram MUŠEN (
) when
alone designates a generic bird, and in combination with other pictograms identifies specific birds, such as MUŠEN ŠE (
), “barley fed bird,” possibly denoting poultry. Eggs
are counted together with birds (pictogram NUNUZ,
), as recorded on two tablets
from Uruk (ATU 1 263, 264) that register a total of about 1,000 eggs each.
Finally, fresh and dried fruits were part of the diet of the early Mesopotamian population. Apples (pictogram HAŠHUR,
), figs (pictogram MA,
), and dates (pictogram
ZATU753,
, showing a bunch of dates) are easily identified in the archaic texts. More
difficult to identify are other types of fruits, usually recorded in the same accounts, such
as ŠU2 (pictogram
), and ZATU644 (pictogram
), probably representing split fruits
cleaned of kernels before undergoing the process of drying.
See also Barley; Beer; Carvings/Carved Representations of Food; Documentary
Analysis; Food as a Commodity; Food Preservation; Food Production and the
Formation of Complex Societies; Wheat; Wine
Further Reading
Englund, Robert K. 1998. Texts from the Late Uruk Period. In Mesopotamien: Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdynastische Zeit, OBO 160/1, edited by Josef Bauer, Robert K. Englund, and Manfred Krebenik,
15–233. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag and Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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215
Englund, Robert K., and Jean-Pierre Grégoire. 1991. The Proto-Cuneiform Texts from Jemdet Nasr. Materialen zu den Frühen Schriftzeugnissen des Vorderen Orients. MSVO 1. Berlin: Gebrüder Mann
Verlag.
Monaco, Salvatore F. 2014. Archaic Bullae and Tablets in the Cornell University Collections (ACTPC).
CUSAS 21. Cornell University Studies in Assyriology and Sumerology. Bethesda, MD: Capital
Decisions.
———. n.d. Archaic Cuneiform Tablets from Private Collections (ACTPC). Cornell University Studies in
Assyriology and Sumerology. In press. Bethesda, MD: Capital Decisions.
■ S A LV A T O R E F . M O N A C O
FOOD SHARING
Food sharing is frequently seen as a cultural universal and is a subject of particular interest in studies of hunters-gatherers, who are seen as ancestral models for modern societies. Many ethnographies report the incidence of food sharing. Sharing is not universal;
however, the patterns and extent of its formal variation are quite different both among
and within societies. Hunter-gatherer societies are characterized as having several core
features, including a home base, a division of labor (males hunting and females gathering), and a pattern of sharing the collected food resources. The ethnographic record
is rich in accounts of food sharing and the source of numerous theories to explain the
existence and variation of food sharing. Yet few theories actually anticipate the wide
range of sharing behavior.
Ecological factors offer insight into food sharing. Spoilage is suggested as a primary
reason for food sharing; once a quantity of food is acquired, activity stops until it is all
gone. The most basic reason for sharing is for dealing with spatial and temporal inconsistencies in food availability. Food sharing helps smooth out variation in food availability
per capita, providing a safety net by pooling risk during seasonal periods of local scarcity.
Social factors also play an important role in food sharing, where it is characterized as a
foundation of moral order and etiquette. Gift giving and receiving may be the basis for
the social contract holding society together. Reciprocal sharing may be shaped by specific
taboos, particularly against the hunter’s eating his own prey.
While noting that generalized reciprocity may be a universal condition of a hunting
economy, there is substantial variation in the degree of food sharing both between and
within societies, often dependent on the kinds of animals killed and fluctuations in the
supply of prey. Certain societies practice a generalized sharing in which every member
benefits from the success of every other member, pooling the risk of unpredictable food
availability. The initial distribution of prey may be determined by the degree of participation in the hunt. It may also be governed by rules of partnerships between hunters.
One factor limiting distribution is immediate consumption of portions of carcasses
by the hunting party, widely reported ethnographically. Another is the division of the
carcass among the members of the hunting party through participation in the hunt,
transport of meat, or membership in dyadic hunting partnerships, limiting the number
of families who will participate in the subsequent distribution. The restriction in initial
distribution can be offset at the consumption level; communal eating throughout the
village or a constant round of visiting with meals served in shifts supplements wide
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dispersal of meat. Even in societies with supposedly rigid rules of sharing, there may
be a change of the rules according to the size of the prey.
The initial division depends on the level of cooperation required for resource acquisition. In some societies, all individuals are expected to fend for themselves. More
often, however, the nuclear family is reported as the primary consumption unit. Most
descriptions of the rules for food distribution after division among the hunters are of kinbased systems. Balanced reciprocity plays a role within kin-based systems of food sharing.
Distribution may not always be a case of equivalent exchange but rather an integration
of goods, services, and social integration. Distribution also can be tied in with kinship,
such as bride service.
Although rules for sharing are stated, they are not always enforced. There is substantial variation according to group size, prey size or abundance, preemptive consumption
by hunters, and differential penetration of sharing into the kinship or residential group.
Among those who appear to share equally throughout the residential camp, the advantages of pooling risk and redistribution may have a limit on the ultimate size of the group.
There are limits to penetration of actual food distribution into the potential sharing
network, largely determined by the quantity of meat acquired. This is true even for
societies that have been described as egalitarian sharers. Further discrimination in the
depth of sharing practices may deal not with quantities of food but rather with qualitative differences in the nutritional value of pieces given; the quantity and quality of
fat, which is highly variable seasonally, will result in great variability in patterning and
efficacy of food sharing.
Ethnographic sources clearly indicate that food-sharing practices are much more variable and complex on a global scale than simple generosity or a continuum of reciprocity.
Variation is environmentally influenced at a certain level. It is particularly with reference
to storage practices that broad patterning agrees with environmental zonation. Storage is
very rarely practiced by hunter-gatherers in tropical zones; it is very frequent, if not the
rule, in arctic settings. Dependence on storage will affect food-sharing practices under
certain circumstances. While various authors have argued that the models for variation
in food sharing were determined by single factors, such as a function of kinship distance,
coresidence, or the type of game and resulting surpluses, none are sufficient for explaining
variation in sharing among all groups. A complex set of factors, including coresidence,
kinship, the type of game hunted, and the status of the hunter, affects the pattern of food
distribution. Clearly, food sharing is multidimensional in the causes of its formal variation.
The important point is that food-sharing practices are highly variable, and we must be
able to anticipate wide variation if we want to begin to understand the evolution and
practice of food sharing in human subsistence organization.
See also Commensality; Cooperative Hunting; Food Storage; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Innovation and Risk; Subsistence Models
Further Reading
Bicchieri, M. G., ed. 1972. Hunters and Gatherers Today. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Binford, Lewis R. 1978. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York: Academic Press.
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217
Enloe, James G. 2003. Food Sharing Past and Present: Archaeological Evidence for Economic and Social
Interaction. Before Farming: The Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers 2003/1(1):1–23.
Lee, Richard B., and Irven DeVore, eds. 1968. Man the Hunter. New York: Aldine.
Winterhalder, Bruce, and Eric Alden Smith, eds. 1981. Hunter-Gatherer Foraging Strategies: Ethnographic
and Archeological Analyses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Yellen, John E. 1977. Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models for Reconstructing the Past. New York:
Academic Press.
■ JAMES G. ENLOE
F O O D STO R AG E
From Paleolithic Eurasia (30,000–10,000 BP) and Japanese Jōmon (16,450–2,250 BP)
to the European Iron Age (2,800–2,050 BP) and into more recent times, the storage
of food has been an extremely important food processing technology. Food storage is
often associated with complex farming communities and the storage of grain, either
above or below ground, for replanting or consumption. Storage of food can be seen
as a risk-reduction strategy to cover predictable, and unpredictable, periods of food
shortage. Archaeological, ethnographic, and historical data demonstrate that mobile
hunter-gatherers also stored food, however. The use of small-scale storage, in the form
of caches, enabled hunter-gatherers to remain mobile, increased social ties between
groups and individuals, was a means of saving food for a later date, and helped to solve
the problem of resource transportation.
Storage also has important social implications, as a prelude to or after the onset of
agriculture, particularly the long-term and large-scale storage of cereals. Along with the
storage of domesticated plant species, such as cereals, we can sometimes see a general
increase in the use of private (as opposed to community) storage facilities and the hierarchical ownership of stored resources. This suggests not only that cereal is being stored as
a risk-buffering method and for replanting, but it is also being used as a means to assert
authority and to establish control and hierarchical relationships within communities. Both
storage and feasting that involved the storage of alcohol and foodstuffs have been linked
to the origins of agriculture and increased social complexity.
Although evidence of storage technologies can be difficult to identify in the archaeological record, indirect evidence includes resource specialization, permanent settlement,
and mass capture/gathering technologies. Platforms placed over fires, drying racks, smoking pits, and processing tools (quern stones, grinding tools) may indicate the processing
of food in preparation for storage. Food such as nuts, berries, fish, and meat can be combined to make a single, highly nutritious dried resource (i.e., pemmican) that can last for
weeks or even months. In addition, such resources are highly transportable and can be
considered a form of portable storage that would have been vital to mobile communities
or individuals, enabling long-distance traveling.
Direct evidence includes the presence of aboveground and belowground storage
facilities and technologies, including caches, granaries, storehouses, and the use of various containers. Caches, pits, and silos are probably the most common form of storage
technology found throughout prehistory and in more recent times. Many different
methods were used to ensure successful belowground storage, including the use of
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matting or clay to line pits, the use of containers within pits, rock-cut caches, wetland
and dryland pits, and pits dug into permafrost.
Aboveground storage includes the use of granaries, and there is substantial ethnohistorical data from North America demonstrating the wide variation in design, use, and
location of granaries. In California, acorns required for more immediate use tended to
be stored in thatched granaries that were constructed on wooden stilts or rocks at least
three feet above ground and located near a settlement or at a gathering site (pits were
used for long-term storage). To protect the acorns from insects and flies while in storage,
the trunks or legs of the granaries were smeared with pitch and the acorns mixed with
bay leaves. Grain also would have been stored in pits or containers during the European
Neolithic and Bronze Age; in the Iron Age wooden granaries raised on posts above the
ground were used alongside grain storage pits.
An assortment of storage facilities and technologies were practiced by groups living in
subarctic Canada (17th–19th centuries AD), who constructed large caches (stone piles),
platforms, and small storehouses in which they stored a variety of food, such as dried
salmon, dried meat, caribou bladders filled with oil, and seal fat. In addition, they stored
small amounts of other foods, including fish, meat, blood, fat, and plants, in locations
such as a storehouse or a pit. In Japan, at the Jōmon site of Anoh, a storage pit contained
separate layers of acorns, walnuts, and buckeyes covered by a layer of leaves. Not all food
needed to be stored in granaries, storehouses, or pits, however; some were simply stored
within baskets, sacks, pottery, and wooden containers, placed on shelves or hung from
the rafters of a building. More recent technologies, including canning in glass, paper, or
metal containers, are the subject of historical and industrial archaeological investigations.
Evidence of prehistoric storage technologies is most often identified in the form of
aboveground storage facilities such as granaries, containers, and storehouses, and storage
pit technologies such as pit capping and lining materials, though the latter are rarely
found. Consideration of indirect evidence and recent archaeological experiments exploring storage technologies are beginning to shed some light on storage behaviors and
demonstrate that successful storage depends on a number of factors, including the type
of food to be stored, the storage environment, and the duration of storage. These factors
are not mutually exclusive, and a single community can use more than one storage technology to ensure successful storage.
See also Ethnographic Sources; Experimental Archaeology; Feasting; Food Preservation; Food Production and the Formation of Complex Societies; Innovation and
Risk; Insecticides/Repellents; Plant Processing; Sedentism and Domestication;
Storage Facilities
Further Reading
Cunningham, Penny. 2011. Cache or Carry: Food Storage in Prehistoric Europe. In Experimentation
and Interpretation: The Use of Experimental Archaeology in the Study of the Past, edited by Dana C. E.
Millson, 7–28. Oxford: Oxbow.
Dunham, Sean B. 2000. Cache Pits: Ethnohistory, Archaeology, and the Continuity of Tradition. In Interpretations of Native North American Life: Material Cultural Studies to Ethnohistory, edited by Michael
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219
S. Nassaney and Eric S. Johnson, 225–60. Gainesville: University Press of Florida and the Society
of Historical Archaeology.
Halstead, Paul, and John O’Shea, eds. 1989. Bad Year Economics: Cultural Responses to Risk and Uncertainty.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marshall, Alistair. 2011. Experimental Archaeology: 1. Early Bronze Age Cremation Pyres; 2. Iron Age Grain
Storage. BAR British Series 530. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Smith, Craig S. 2003. Hunter-Gatherer Mobility, Storage, and Houses in a Marginal Environment: An
Example from the Mid-Holocene of Wyoming. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22(2):162–89.
Soffer, Olga. 1989. Storage, Sedentism and the Eurasian Paleolithic Record. Antiquity 63(241):719–32.
■ PENNY CUNNINGHAM
FOOD TECHNOLOGY AND IDEAS ABOUT FOOD, SPREAD OF
Food species migration is a core topic in archaeology, especially when it relates to the
spread of agriculture. In contrast, the spread of food technology and ideas about food has
received far less archaeological attention. Its study is subject to the familiar distinction
between cultural and demic diffusion, and this entry considers the implications of both
scenarios. Notions of taste and edibility are culturally constructed, and the appearance
of a “new” food item in the archaeological record depends upon its conceptual and
technological incorporation into the food culture of a community. This entry considers
theoretical frameworks for the study of such incorporation.
Around the second century BC, the saddle quern was widely replaced by the rotary
quern in certain regions peripheral to the Roman Empire such as Britain and the Netherlands. This example of food technology migration involves a modification of a previously
known and routinely applied procedure. The adoption of Roman-style rotary querns was
widespread and relatively swift because the new querns operated according to a familiar
principle and were designed for a socially and economically important food item. In
contrast, the identification of a previously unknown or rejected food item or technology
is a more challenging process archaeologically. Diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory may
be applied in such cases, particularly if we accept that “innovation” refers to new food
items as well as technologies. Accordingly, an innovation goes through five stages, namely
knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation, before it becomes
archaeologically visible. Knowledge and persuasion refer to the initial exposure to the
existence and merit of an innovation. This knowledge is applied in the decision and implementation stages, which may in turn confirm the merits of the innovation and aid its
routine use. The food item, technology, or manner of preparation is thereby conceptually
and materially accommodated before it is discernably imprinted upon the archaeological
record. This framework may be constructive in addressing the process as well as the outcome of “cultural diffusion.”
Approaches from research on immigrant cuisines in recent historical and contemporary settings are relevant to archaeologies of the spread of food culture through the
movement of people. Food culture characteristics that predict the fate of an immigrant
cuisine include differentiation, accessibility, imitability, and vulnerability. Differentiation
between immigrant and indigenous food cultures refers to, for example, utilization of
different foodstuffs or different preparation techniques of the same foodstuffs. Accessibility
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refers to the social settings in which immigrant food is introduced to those unaccustomed
to it, and imitability refers to the degree to which the indigenous food culture is able
or willing to accommodate the new food items or technologies. The vulnerability of an
immigrant cuisine is determined by factors such as climatic conditions, access to ingredients, and the degree to which culinary assimilation is expected or imposed by the host
culture. These food culture characteristics provide a framework for archaeological study
of culinary change in intercultural contact situations. However, the longer-term outcomes
thereof are better accommodated by approaches that acknowledge the multidirectionality
of culinary changes that are likely to occur. Food as an expression and vehicle for transcultural interaction can be studied using concepts such as hybridization and creolization.
The Neolithic period in Britain (ca. 4000–2500 cal BC) offers some insight into the
fate of an immigrant cuisine and subsequent intercultural food hybridization in a prehistoric setting. Small groups of settlers from mainland Europe arrived in Britain over a
period of a few hundred years in the early fourth millennium BC, although indigenous
lifestyles were not swiftly abandoned. Instead, the character of the British Neolithic
emerged through the cultural mixing of newcomers and native hunter-gatherers. The
immigrant cuisine was different both in terms of foodstuffs and technology as the settlers
brought cereals, domestic animals, and pottery. Certain elements of the immigrant cuisine,
such as cereals, may have been particularly vulnerable to the new social and climatic conditions; cereals became a minor component of the plant food repertoire after only a few
generations. The remainder of the British Neolithic is strongly pastoral, indicating that
the rearing and consumption of domestic animals was a more resiliently imitable feature
of the immigrant lifestyle. The British Neolithic is an example of food culture hybridization since neither the native hunter-gatherer nor the incoming agricultural cuisines
remained unchanged. The ceramic record allows us to trace the processes of social and
technological incorporation of the new foods. In the beginning of the period, pottery
manufacture and use were restricted and conservative, probably reflecting well-established
ceramic traditions of the incoming groups. Within a few centuries, ceramic technology
was widely adopted and pottery was made to accommodate new ways of cooking and
eating. In this context and elsewhere, the spread of food technology can shed light on
food species migration, and vice versa. Taken together, the spread of food species, technologies, and ideas can be referred to as food culture migration.
See also Columbian Exchange; Creolization; Diaspora Foodways; Food and Colonialism; Food Appropriation and Culinary Imperialism; Globalization; Immigrant
Foodways; Old World Globalization and Food Exchanges; Pacific Oceanic Exchange; Philistine Foodways
Further Reading
Beaudry, Mary C. 2013. Mixing Food, Mixing Culture: Archaeological Perspectives. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 28(1):285–95.
Driver, Christopher. 1983. The Evolution of Immigrant Cuisines. In Food in Motion: The Migration of
Foodstuffs and Cookery Techniques, edited by Alan Davidson, 95–98. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1983. Totnes, UK: Prospect Books.
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Sibbesson, Emilie. 2014. The First Thousand Years of Pottery in Prehistoric Oxfordshire. In Food and
Material Culture, edited by Mark McWilliams, 281–88. Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on
Food and Cookery 2013. Totnes, UK: Prospect Books.
Yassur-Landau, Assaf. 2005. Old Wine in New Vessels: Intercultural Contact, Innovation and Aegean,
Canaanite and Philistine Foodways. Tel Aviv 32(2):168–91.
■ EMILIE SIBBESSON
F O O D WAY S
The term foodways is used to describe the cultural, social, and economic practices related to the production and consumption of food, from procurement and preparation
to presentation, consumption, and disposal. The term is also used to acknowledge that
food and food-related practices exist within a cultural system. Through the lens of
foodways, it is possible to examine a wide range of social and economic relations, from
household structure to community networks. Because food is also a powerful medium
for communication and symbolism, a foodways approach may reveal the meanings associated with those practices—what is considered food (edible/inedible), how people
classify food, what is communicated through food, how it is used to create identity, and
how meaning is assigned.
First used by folklorists to describe the food-related customs, traditions, and material
objects associated with folk cultures, this term is now widely used by archaeologists
who reconstruct and interpret the food practices of prehistoric and historic-period
cultures. Following the practice of folklorists, anthropologists, and oral historians, a
foodways approach in archaeology may incorporate oral histories, folk narratives, and
ethnographic study, but also a range of archaeological and material culture evidence as
well as anthropological and sociological models to interpret past food practices. The increased currency of this approach in archaeology reflects the interdisciplinary approach
of food studies generally but is also an acknowledgment of the essential importance of
food-related activities in all cultures, the intersection of foodways with a range of social
and cultural categories, including status, ethnicity, religion, and gender, and the strength
of a holistic approach to understanding past cultures.
See also Ethnographic Sources; Food and Identity; Material Culture Analysis;
Multi- and Interdisciplinary Approaches; Oral and Folk Narratives
Further Reading
O’Connor, Kaori. 2008. The Hawaiian Luau: Food as Tradition, Transgression, Transformation and
Travel. Food, Culture & Society 11(2):149–72.
Twiss, Katheryn C., ed. 2007. The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
Yasur-Landau, Assaf. 2005. Old Wine in New Vessels: Intercultural Contact, Innovation and Aegean,
Canaanite and Philistine Foodways. Tel Aviv 32(2):168–91.
■ KAREN BESCHERER METHENY
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F O O D WAY S A N D G E N D E R R O L E S
Gender is an essential cross-cultural social category and a critical element of human interactions, past and present.The complex connection between food and gender in prehistory
was largely taken for granted by archaeologists until the mid-1980s. This is partially the
result of overarching assumptions about human roles, and partially the result of skepticism about the ability of archaeology to examine gender relations and topics outside the
confines of material aspects of life.
Early assumptions about gender and food included explicit and implicit points, effectively creating stories about stereotypical male and female roles. These were inserted
into the past and have remained foundational assumptions in studies of human origins
and the evolution of foodways. Archaeologists are now moving into new territory and
exploring the nuanced relationship between foodways and complicated gender roles in
a wide range of contexts. Food is examined as both a biological necessity and a powerful
form of material culture.
The majority of archaeological work has focused on questions that relate to material
culture and economic aspects of society rather than ideological and potentially invisible
elements of human existence. While archaeologists are confident in their understanding
of subsistence economics, for example, based on zooarchaeological and lithic remains,
gender relations surrounding food have been less frequently explored and are less well
understood. Nevertheless, there are several key research foci related to the topic of foodways and gender archaeology. These include, but are not limited to, the evolution of social
organization, access, identity, pollution, taboo, gendered space, and ritual.
The evolution of social organization and the division of labor are topics of contentious
debate on the origins of hunting and the emergence of agriculture. Research on the
division of labor has included topics such as collection (hunting, gathering), production
(gardening, farming), preparation, and butchery. More recently, cooking, food serving,
and meal cleanup have been explored. Archaeologists have also studied gender relations
surrounding feasting and food surplus. Now archaeologists are examining the complex
negotiations that make competitive meals possible, such as ambitious husbands who rely
on their wives to produce the bulk of surplus for feasts.
Access to particular types of food is often linked to gender, social status, and concepts of
identity. Studies have shown that the distribution of certain kinds of food was more or less
restricted to particular genders or classes over time in response to changing environmental
and social conditions. In some cultures, food may be used to eliminate what was believed to
be feminine pollution. For example, ceramic food containers (like many female-associated
products) were thought to absorb or transmit negative polluting influences from women in
Swahili society. Gendered taboo or food prohibitions also impose constraints on distribution
and consumption, as is the case in much of Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Food remains and associated material culture are particularly useful for understanding
gendered space or a lack thereof in archaeological sites. Preparation and serving items and
culinary debris provide multiple lines of evidence for spatial analysis of public and private
areas where meals were consumed in secular or sacred settings. Households are contexts
where the analysis of rubbish pits, food storage areas, cooking, and eating may provide a
great deal of information about gendered social relations in the past, as archaeologists have
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effectively explored in Anatolia and the Middle East. For example, the site of Çatalhöyük
in Turkey includes a great deal of female imagery from domestic and mortuary contexts.
Rituals informed by local gender constructs, including marriage, veneration of the gods,
death, birth, and even secular rituals, are tightly articulated with eating and food sharing.
Among the ancient Classic Maya, ceramics that belonged to the ruling elite have produced residues of chocolate drinks and various food items; some even have markings that
indicate the type of food the pot contained. This pottery often depicts idealized male and
female bodies and images that enable archaeologists to interpret social values associated
with gender. Rosemary Joyce has argued that this Mayan imagery provides insights into
the way both men and women developed, expressed, and reformulated their identities.
Multiple, nonbinary gender identities appear to have been present among the Maya and
in other culture contexts, including many Native American societies.
Archaeologists argue that in order to convincingly find gender in the archaeological
past, we must combine multiple lines of evidence with firmly reasoned arguments and
contextually justified, site-specific analogies. Though zooarchaeological materials are the
most frequently studied, all categories of archaeological remains are potentially useful for
understanding gender and foodways. Faunal data are often combined with architectural
evidence, features, other forms of material culture (lithics, ceramics, perishables), and bioarchaeological data (burials, isotope analysis) to explore gender in the past.
Ethnoarchaeological studies focus on modern material remains of a society and are
critical for understanding gender and foodways as they provide models and interpretive
frameworks for testing archaeological hypotheses. There are often structural similarities
between the way that houses are organized in the present and in the past. Careful attention to detail, excavation, and analysis may reveal surprising parallels in time or lack
thereof. Some food activities transect multiple genders, such as communal hunting and
gathering of small game, fish, and invertebrates, where all members of social groups (spanning a range of ages and genders) may take part. Communal planting, field maintenance,
and harvesting events may also involve extended social groups, as in many Pacific Island
societies. An example of an important ethnoarchaeological study of women hunting with
men or alone is Estioko-Griffin’s work in the Philippines.
Currently, detailed fine-grained analyses of archaeological remains, households, and
ritual spaces are providing new data and interpretations of foodways and cuisine, and
their relationship to gender and social identity. An understanding of the way that humans
form their identities and subsequently their roles in life, regardless of the social context
in which they live, influences this new direction in the archaeology of gender and food.
See also Archaeology of Household Food Production; Architectural Analysis; Bioarchaeological Analysis; Çatalhöyük; Ethnoarchaeology; Food and Gender; Food
and Identity; Food and Power; Food and Ritual; Food and Status; Household
Archaeology; Spatial Analysis and Visualization Techniques
Further Reading
Jones, Sharyn. 2009. Food and Gender in Fiji: Ethnoarchaeological Explorations. Lanham, MD: Lexington
Books.
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Klarich, Elizabeth A., ed. 2010. Inside Ancient Kitchens: New Directions in the Study of Daily Meals and
Feasts. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Nelson, Sarah Milledge, ed. 2007. Identity and Subsistence: Gender Strategies for Archaeology. Walnut Creek,
CA: AltaMira Press.
■ SHARYN JONES
F O O D WAY S A N D R E L I G I O U S P R A C T I C E S
Foodways have been an integral part of religious practice for millennia. Most ancient
societies had some form of religion or cultic practice. Moreover, religious practices were
not limited to those conducted by professional religious leaders at the community shrine
or temple; such practices were carried out by the average man, woman, and child. Thus
there is a need to look at food and cult in both domestic and elite contexts.
Domestic Contexts
Household religion refers to the smallest, albeit the most common or widespread, context
of religious practice. Daily activities or chores were conducted at or near the dwelling,
with all members expected to participate in the preparation of foodstuffs and the practice
of religion. Most ancient peoples were concerned with day-to-day survival, and household religious practices were intended to ensure the welfare of the inhabitants but also to
bless the dwelling and the fields, orchards, animals, and secondary buildings that supported
the household and served as the central stage of daily life. Material culture associated with
household religion includes vessels of nonutilitarian use (e.g., miniature altars and shrines,
male and female figurines, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic vessels, libation vessels, amulets, and seals); objects that may have had cultic functions, especially in conjunction with
the nonutilitarian vessels (e.g., collectibles, luxury and imported pottery, chalices, small
and miniature vessels, and lamps); and objects of obviously utilitarian use (e.g., objects of
food preparation and consumption).
Ancient dwellings and their tools and technology were multifunctional, and space
was rarely dedicated to just one activity; thus it is common to find artifacts from more
than one activity in household spaces. A survey of Iron Age dwellings in ancient Israel
and Judah located numerous cultic objects near kitchen installations or other facilities
associated with the preparation and consumption of food. Household religious activities
associated with food can be categorized into three generalized groups: regular activities
that follow the natural season or agricultural calendar and occur yearly, monthly, and
weekly; recurring activities that follow the human life cycle (including birth, circumcision, puberty, marriage, and death); and sporadic activities associated with occasions
of crisis or intercession.
The most common way food and religious rituals were combined was the feast. Feasts
marked the agricultural year and significant life-cycle events that were also viewed as
religious events. Festive meals were cooked from the same foodstuffs and ingredients that
were used for daily meals (bread, cereals, maize, seasonal vegetables and fruits, legumes,
wine, and beer), but in greater quantities. The most striking difference, however, was the
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inclusion of meat in societies whose economies were reliant upon their herds for their
secondary products and thus were unlikely to butcher a healthy animal except in the context of a feast. These sacred meals were a principal feature of the household and occupied
a central place in social customs, thereby establishing and reinforcing acceptable household and societal norms. At Tall al-‘Umayri in Jordan, ceremonial and feasting-related artifacts found in Late Bronze/Iron Age dwellings demonstrate the centrality of household
religious practices; these include a designated “cult corner,” standing stones, a fragmented
figurine, possibly an offering table, metal objects, inscribed seals, a hearth, storage bin and
jars, ground stone tools, cooking pots, animal bones with butchering marks, and vessels
for the serving and consumption of food.
Elite Contexts
The marriage of cult and food is more obviously found at official or widely recognized
centers of religious worship. State and locally organized cultic centers include shrines,
temples, high places, and even palaces. Archaeology has traditionally been more interested
in these elite contexts, particularly sacrifices and feasts/banquets.
The most common feature of ancient religious practice involving foodways is the
sacrifice. Ancient societies sought to propitiate or perform a perceived obligation toward
their deities. Groups like the Maya viewed sacrifices as a way to connect to the supernatural. Sacrifices and offerings in the form of meat were usually herd animals, birds, or wild
game. Many sacrifices or offerings at the official temple or shrine occurred on religious
holy days. Others followed an agricultural calendar, marking the harvest, for example.
Sacrifices or offerings to a deity were also common before a battle, when under attack, or
at moments of crisis like extreme weather, but were also used to seek favor from, appease
the anger of, or express gratitude to the deity itself. The Assyrians, Babylonians, Israelites,
and Greeks burned their animal sacrifices, believing the animals’ flesh would turn into
smoke, which would then ascend to the heavens where the deities lived. Other foodstuffs
offered as sacrifices include oil, bread, cakes, grains, maize, and wine.
Feasts or banquets within elite religious contexts were symbolic meals meant to emulate sacrifices. The meat presented to the deity was oftentimes part of the feast. In many
ancient societies, deities were personified, and feasts were presented to them in their
honor. Feasts connected to an agricultural harvest were also used as a time to celebrate
and thank the deity for its provision. The city of Dan in ancient Israel was a significant
religious center with an official sanctuary. Evidence of a sacrificial altar was found, along
with numerous pits containing the remains of sacred feasts, including large quantities of
animal bones and vessels used for the preparation, serving, and consumption of meals.
The evidence for sacrifices and sacred feasts in both domestic and elite contexts indicates that religious practices were not just a concern for the commoner or priest, but
rather a principal feature of life that blurred the lines of socioeconomic status.
See also Feasting; Food and Ritual; Food and Status; Household Archaeology;
Offerings and Grave Goods; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions, Taboos; Spatial
Analysis and Visualization Techniques
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Further Reading
Albertz, Rainer, and Rüdiger Schmitt. 2012. Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant.
Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Bray,Tamara L., ed. 2003. The Archaeology and Politics of Food and Feasting in Early States and Empires. New
York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
Dietler, Michael, and Brian Hayden, eds. 2010. Feasts: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives on Food,
Politics, and Power. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Greer, Jonathan S. 2013. Dinner at Dan: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Sacred Feasts at Iron Age II
Tel Dan and Their Significance. Leiden: Brill.
Hayden, Brian, and Suzanne Villeneuve. 2011. A Century of Feasting Studies. Annual Review of Anthropology 40:433–49.
■ CY N T H I A S H A F E R - E L L I OT T
F O R AG I N G
In the general study of living organisms, foraging is the act of seeking or searching for
nutritional intake. Specific to people, it is the search for provisions, chiefly through the
gathering of plant parts and the exploitation of animals through hunting or trapping,
more commonly known as hunting and gathering. When we study human history, we
are able to understand the practice of foraging primarily because it is mostly seen as
the default human subsistence system. As a default system, it is mainly juxtaposed with
subsistence systems associated with the domestication of plants and animals within the
framework of agriculture. An assemblage of proxy evidence in a specific archaeological
study that does not support an argument for agriculture leads, most of the time, to an
inference for the presence of foraging.
We are capable of knowing the types of subsistence practices used by humans in the
past through the various approaches available to archaeology and paleoenvironmental
studies. This includes the analysis of plant remains, including the charred, desiccated, or
waterlogged remains of plant parts, especially those from seeds, nuts, and tubers. Microscopic pollen and phytolith assemblages in the sediments of an archaeological site may
be examined. At a molecular level, plant remains and mammalian bones may contribute
to the study of subsistence through the examination of residues that can hold diagnostic
remains of isotopes and organic acids. Animal remains are also studied at a macro level
through a comprehensive knowledge of animal bone structures that makes it possible to
identify specific bones to species level.
In the past, archaeologists have tended to categorize assemblages of information from
plant and animal remains as coming from domesticated/cultivated or wild/nondomesticated contexts. If all remains fell within the latter category, then by default the people
who created these archaeological assemblages must have been foragers. Over the years,
a tendency of archaeological practice also was to study what commonly came out of
archaeological sites in terms of paleoenvironemental materials (e.g., seeds and bones). It
was more straightforward to establish domestication or cultivation by looking at animal
remains and plants with short life spans that were utilized as cereals.
More recently, methodological advances in archaeobotany and zooarchaeology allow
us to look at the suite of paleoenvironmental remains with much more precision. This
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has led to more complex inferences about people–plant and people–animal relationships,
which in turn has led to more sophisticated interpretations about past subsistence strategies. It has allowed us to have a better understanding of what foraging really means, and
how to infer its presence in specific study areas where we have paleoenvironmental data.
Further, this has led to a reexamination of implied trajectories in subsistence models.
Foraging is still viewed as the first human subsistence strategy, but its interpretation has
become more complex. Archaeologists now understand that its development was not inevitable after the initial formation of human communities. For human societies, a purely
foraging subsistence strategy may only exist in a situation when there are no other known
approaches available in a given time period. It is something that may have only existed,
in its purest form, in deep human history.
Since the 1960s foraging theory has developed as a branch of behavioral ecology,
which is a way of studying ecological systems. Foraging studies were integrated with
the dominant economic models then available to archaeologists in their search for an
explanatory synthesis of human cultural transformations. However, archaeologists have
embraced this approach to help understand the human past on a large scale. Because
foraging is considered the primordial method that humans and ancestral humans used
to survive and thrive, it is a good starting point for any transformational or developmental investigation of the human past.
Foraging is a subsistence system that can be better appreciated if seen not as an exclusive strategy but, like most subsistence systems, practiced with other forms of subsistence.
The idea that there should always be a dominant subsistence system at any given time
comes from the established parameters set by economic-developmental models, which
then creates the narrative for societal transformation. When we study living communities
of people that are described as foragers, this must therefore be understood as a description
of one subsistence adaptation they are using within a menu of other subsistence strategies
that are known or available to them.
See also Archaeobotany; Biomolecular Analysis; Broad Spectrum Revolution; Ethnographic Sources; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Landscape and Environmental
Reconstruction; Niah Caves; Subsistence Models; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Denham, Tim. 2013. Early Farming in Island Southeast Asia: An Alternative Hypothesis. Antiquity
87(335):250–57.
Harris, D. R., and G. C. Hillman, eds. 1989. Foraging and Farming: The Evolution of Plant Exploitation.
London: Unwin Hyman.
Kelly, Robert L. 2013. The Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers: The Foraging Spectrum. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Morrison, Kathleen D., and Laura L. Junker, eds. 2003. Forager-Traders in South and Southeast Asia: LongTerm Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, Eric Alden. 1983. Anthropological Applications of Optimal Foraging Theory: A Critical Review.
Current Anthropology 24(5):625–51.
■ V I C TO R PA Z
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F R A N C H T H I C AV E ( G R E E C E )
FOURIER TRANSFORM INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY
See Infrared Spectroscopy/Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
F R A N C H T H I C AV E ( G R E E C E )
The rich archaeological sequence at Franchthi Cave in the southern Peloponnese of
Greece encompassed two pivotal subsistence changes: social and economic intensification
in the Late Pleistocene and the forager–producer transition. The archaeological deposits
from this deeply stratifed site reach more than ten meters in some places and span more
than 35,000 years of human activity (39,000–3,000 cal BP) from the Aurignacian through
Mesolithic and Neolithic periods. Nuanced archaeological interpretations are enabled by
the excellent preservation of human, faunal, macrobotanical, ceramic, shell, lithic, charcoal,
pollen, and ground stone assemblages.
Mobile Paleolithic foragers took advantage of the coastal plain and surrounding
highlands to hunt varied terrestrial game, especially red deer, wild asses, hares, and birds.
Foragers stopped using the cave during the Last Glacial Maximum. Reoccupation of the
cave coincided with rising sea levels and a prolonged trend in resource intensification.
Terrestrial foraging expanded to include abundant land snails, wild grasses and pulses,
and aquatic resources. Expansion into an aquatic niche was gradual and began with the
collection of shellfish and freshwater turtles and some inshore fishing. Mesolithic people
undertook technically demanding offshore fishing for tunny. Obsidian procurement from
the Cyclades island of Milos corroborates the importance of sophisticated boat technology in this period. The remarkable socioeconomic transitions at Franchthi Cave reflect
the dual influences of climate-driven landscape change and socioeconomic reorganization
during the Final Paleolithic and Mesolithic.
The second, or forager–producer, transition at Franchthi Cave is marked by the rapid
replacement of wild plants and animals with domestic species. Weed species signal the
use of cultivated fields, domestic emmer wheat and two-row barley appear in the plant
assemblage, and lentil seed size increases. Wild prey species are replaced suddenly by domestic ovicaprines, wild counterparts of which were either absent (sheep) or rare (goat)
prior to the Neolithic. The Neolithic eclipsed a long and very rich Mesolithic legacy in
the Franchthi cultural sequence.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Archaeobotany; Fishing; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Mesolithic Diet; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleolithic Diet; Paleonutrition; Rockshelters/Caves; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Jacobsen, Thomas W. 1981. Franchthi Cave and the Beginning of Settled Village Life in Greece. Hesperia
50(4):303–19.
Hansen, Julie M. 1991. The Palaeoethnobotany of Franchthi Cave: Excavations at Franchthi Cave, Greece,
Fascicle 7. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Stiner, Mary C., and Natalie D. Munro. 2011. On the Evolution of Diet and Landscape during the
Upper Paleolithic through Mesolithic at Franchthi Cave (Peloponnese, Greece). Journal of Human
Evolution 60(5):618–36.
■ N ATA L I E D . M U N R O A N D M A R Y C . S T I N E R
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FRUITS
Fruit trees are perennials that start to bear fruit three to eight years after planting and attain full productivity several years later.The fruit tree planter is much less mobile than the
herder or crop cultivator, and horticulture indicates a fully sedentary way of life. Though
horticulture tends to receive less attention than cereals and other major food crops associated with origins of agriculture, archaeological evidence for fruit cultivation and domestication shows its early role and increasing importance. Evidence from archaeological
sites includes archaeobotanical data (e.g., macroremains) from domestic sites, orchards
and gardens, ports of trade and markets, and shipwrecks; planting holes and supporting
structures (e.g., stakes) such as those uncovered at Pompeii; and processing floors and tools.
Abundant textual sources and representational forms, such as wall paintings and models,
supplement our knowledge of fruit cultivation by ancient populations.
Fruit trees constituted an important economic element in the ancient Mediterranean.
Five of the biblical “seven species” are fruit trees, including Olea europaea (olive), Punica
granatum (pomegranate), Vitis vinifera (grape vine), Ficus carica (fig), and Phoenix dactylifera
(date palm). Fruit products include the edible fruits, wine, resins, olive oil, and date honey,
which were among the basic economic elements of subsistence. Recognition of their
value in antiquity resulted in written rules that were aimed at preserving these species;
prohibitions against the cutting down of fruit trees are found in the Bible, for example.
The fact that the Mediterranean is a meeting point of several phytogeographical
regions is reflected in the variety of fruit trees under cultivation. Foodstuffs were imported and exported from one region to another, and the presence of their remnants
in archaeological excavations, including seeds and pits, as well as storage containers,
olive and wine presses, and residues in ceramic vessels, testifies to the local economy
and diet. The presence of the actual wood of fruit trees is generally the only indication
that they were grown in the vicinity of the site, however. Outside of Israel, there are
no early wood remains of fruit trees in the Mediterranean and no dendroarchaeological investigations to assist with the dating of early attempts at horticulture. This entry
therefore relies upon archaeological evidence from Israel to describe the transition from
wild to cultivated fruit trees.
Most fruit trees such as Olea europaea (olive), Amygdalus communis (almond), Ceratonia
siliqua (carob), Punica granatum (pomegranate), and Vitis vinifera (grape vine) grow in the
Mediterranean region of Israel. Phoenix dactylifera (date palm) is typical of oases of the
arid regions. Ficus sycomorus (sycamore) is a cultivated variety or an escapee widespread
in the coastal plain and the Jordan Valley, and Ficus carica (fig) is a cultivated variety or an
escapee common all over the country.
Wild olive was a component of the native Mediterranean Quercus calliprinos–Pistacia
palaestina climax association, though in small numbers. After the domestication of Olea
europaea in the Early Bronze Age, olive groves became prominent in the landscape. Olive
stones in large quantities have been found in almost all sites investigated in the Mediterranean region of Israel. In the Negev and Sinai, however, only a few olive stones were
collected at each site. The earliest stones date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) in
Nahal Oren in the Carmel.
Almond (Amygdalus communis) most probably originated in the steppes of eastern
Asia and has been distributed to warm temperate regions of the world. It is cultivated
in all countries around the Mediterranean. The wild varieties have bitter seeds whereas
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the cultivated ones have sweet seeds. In each of the sites only a few broken shells of
almond have been found. The earliest remains date to the Middle Bronze Age in Tel
Taanach in the Jezreel Valley.
Carob (Ceratonia siliqua) is mentioned for the first time in the Mishna and Talmud,
while it is only hinted at in the Old Testament. Its origin is uncertain; some investigators
think it originated in south Arabia, while others think carob represents an ancient Mediterranean element. Carob seeds have been found in only a very few archaeological sites,
and only one or two seeds were gathered from each. Domesticated carob grew in Israel
but was very rare, as evident from the very few wood remains and seeds found from the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) onward. The earliest wood remains date to the PPNA,
and the earliest seeds date to the PPNB and come from two sites: Nahal Oren in the
Carmel and Nahal Hemar in the Negev.
The domestication of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) probably began thousands of
years ago in Lower Mesopotamia. The wild seeds of the date palm are unusually small
and are dated to the Early Bronze Age. Seeds of domesticated date palm are found in
later periods, mainly in the Negev, the Dead Sea region, the Jordan Valley, and in oases
in the Sinai where preservation is excellent. Analyses of date palm wood fragments from
archaeological sites support the dates for domestication. The earliest seeds date to the
Chalcolithic period and were found in Timna in the southern Negev.
Wild forms of pomegranate grow abundantly in the southern Caspian belt and in
northern Turkey. The cultivated pomegranate (Punica granatum) originated in Iran and
spread to the Mediterranean Basin. Only a few shells of pomegranate were found at a very
few sites in Israel.The earliest shells date to the PPNB in Nahal Oren in the Carmel.Wild
specimens of fig grow mainly in the low altitude of the Mediterranean maquis (shrubland)
and garigue (open scrubland) formations in the Levant and the Aegean Islands. Because
the fig is eaten completely, fig remains are only rarely found in excavations. The earliest
remains of domesticated fig (Ficus carica) date to the PPNA in Netiv Hagdud in the Jordan
Valley. The wild sycamore fig is widely distributed in East Africa and Yemen. Cultivation
of this tree (Ficus sycomorus) was an Egyptian specialty, and it was domesticated in early
dynastic times in the lower Nile Valley. Remains were found at a single site in Ashkelon
in the Coastal Plain and dated to the Iron Age.
The grape vine (Vitis vinifera) was an important cultivar throughout the Mediterranean, with considerable social, economic, and religious significance. While considerable
evidence (e.g., wine-making installations and residues) comes from early sites in Iran and
Armenia, the pips of grape vines have been recovered from archaeological contexts in
Israel in only a few cases. The earliest remains date to the Chalcolithic period in Timna
in the southern Negev.
It is not known where the domestication of the walnut (Juglans regia) occurred. Only
a few walnuts shells have been found archaeologically. The earliest remains of shells date
to the Chalcolithic period and were found in Nahal Mishmar in the Dead Sea region.
See also Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Archaeobotany; Areni; Herculaneum
and Pompeii; Macroremains; Material Culture Analysis; Nuts; Olive Oil; Radiocarbon Dating; Residue Analysis, Tartaric Acid; Wine
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Further Reading
Liphschitz, Nili. 2007. Trees in Ancient Israel: Dendroarchaeology and Dendrochronology. Monograph Series
26. Tel Aviv: Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University.
Zohary, Daniel, Maria Hopf, and Ehud Weiss. 2012. Domestication of Plants in the Old World. 4th edition.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
■ NILI LIPHSCHITZ
FUNGI
Fungi are seldom encountered in the archaeological record of foodstuffs, but there are exceptions, especially for yeast. Excavated vessels contain identifiable residues of fermented
beverages. Ancient ovens allow inferences on leavened breads. Mesopotamian clay tablets
contain references to truffles, and ancient Egyptians apparently forbade consumption of
mushrooms by commoners. Most evidence of fungi as food is textual, however, such as
the writings (transmitted by copyists) of the Greeks and Romans on edible and poisonous
mushrooms. Artifactual evidence (e.g., “mushroom stones” of Central America, carvings
from Europe, mushroom-shaped lugs on cauldrons of the Huns) is usually either ambiguous or not pertinent to regular diet. Fungi having an adverse impact on health, ergot
sclerotia, are recovered from archaeobotanical sites and stomachs of bog bodies. Experiments conducted to replicate ancient grain storage practices have implicated spoilage
and mycotoxin-producing fungi. Roman rituals, the Robigalia, were intended to deter
wheat rust, and the fire festivals of Europe were held to protect crops from diseases, but
evidence is textual or from folklore, seldom archaeological. Fungi found with the famed
Iceman were likely medicinal or used as tinder, not food. Relative abundance of grazing
animals is adduced by certain types of fossil spores, but it was the herbivores, not these
fungi, that were consumed by humans. Premodern texts and paintings indicate that lore
of European herb- and market-women on edible mushrooms contributed to early mycological science. Analogous texts and paintings convey much about medicinal fungi in East
Asia. Unlike seeds and bones, mushrooms do not readily enter the archaeological record.
Paleolinguistic analyses, field anthropology, folklore, and ancient to premodern texts or
images are necessary to infer relevance of fungi to ancient diets.
See also Archaeobotany; Documentary Analysis; Iceman; Oral and Folk Narratives;
Psychoactive Plants; Yeast
Further Reading
Buller, A. H. Reginald. 1915. The Fungus Lore of the Greeks and Romans. Transactions of the British
Mycological Society 5:21–66.
Dugan, Frank M. 2008. Fungi in the Ancient World: How Mushrooms, Mildews, Molds and Yeast Shaped the
Early Civilizations of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East. St. Paul, MN: APS Press.
———. 2011. Conspectus of World Ethnomycology: Fungi in Ceremonies, Crafts, Diets, Medicines, and Myths.
St. Paul, MN: APS Press.
■ FRANK M. DUGAN
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G AO ( M A L I )
The town of Gao, which lies on a bend of the River Niger in the modern Republic of
Mali, West Africa, was founded in the seventh century AD. In the 15th and 16th centuries
AD, it functioned as the capital of the Songhai Empire, one of the three great West African
empires. Excavations by Insoll in the 1990s and more recently by Cisse produced some
archaeological evidence for food production and consumption, including faunal, botanical, and ceramic material. Fish and shellfish from the River Niger, including Nile perch
(Lates niloticus) and carp (Tilapia sp.), formed an important part of the diet, with domestic
goat, sheep, cattle, and chicken also butchered for meat. There was limited evidence for
hunting. Seed, fruit, nutshell, and other botanical fragments of various food plants noted
in the Arabic historical records were recovered, including baobab (Adansonia digitata), date
palm (Phoenix dactylifera), desert date (Balanites sp.), doum palm (Hyphaene thebaica), jujube
(Ziziphus sp.), watermelon (Citrullus lanatus), rice (Oryza cf. glaberrima), and pearl millet
(Pennisetum cf. glaucum). There is mention in the historical records of a trade in “aromatic
substances,” presumably including culinary spices and seasonings, but as yet there is no
archaeological evidence for these. The ceramics found included parts of cooking vessels
(indicated by fire blackening and general form), of couscousières or steamers, and of tripod
stoves (figure 28). Ethnography indicates couscousières are an important item of kitchen
equipment in Gao today as rice and cracked wheat, two important staple foodstuffs, are
steamed. It would appear this technology has a long tradition of use. Ceramic tripod
stoves are also still in use, and the idea of kitchen mobility is a notable feature of Songhai
cooking. Such stoves are even used in the local canoes or pirogues that travel the river.
See also Cooking Vessels, Ceramic; Ethnographic Sources; Fire and the Development
of Cooking Technology; Fish/Shellfish; Fruits; Material Culture Analysis; Meat;
Millets; Nuts; Rice; Soil Microtechniques; Spices
Further Reading
Insoll, Timothy. 2000. Urbanism, Archaeology and Trade: Further Observances on the Gao Region (Mali); The
1966 Field Season Results. BAR International Series 829. Oxford: BAR International.
MacLean, Rachel, and Timothy Insoll. 1999. The Social Context of Food Technology in Iron Age Gao,
Mali. World Archaeology 31(1):78–92.
232
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233
Figure 28. Several elements of Songhai culinary practices have their origin in antiquity, including
the use of coucousières, or steamers, and ceramic tripod cookstoves. Couscousières are used
to prepare foods such as rice and cracked wheat. The ceramic tripod cookstoves are valued for
their portability. Left: Excavated sherds of a couscousière (left and bottom) and a tripod stove
leg (upper right) from the Gadei site in Gao attest to the use of these forms in the early 11th to
late 14th centuries AD. Right: Women of the Toure household preparing food, 1996. This image
was taken as part of an ethnographic study of modern food technology in Gao. Photographs ©
Rachel MacLean.
———. 2003. Archaeology, Luxury and the Exotic: The Examples of Islamic Gao (Mali) and Bahrain.
World Archaeology 34(3):558–70.
■ RACHEL MACLEAN
G A S C H R O M AT O G R A P H Y/ G A S C H R O M AT O G R A P H Y–
MASS SPECTROMETRY
Gas chromatography (GC) and especially gas chromatography–mass spectrometry
(GC-MS) are very useful instrumental techniques for analyzing ancient organic residues
because they can separate and identify individual compounds from complex mixtures and
can analyze nanogram—and lower—quantities of materials. This allows small quantities
of organic molecules that have been absorbed and protected within the porous matrix of
ancient pottery, ground stone milling tools, anthropogenic soils, and other archaeological
materials to be identified and quantified. GC and GC-MS have been used to detect and
differentiate ancient chemical residues from diverse sources, including plants and terrestrial animals, marine mammals, fish, and dairy products. Most applications have focused on
identifying the use of particular food resources and processing techniques, or elucidating
the functions of ancient pottery in different regions and times.
As the name implies, GC-MS is a two-part process. In gas chromatography, compounds are separated based on differing affinities for the stationary phase (a liquid-coated
column) and a mobile phase (the carrier gas). If gas chromatography is used alone,
compounds are identified based on their retention times. When coupled with mass
spectrometry, individual compounds eluting from the GC column are transported to the
mass spectrometer, where they are bombarded with electrons and form characteristic ion
fragments. Compounds may then be identified with a very high degree of reliability based
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G E S H E R B E N O T YA ‘ A Q O V ( I S R A E L )
on ion fragmentation patterns as well as retention times. Interpretation of raw chemical
data into source identifications can be more problematic and less certain, however. The
potential for mixtures of compounds from multiple sources and diagenetic (post-depositional) alterations of molecules can at times limit the identification of specific plant and
animal sources. In light of this, many recent studies have used compound-specific stable
isotope analysis in combination with GC-MS to help make or confirm identifications.
See also Biomolecular Analysis; Soil Microtechniques; Stable Isotope Analysis; UseWear Analysis, Lithics; Use-Wear or Use-Alteration Analysis, Pottery
Further Reading
Buonasera, Tammy. 2013. Extracting New Information from Old Experiments. Society for Archaeological
Sciences Bulletin 36(1):2–7.
Eerkens, Jelmer W. 2005. GC-MS Analysis of Fatty Acid Ratios of Archaeological Potsherds from the
Western Great Basin of North America. Archaeometry 47(1):83–102.
Evershed, Richard P. 2008. Organic Residue Analysis in Archaeology: The Archaeological Biomarker
Revolution. Archaeometry 50(6):895–924.
■ T A M M Y Y. B U O N A S E R A
G AT H E R I N G
See Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence
GENDER
See Food and Gender; Foodways and Gender Roles
G E S H E R B E N O T YA ‘A Q O V ( I S R A E L )
Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov (GBY) is located in the southern part of the Hula Valley, Israel, a
segment of the Dead Sea Rift.The Acheulian site dates to the Early to Middle Pleistocene
and includes evidence of prehistoric occupations in a waterlogged sedimentary sequence
typical of lake margins. Rich lithic, paleontological, and paleobotanical assemblages were
found throughout, enabling an environmental reconstruction of the paleo–Hula Valley
and furnishing data on past Mediterranean climate and biological taxa typical of this area.
The identification of varied edible floral and faunal taxa, together with the stone tools,
suggests that many species were introduced to the site for consumption.
The GBY site provides a unique archive of early hominin diet consisting of aquatic
and terrestrial sources. The faunal assemblage includes over 74 species of fish, birds,
micro-mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and medium and large mammals. A preference for
particular foodstuffs is seen in selective consumption of certain fish species (carp), deer,
elephant, and hippopotamus. The mammal bones show damage marks caused by stone
tools used to deflesh, disarticulate, and extract tissue, brain, and marrow for consumption.
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235
The methods of carcass handling and butchery resemble those of modern humans, attesting to advanced technology and developed cognitive abilities.
Over 100,000 botanical remains, including 26 species of trees, bushes, and climbers,
and 129 species of fruits and seeds were excavated. Edible species include fruits (almonds,
figs, grapes, olives, juniper berries, and others) and several species of nuts such as fox nuts,
pistachios, acorns, and water chestnuts (Euryale ferox, Pistacia atlantica, Quercus sp., Trapa
natans), as well as various underground storage organs.These and other plants that contain
toxins were most likely treated by fire to make them edible. The hearths detected in the
GBY archaeological horizons provide the earliest evidence of controlled fire in Eurasia
(790,000 BP) and were probably used in the processing of plants and other foodstuffs,
thus enriching the scope and quality of food resources.
See also Archaeobotany; Bone Fat Extraction; Butchery; Fire and the Development
of Cooking; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Macroremains; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleolithic Diet;Tools/
Utensils, Stone; Use-Wear Analysis, Lithics; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Alperson-Afil, Nira, and Naama Goren-Inbar. 2010. The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov. Vol. 2,
Ancient Flames and Controlled Use of Fire. Dordrecht: Springer.
Goren-Inbar, Naama, Sharon Gonen,Yoel Melamed, and Mordechai Kislev. 2002. Nuts, Nut Cracking,
and Pitted Stones at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA
99(4):2455–60.
Goren-Inbar, N., A. Lister, E. Werker, and M. Chech. 1994. A Butchered Elephant Skull and Associated
Artifacts from the Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. Paléorient 20(1):99–112.
■ NAAMA GOREN-INBAR
G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
Globalization is usually viewed through the lens of the modern day and defined as a
homogenizing process that links political, economic, and social relations throughout
the globe. In reality, these processes have heterogeneous, patchwork effects at the local
level and over time. Local goods and institutions may become disembedded from their
original contexts when they move elsewhere, generating a host of new interpretations and uses. Some groups may work to create hybrid or creole versions of things
or institutions, blending their local traditions with global influences, while others may
purposefully reinvigorate or reinvent local traditions to reassert their identities. Archaeology is well suited to investigating local responses to globalization since the study of
material remains and their contexts provides a direct means of tracing how local people
reconfigured global items and influences according to local circumstances, history, and
identity. On a basic level, the recovery of global goods attests to contact with external
forces, directly or indirectly, but also allows for an investigation of culture making that
highlights how local people resisted, transformed, and negotiated the global or foreign
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G L O B A L I Z AT I O N
in their daily lives. Archaeology’s long time depth also permits examination of earlier
instances of globalization that predate the spread of capitalism, which may reveal different kinds of globalization in the ancient world, such as the Old World migration of
plants and animals or the Columbian Exchange.
Understanding the role of food in globalization is important because the spread of
new foods had, and continues to have, a major impact on local ecology, demography, and
food culture. Food globalization can be defined simply as the processes by which foods
move across and between continents and are adopted locally. This can involve individual plant or animal species as well as preparation methods. Varied local responses to the
introduction of new foods can be studied by looking at how they are incorporated into
existing food systems.While we might think of food globalization as a modern phenomenon, there are numerous examples of early food movements, such as the spread of African
pearl millet to India or of broomcorn millet across Eurasia several thousand years ago.
New foods were some of the earliest goods to spread such long distances, but it is only
recently that such processes have been viewed as instances of food globalization.
An emerging archaeology of food globalization focuses on investigating the primary
motivations behind and effects of adopting foreign foods. It is important to trace how new
crops were adopted because it tells us something of prevailing environmental, economic,
and social concerns during long-distance trade. Scholars of the Columbian Exchange as
well as a recent working group on “Food Globalisations in Prehistory” based at Cambridge University have highlighted the fact that new crops that are added to agricultural
repertoires may exploit ecological opportunities that native crops are not able to utilize.
One prime example of this is the American crop maize, which has a short growing season
and thus benefits from the two-peak rainfall cycle in tropical Africa, thereby outproducing local grains (figure 29). There may be economic incentives for adopting a new crop
with higher yields, such as the need to feed a large labor force or produce a surplus for
trade. For instance, in coastal West Africa, the quick adoption of maize may have been
motivated by the desire for surplus grains to trade with European ships. There are also
a wide range of social reasons why people may adopt new foods. Exotic and rare foods
are oftentimes imbued with prestige and may be highly valued locally, especially at their
initial introduction. It is also important to recognize the persistence of indigenous crops,
however, even after new, more productive alternatives are introduced, which can suggest
that people adhere to native foods to maintain cultural identity, even if it is not the most
economically or environmentally feasible choice. To return to the example of maize in
Africa, emerging data suggest that although some farmers chose to produce maize for
trade, many other groups chose to continue eating indigenous African grains.
There are at least two models for how we might employ archaeological and historical
data to understand food globalization. Nicole Boivin and Dorian Fuller suggest that for
each region we can categorize plants and animals along three interacting spectra (distance, value, and production scale) in order to determine whether they function as cash
crops, spices, exotica, risk-buffering crops, or staple foods. This model has the advantage
of being applicable to most archaeological contexts, including those lacking historical
documentation, and makes it possible to compare instances of globalization across time
and space. Another view comes from Richard Wilk, who defines several microprocesses
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Figure 29. Left: The earliest depiction of maize in Africa, centered among native African
foodstuffs, appeared in Pieter de Marees’s Description and Historical Account of the Gold
Kingdom of Guinea (1602). As this image shows, the processes of globalization and the
movement of foods, ideas about foods, and food technologies are not confined to the modern
era but have considerable time depth. Photograph by Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Yale University Library, courtesy of James C. McCann. Right: Maize rouletting, a
decorative technique shown in these experimental ceramic forms (McCann 2005; Soper 1985),
has been used as a chronometric marker at archaeological sites in Africa. Photograph by James
C. McCann, from Soper 1985.
of food incorporation that are useful for archaeologists, including blending, submersion,
substitution, and alternation. Each of these mechanisms describes how people create and
maintain local food culture while adopting alien foods and techniques. While many of
these specific processes may not be recoverable with archaeological data alone, the use of
additional (e.g., texts) or multiple (e.g., phytoliths, bone taphonomy, contextual analysis)
data sources can document the diversity of food adoption processes. Ultimately, food
globalization is a multiscalar phenomenon that brings together circumstances of local
ecology, food culture, politics, and economy; such processes are negotiated in a cook’s
pot and farmer’s field, contexts that archaeology is uniquely well situated to investigate.
See also Columbian Exchange; Creole Cuisines/Foodways; Creolization; Food and
Capitalism; Food and Colonialism; Food and Identity; Food Appropriation and Culinary Imperialism; Food as a Commodity; Food Technology and Ideas about Food,
Spread of; Immigrant Foodways; Old World Globalization and Food Exchanges;
Pacific Oceanic Exchange
Further Reading
Appadurai, Arjun, ed. 1986. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Boivin, Nicole, Dorian Q Fuller, and Alison Crowther. 2012. Old World Globalization and the Columbian Exchange: Comparison and Contrast. World Archaeology 44(3):452–69.
Inglis, David, and Debra Gilman, eds. 2009. The Globalization of Food. Oxford: Berg.
Jennings, Justin. 2011. Globalizations and the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Jones, Martin, Harriet Hunt, Emma Lightfoot, et al. 2011. Food Globalization in Prehistory. World
Archaeology 43(4):665–75.
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GÖBEKLI TEPE (TURKEY)
Kiple, Kenneth. 2007. A Moveable Feast: Ten Millennia of Food Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
McCann, James C. 2005. Maize and Grace: Africa’s Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500–2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Soper, Robert. 1985. Roulette Decoration on African Pottery: Technical Considerations, Dating and
Distributions. African Archaeological Review 3:29–51.
Wilk, Richard. 2006. Home Cooking in the Global Village: Caribbean Food from Buccaneers to Ecotourists.
New York: Berg.
■ AMANDA L. LOGAN
G L U TA M AT E S
See Umami/Glutamates
G O AT
See Sheep/Goat
GÖBEKLI TEPE (TURKEY)
The site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey is a key site of the early Holocene period
in the Old World. The artificial mound can be dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN)
culture of the tenth to ninth millennium BC. It lies on a mountain ridge north of the
Harran plain 15 kilometers northeast of the modern city of Şanlıurfa. First mentioned
in a survey report from the 1960s, the site’s importance was not recognized until 1994.
Since that time, excavations have revealed a unique monumental architecture that is rich
in symbolism, the manifestation of an elaborate belief system. Consisting mainly of sanctuaries, Göbekli Tepe is not only a unique PPN site, it is a religious center of unexpected
importance from the Early Neolithic world of Upper Mesopotamia.
The most outstanding features of Göbekli Tepe are monolithic, highly stylized but
clearly anthropomorphic, T-shaped statues. The unique abstraction of the human body
can be understood as a paleocubistic phenomenon in prehistoric art. It is restricted to several PPN sites of the Urfa region, and it is not observable in any previous or later period
(including modern art). But only the T-shapes of Göbekli Tepe exhibit monumentality,
with heights of five meters and more, while the statues from the other sites usually have
a modest size of 1.5 to 2 meters.
The architecture and findings from Göbekli Tepe attest to an extremely high level of
sociocultural complexity.The numerous grinders, mortars, and pestles found there suggest
large-scale plant processing at Göbekli Tepe. So far, only wild taxa, including cereals such
as einkorn and barley, have been identified. Hunting was also a particularly important
source of sustenance. The carving of the monoliths and the building of the enclosures
would have required considerable manpower and therefore a well-organized community.
Moreover, cult practices would most certainly have included large-scale feasting, attracting
large numbers of people to the site. For precisely this reason, organized food procurement
would have been absolutely essential, suggesting that the construction of the sanctuaries of
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239
Göbekli Tepe was an important impetus for the emergence of settled and food-producing
communities in the early Holocene in Upper Mesopotamia.
See also Carvings/Carved Representations of Food; Feasting; Food and Ritual;
Food Production and the Formation of Complex Societies; Plant Processing
Further Reading
Schmidt, Klaus. 2011. Göbekli Tepe: A Neolithic Site in Southeastern Anatolia. In Oxford Handbook of
Ancient Anatolia, 10,000–323 BCE, edited by Sharon R. Steadman and Gregory McMahon, 918–33.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2012. Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Hunters and Gatherers: Anatolia. In A Companion
to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, vol. 1, edited by D. T. Potts, 144–60. Chichester, UK:
Wiley-Blackwell.
■ K L AU S S C H M I DT
GORDION (TURKEY)
Gordion was nearly continuously occupied between 2300 BC and the 14th century AD.
It was the home of King Midas of Phrygia (ca. 800 BC) and the place where Alexander
the Great cut the Gordian Knot. Over one hundred Phrygian tumuli (burial mounds) dot
the landscape. The largest, Tumulus MM, provides insight into the cuisine of that time.
(Once thought to be the tomb of King Midas, it is more likely that of his predecessor.)
The primary evidence for food comes from plant and animal remains, including
chemical residues from vessels. In addition to actual food remains, features and artifacts
provide further insight into diet and cuisine. Excavations directed by Mary Voigt took special care to systematically retrieve plant and animal remains through flotation and sieving.
Plant remains from the earlier Rodney Young excavations were collected as encountered.
The material mostly comes from occupation debris, providing only indirect evidence
for human consumption. Two burnt houses with in situ stored crop remains confirm some
of the plants grown for food.The animal remains, primarily bone, represent food processing
remains. Excavation has uncovered an array of storage pits, bins, ovens (closed), and hearths
(open) in domestic contexts. Ceramic storage, cooking, and serving vessels have been found,
including sieved beer-drinking vessels and wine amphorae. Metal items associated with food
are fewer because metal was usually recycled in antiquity. Particularly valuable evidence
comes from the remains of a funerary feast deposited with the royal burial in Tumulus MM:
cauldrons, serving vessels, dinnerware, serving buckets, and drinking bowls.
Free-threshing wheat (Triticum aestivum and T. durum) and barley (Hordeum vulgare)
are the most common food plants throughout the Gordion sequence. An Early Iron Age
burnt structure yielded concentrations of barley, free-threshing wheat, and bitter vetch
(Vicia ervilia). Seeds of those plants, along with lentils (Lens culinaris), flax (Linum usitatissimum), and hazelnut (Corylus avellana), were found in the Early Phrygian destruction level.
All but flax and hazelnut occur throughout the sequence.
In addition to the major crop plants, einkorn (Triticum monococcum) and emmer wheat
(Triticum dicoccum), chickpea (Cicer arietinum), grape (Vitis vinifera), millet (Setaria italica
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and Panicum miliaceum), and rice (Oryza sativa) were grown at various times. Wild bitter
almond (Prunus sp.), terebinth (Pistacia cf. terebinthus, a wild pistachio), and fig (Ficus carica)
occur in small numbers and would have been collected locally. Hazelnut, found in the
service buildings of the elite quarter at the site, would have been imported from the Black
Sea region. The seeds of other edible plants, wild and possibly domesticated, were recovered in small quantities, for example, single seeds of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum)
and coriander (Coriandrum cf. sativum); in the absence of persuasive contextual evidence,
it is safest to assume they were at best minor contributors to the diet.
The primary food animals at Gordion are all domesticates: sheep (Ovis aries), goats
(Capra hircus), cattle (Bos taurus), and pigs (Sus scrofa). In each phase, they account for
at least 92 percent of the bone count (NISP). Three kinds of deer (red deer [Cervus
elaphus], fallow deer [Dama cf. dama], and roe deer [Capreolus capreolus]), hares (Lepus
cf. capensis), fish, reptiles (mostly tortoises [Testudo sp.]), and birds complete the faunal
inventory. In addition to bones and horn cores, fish scales and eggshell were also found.
Domestic fowl increase over time. Caprines (sheep and goats) and cattle presumably
supplied dairy products as well as meat, but dairy residues and processing equipment
have not been recognized yet.
Remains of the ceremonial feast accompanying the burial in Tumulus MM provide
evidence of food and drink. Residues found in several containers were characterized by
tartaric acid (from grape), calcium oxalate (from barley beer fermentation), and traces of
beeswax (honey), indicating a mixed fermented beverage of wine, beer, and mead was
served. Residues in pottery jars suggest that a stew of lentil and barbecued sheep or goat
meat was the main course.
Gordion has one of the longest and largest post-Neolithic sequences of archaeobiological remains from the Near East. We infer that most food was sourced locally from an
agropastoral system based on the cultivation of several varieties of wheat, barley, lentil, and
bitter vetch and the herding of sheep and goats (caprines), with some cattle and pigs. Caprine herding and hunting were usually associated with low-intensity cultivation of dryfarmed cereals. Deviations from this basic pattern occurred at several points. An increase
in einkorn and the introduction of millet were coincident with the presumed arrival (ca.
1200 BC) of Phrygian migrants from the Balkans, where those two crops were common.
During the time of Midas and his successors, increased cattle and pig production were
associated with irrigation cultivation. During the medieval period, caprine herding was
accompanied by intensification of land use: summer-irrigated rice and millet.
The Gordion region is marginally suited for agriculture; the traditional agropastoral
subsistence system that developed there permits a flexible response to the erratic rainfall
regime. The Gordion seed and bone assemblages allow us to trace long-term human
responses to an agriculturally marginal environment.
See also Animal Husbandry and Herding; Archaeobotany; Barley; Beer; Cattle; Cereals; Feasting; Honey and Nectar; Mead; Neolithic Package; Offerings and Grave
Goods; Pig; Residue Analysis, Tartaric Acid; Secondary Products Revolution;
Sheep/Goat; Wheat
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Further Reading
Kealhofer, Lisa, ed. 2005. The Archaeology of Midas and the Phrygians. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum.
Marston, John M. 2011. Archaeological Markers of Agricultural Risk Management. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30(2):190–205.
McGovern, Patrick E., Donald L. Glusker, Robert A. Moreau, et al. 1999. A Funerary Feast Fit for King
Midas. Nature 402(6764):863–64.
Miller, Naomi F. 2010. Botanical Aspects of Environment and Economy at Gordion, Turkey. Gordion Special
Studies 5. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Miller, Naomi F., Melinda A. Zeder, and Susan R. Arter. 2009. From Food and Fuel to Farms and Flocks:
The Integration of Plant and Animal Remains in the Study of Ancient Agropastoral Economies at
Gordion, Turkey. Current Anthropology 50(6):915–24.
Rose, C. Brian, and Gareth Darbyshire, eds. 2011. The New Chronology of Iron Age Gordion. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Zeder, M. A., and S. R. Arter. 1994. Changing Patterns of Animal Utilization at Ancient Gordion.
Paléorient 20(2):105–18.
■ N A O M I F. M I L L E R
GOURDS
See Bottle Gourd; Squash/Gourds
G R A N D O L I N A ( S PA I N )
The Gran Dolina (TD) cave site is located in Sierra de Atapuerca, near the city of Burgos,
in northern Spain. TD is one of the most important sites in Europe because its deposits
cover the transition from the Early to Middle Pleistocene. The lower levels have provided human fossil remains and lithic tools dated to the Matuyama Chron (1.78–0.78
MYA) and probably from the period between the Jaramillo event (1.0 MYA) and the
Brunhes/Matuyama reversal (780 KYA). The site also contains significant evidence of
human subsistence during the Pleistocene and reveals exploitation of a variety of animal
species, as well as evidence of cannibalism. The sediments accumulated in the cave were
cut and exposed by the construction of a railway trench at the end of the 19th century.
The stratigraphic section (18 meters deep) has been divided into eleven geological levels,
TD1 to TD11, from bottom to top, although a more detailed study of the stratigraphy is
in progress. The dimensions of the cave and the extent of the infilling are unknown. A
summary of the main dates and dating methods is presented in figure 30.
Excavations have revealed considerable variation in the cave deposits, indicating different uses. Some levels (TD1 and TD2) have neither fossils nor lithic tools (cave closed).
Other levels contain only vertebrate fossil remains (TD7, TD8, and TD11). Five levels
preserve vertebrate remains with evidence of anthropic activities and lithic tools (TD10,
TD6, TD5, and TD4/TD3). TD6 has also yielded human fossil remains. The thin TD9
level contains only artifacts. In both TD10 and TD6-2 levels, there is clear evidence of
intense anthropic activities, whereas hominins seem to have been only occasional visitors
to the cave during the deposition of levels TD5, TD6-3, and TD4/TD3.
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G R A N D O L I N A ( S PA I N )
Figure 30. Stratigraphic profile of the deposits and levels at the Gran Dolina cave site. The total
length of the site is 17 meters. Thermoluminescence (TL) and infrared stimulated-luminescence
(IRSL) dates are from Berger et al. 2008; Electro Spin Resonance and Uranium Series (ESR/Useries) dates are from Falguères et al. 1999; the ESR on optically bleached quartz (ESR-OB)
dates are from Moreno 2011. Dates are given in millions of years; that is, 0.96 means 960,000
year ago. Figure by Ruth Blasco and Jordi Rosell.
TD10 includes three well-separated and well-delimited, thick accumulations of some
thousands of fossil remains and Mousterian stone tools, with some elements characteristic of the Acheulean (Mode 2 technology in the Anglo-Saxon terminology). A previous
taphonomic study suggests that the carcasses were transported into the entrance of the
cave, and that most of the anthropic activities were aimed at marrow and meat extraction
and consumption. The accumulations were probably made by hominins like those found
at Sima de los Huesos, a cave site with a similar chronology located about one kilometer
away from Gran Dolina. The hominins from Sima de los Huesos have been provisionally
assigned to Homo heidelbergensis. Although no evidence of fire has been found in the TD10
accumulations at Gran Dolina, it is likely that the space was used as a campsite. Most of
the fossils and stone tools are in situ or only slightly displaced by gravity. These substantial
accumulations include large, partially exploited flint blocks, and there is clear evidence
that the carcasses were butchered and processed at the site as well. The list of herbivores
includes bison, deer, donkey, fallow deer, goat, horse, and rhinos. Bison are especially
abundant in TD10-2. Some remains of bear, small and big cats (Felis and Homotherium),
wild dogs, lynx, lion, and wolf are also found in this level. In the large section of TD3/4
to TD6, the list of herbivores includes bison, big deer, fallow deer, hippopotamus, horse,
mammoth, rhino, and wild boar. The lithic tools belong to the Oldowan tradition (Mode
1), although in TD6-2, where the evidence of anthropic activity is considerable, we find
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a wider diversity of knapping strategies (evolved Oldowan). Hyenas are present from TD8
to TD3/TD4, as are bear, badger, fox, wild dogs, and panther.
Human fossil remains recovered from the different sublevels of TD6-2 are attributed
to Homo antecessor, and their accumulation seems to be the result of at least two different
events of cannibalism. There is not a specific distribution, treatment, or arrangement of
the human remains, which were found randomly mixed with the other vertebrate remains. Most of the human and nonhuman fossils have evidence of intentional damage,
including stone tool cut marks, peeling, percussion marks, and chop marks, suggesting a
similar intensive exploitation. The butchery practice suggests only consumptive activities,
with no evidence of ritual or other intentions. Territorial fight for a place that was very
rich in resources seems to be the most probable hypothesis for this “cultural” practice.
This is the oldest case to date of well-documented human cannibalism.
Although the evidence obtained in the Gran Dolina cave site clearly suggests that
hominins were active predators, we cannot forget that the Iberian Peninsula is located in the
Northern Hemisphere. Thus seasonality was a determining factor in the kind and amount
of food consumed by hominins who lived in these latitudes during the Pleistocene.
See also Bone Fat Extraction; Butchery; Cannibalism; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence;
Paleodietary Analysis; Paleolithic Diet; Rockshelters/Caves;Tools/Utensils, Stone;
Weapons, Stone; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Arnold, Lee J., Martina Demuro, Josep M. Parés, et al. 2014. Luminescence Dating and Paleomagnetic
Age Constraint on Hominins from Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, Spain. Journal of Human Evolution
67:85–107.
Berger, G. W., A. Péréz-González, E. Carbonell, et al. 2008. Luminescence Chronology of Cave Sediments at the Atapuerca Paleoanthropological Site, Spain. Journal of Human Evolution 55(2):300–311.
Bermúdez de Castro, J. M., J. L. Arsuaga, E. Carbonell, et al. 1997. A Hominid from the Lower
Pleistocene of Atapuerca, Spain: Possible Ancestor to Neandertals and Modern Humans. Science
276(5317):1392–95.
Bermúdez de Castro, J. M., Eudald Carbonell, and Juan Luis Arsuaga, eds. 1999. Gran Dolina Site: TD6
Aurora Stratum (Burgos, Spain). Special Issue. Journal of Human Evolution 37(3–4):309–700.
Bermúdez de Castro, J. M., M. Martinón-Torres, E. Carbonell, et al. 2004. The Atapuerca Sites and
Their Contribution to the Knowledge of Human Evolution in Europe. Evolutionary Anthropology
13(1):25–41.
Carbonell, Eudald, Isabel Cáceres, Marina Lozano, et al. 2010. Cultural Cannibalism as a Paleoeconomic
System in the European Lower Pleistocene. Current Anthropology 51(4):539–49.
Falguères, Christophe, Jean-Jacques Bahain,Yuji Yokoyama, et al. 1999. Earliest Humans in Europe: The
Age of TD6 Gran Dolina, Spain. Journal of Human Evolution 37(3–4):343–52.
Moreno, Davinia. 2011. Datation par ESR de quartz optiquement blanchis (ESR-OB) de la région
d’Atapuerca (Burgos, Espagne). Ph.D. Dissertation, Universitat Rovira i Virgili,Tarragona, Spain, and
Musée National d’Historie Naturelle, Paris, France.
Rodríguez, J., F. Burjachs, G. Cuenca-Bescós, et al. 2011. One Million Years of Cultural Evolution in a
Stable Environment at Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain). Quaternary Science Reviews 30(11–12):1396–1412.
■ JOSÉ MARÍA BERMÚDEZ DE CASTRO
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GREENS/HERBS
G R AV E G O O D S
See Offerings and Grave Goods
GREENS/HERBS
Greens and herbs for food and for healing have been gathered from the wild by both
foraging and hunter-gatherer populations since at least the Middle Paleolithic, and by
farming peoples for millennia. Greens provide an important source of nutrition, as well
as diversity and flavor. Plants are often used as medicine, and it is probable that little distinction was made in the past between greens for food and herbs for flavor or medicine,
apart from medicinal herbs that are toxic and need to be administered in careful doses.
Farmers would often tolerate or even encourage certain “weeds” in their crops and near
their communities for their value as edible greens, and this practice is still widespread
today, for example, among the Papago of the southwest United States and Mexico.
Leafy greens rarely survive in archaeological deposits, so most of what we know about
these plants is from finding their seeds, though leaf epidermis and cuticle are occasionally
recovered from waterlogged deposits and fecal remains. Many greens are best collected
young before the plant sets seed, so the vast majority of plants collected as greens and
herbs are probably unknown on archaeological sites. It can be very difficult to interpret
whether the presence of seeds indicates deliberate collection of greens or whether the
seeds are present incidentally as the result of another activity. Cultivated greens and herbs
often have seeds that cannot be distinguished from the seeds of their wild relatives, but
these can be interpreted as cultivated when found outside their native habitat. Seeds of
leaf beet (Beta vulgaris) found at Qara Qorum, Mongolia, for example, dating from the
Mongol Empire, are likely to have been cultivated.
Most greens and herbs that people collected were likely to have been local species
representing a far wider range of greens and herbs than those we are familiar with from
global markets today. Only a few species became widespread as garden herbs or vegetable
crops. Examples of the latter are several species of the cabbage and mustard family (Brassica
spp.). Brassica seeds are fairly common from archaeological sites in Europe, though they
are difficult to identify to species and are also common as weeds. It is rare to be able to
identify them for certain as greens used by people. In an unusual example, cooked leafy
greens were identified from epicuticular leaf wax found in the fabric of several pottery
vessels from the late Saxon/early medieval settlement at Raunds in England. Plant waxes
are difficult to identify and this method is rarely undertaken, but in this case the wax
components of a Brassica, probably cabbage (B. oleracea), were identified using gas chromatography and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry.
See also Archaeobotany; Flotation; Gas Chromatography/Gas Chromatography–
Mass Spectrometry; Paleofecal Analysis; Plant Husbandry; Plants; Weeds
Further Reading
Ertuğ, Füsun. 2009.Wild Plant Foods: Routine Dietary Supplements or Famine Foods? In From Foragers
to Farmers, edited by Andrew Fairbairn and Ehud Weiss, 64–70. Oxford: Oxbow.
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245
Evershed, R. P., C. Heron, and L. J. Goad. 1991. Epicuticular Wax Components Preserved in Potsherds
as Chemical Indicators of Leafy Vegetables in Ancient Diets. Antiquity 65(3):540–44.
Rösch, Manfred, Elske Fischer, and Tanya Märkle. 2005. Human Diet and Land Use in the Time of
the Khans—Archaeobotanical Research in the Capital of the Mongolian Empire, Qara Qorum,
Mongolia. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 14(4):485–92.
■ LISA MOFFETT
G U I L Á N AQ U I TZ ( M E X I CO)
Guilá Naquitz is a rockshelter located west of Mitla in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, that was
occupied repeatedly but seasonally during the Pre-Ceramic, and for extended times during
the Formative and Classic periods. Analysis of the biological and archaeological material
from Guilá Naquitz records the process of human manipulation of wild species and, in some
cases, their domestication. The painstaking removal of nearly 1.5 meters of deposit by K.V.
Flannery and associates complements the work of R. S. MacNeish in the Tehuacán Valley
and is one of the most frequently cited works on the Mesoamerican Pre-Ceramic period.
Three specimens recovered on the upper surface of layer B1, of allegedly domesticated
teosinte, were dated using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to 6,240 cal BP. These
show many features reminiscent of teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis or ssp. mexicana) and
some features that resemble maize (Z. mays ssp. mays). The rachis of these specimens did
not disarticulate naturally and thus did not disperse their grains naturally, suggesting they
were dependent on humans for dispersal, that is, domesticated. Maize does appear in more
recent deposits representing the much later Postclassic or Historic periods.Wild beans (species currently unknown) were harvested as early as 7,540 cal BP. Domesticated common
beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) were present around 2,090 cal BP and reoccur later at 1,050 cal
BP. Squash (Cucurbita pepo) was domesticated at least by 7,760 cal BP based on fruit stem
size and shape. Seeds from wild or domesticated populations occur as early as 9,980 cal BP.
Gathered fruits from wild populations of trees and shrubs provided a diverse diet
for the Pre-Ceramic inhabitants of Guilá Naquitz. Oak (Quercus spp.) acorns, mesquite
(Prosopis sp.) legumes, nance (Byrsonima crassifolia) fruits, and cactus (Opuntia spp.) stems
and fruits, as well as maquey (Agave spp.), formed the basis of the vegetal diet for the
hunting and gathering inhabitants for thousands of years. Precise dates on specimens are
not available but dates on associated material indicate their procurement began as early
as 10,000 cal BP and lasted through the historical period.
See also Archaeobotany; Bean/Common Bean; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Maize;
Mesoamerican Archaic-Period Diet; Plant Domestication; Rockshelters/Caves;
Squash/Gourds; Tehuacán Valley
Further Reading
Flannery, Kent V., ed. 1986. Guilá Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico. San
Diego, CA: Academic Press.
■ B R U C E F. B E N Z
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G U T A N A LY S I S
G U T A N A LY S I S
The study of ancient human intestinal contents provides precious insights into the life
and nutritional habits of our ancestors. Few well-preserved mummified individuals still
contain remnants of the intestinal tract, however, including traces of gut and stomach
contents. Thus most studies focus on the macro- and microscopic analysis of coprolites
that are fossilized feces materials. A computed tomography–based (CT) examination is
used to identify and locate the intestinal tract in mummies. Macroscopic investigation
is then used to reveal unique physicochemical signatures of the intestinal content such
as high hydrophobicity (the material is repelled from water), indicating a fatty, acid-rich
diet. Further microscopic analysis can provide important information on the diet source.
Co-occurrence of animal muscle fibers and plant tissue, for example, suggests an omnivorous lifestyle. Moreover, by comparing the microscopic pollen content of the intestines
with seasonal local pollen profiles, one may even infer the possible season when the
mummified individual died. Finally, the microscopic detection of parasite eggs in intestinal contents provides important insights into living conditions in the past, indicating the
frequency of poor hygiene. Macro- and microscopic observation can be complemented
and further extended with modern molecular strategies. Molecular analyses are highly
innovative, using the whole spectrum of possible biomolecules (ancient DNA, proteins,
metabolites, lipids) for diagnostic purposes. This combined approach of microscopy and
molecular analysis can compensate for the varying degrees and states of preservation of
the different biomolecules.
During recent radiological reexaminations carried out on the Tyrolean Iceman, a
5,300-year-old frozen mummy, his stomach was identified and shown to be completely
filled. An endoscopy-guided biopsy sample of the Iceman’s stomach contents was taken
with subsequent macroscopic, microscopic, and molecular analysis to identify the nature
of the Iceman’s last meal: a mixture of grain material and meat fibers of wild animals
with high fat content.
See also Archaeobotany; Bioarchaeological Analysis; Biomolecular Analysis; Bogs;
DNA Analysis; Iceman; Mummies; Paleofecal Analysis; Paleonutrition; Paleopathology; Palynology; Parasitological Analysis
Further Reading
Gostner, Paul, Patrizia Pernter, Giampietro Bonatti, et al. 2011. New Radiological Insights into the Life
and Death of the Tyrolean Iceman. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(12):3425–31.
■ FRANK MAIXNER AND ALBERT R. ZINK
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H
HAITHABU/HEDEBY (GERMANY)
In the Viking Age, Haithabu (Hedeby in Danish) was the most important trading center
on the Baltic Sea. Its location on the Jutland Peninsula gave Haithabu (AD 800–1066)
connections to the North Sea and beyond. Haithabu is particularly well known for its excellent preservation conditions and the recovery of large amounts of uncarbonized plant
remains and animal bones. The range of evidence has given archaeologists an excellent
understanding of food consumption practices in the Viking era.
Archaeobotanical data indicate that there was limited local farming, but residents
acquired numerous foodstuffs from surrounding areas. Other plant foods were foraged
locally. Cultivated plants include hulled Hordeum vulgare (barley), Secale cereale (rye), Avena
sativa (common oats), and Panicum miliaceum (common millet), as well as Linum usitatissimum for oil and probably also fibers. Hundreds of hop fruitlets were found across the settlement area, and beer is known to have been an important local beverage. Prunus insititia
(damson plum) was cultivated here (figure 22) but represents only a small percentage of
stone fruit remains. Archaeologists recovered 8,656 fruit stones of Prunus spinosa (blackthorn or sloe), a number that far surpasses the 825 stones of the cultivated Prunus insititia.
Thousands of hazelnuts (Corylus avellana) and beechnuts (Fagus sylvatica) were recovered,
as well as large quantities of berries from many species, suggesting they were significant
components of the local diet.
Faunal evidence indicates that Haithabu’s residents consumed meat in substantial
quantities, though evidence for animal herding is limited. In contrast to rural sites, pig
was the main source of meat (63 percent), followed by cattle (26 percent), sheep/goat,
chicken, and geese (though the faunal remains of horses were present, it is not certain that
they were eaten). In addition, large amounts of fish remains were found. Wild mammal
remains were scarce, however.
Far-reaching trade connections permitted the importation of foods, including wine.
Numerous excavated barrels were made from Abies wood, indicating that they came from
vineyards in southern or southwestern Germany.
See also Archaeobotany; Beer; Cereals; Fruits; Macroremains; Meat; Nuts; Trade
Routes; Zooarchaeology
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HAZOR (ISRAEL)
Further Reading
Behre, Karl-Ernst. 1983. Ernährung und Umwelt der wikingerzeitlichen Siedlung Haithabu. Neumünster:
Wachholtz.
Reichstein, Hans. 1984.Tierische Nahrung in Haithabu. In Archäologische und naturwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen an Siedlungen im deutschen Küstengebiet, vol. 2, edited by Herbert Jankuhn, Kurt Schietzel,
and Hans Reichstein, 215–30. Weinheim: Verlag Chemie.
■ KARL-ERNST BEHRE
HAZOR (ISRAEL)
Feasts in the Canaanite kingdoms of the Late Bronze (LB) Age (18th–13th centuries BC),
as shown by artistic depictions, were opportunities for conspicuous consumption, displays
of wealth, and vehicles of power. Hazor was the largest and best-connected Canaanite
kingdom in the Southern Levant throughout this period. Two of its monumental edifices
were interpreted as ritual feasting loci, differing in scale, not essence.
The finds in the Orthostats temple and courtyard (area H) indicate ritualized slaughter
held around “altars,” followed by communal meals. Excavated in the 1950s, no bones or
botanical remains are available, so the interpretation rests on the ceramic assemblage. In
a relatively restricted range of vessels, there is a higher percentage of open and oversized
serving vessels and a prevalence of food-preparation vessels.
There is an unusually abundant faunal assemblage in the royal ceremonial precinct
(Building 7050 and its courtyard) on the acropolis, indicating feasting. It consists mainly of
large mature males, reflecting a clear preference for certain species and an intentional selection of specific body parts of animals of a certain age and sex.The architectural context
and the existence of ceremonial bronze knives further support this interpretation. The
ceramic assemblage is dominated by dry-foods serving vessels, mainly bowls. Cooking
vessels are uncommon, so the food was probably brought ready to eat.
Zooarchaeological analysis of a domestic context (Area S) shows that the transition
from the LBI to the LBII reflects changes in animal use: a significant decline in the frequency of large game (indicating a royal monopoly), an aging of the herds, and an increase
in the proportions of female caprines. It is likely that the missing males are accounted for
by the male-dominated slaughter waste discovered in the royal ceremonial precinct. This
indicates that these animals were levied and not raised in a specialized temple flock. The
evidence for increased bone marrow extraction is contemporary with the evidence for
feasting and the aggrandizing of architecture on the acropolis.
Although the differentiation between royal feasts and religious feasts following sacrifices to the gods is difficult on the basis of material remains, the royal and religious
authorities were undoubtedly equally involved. A fundamental aspect of Ancient Near
Eastern feasts, reflected clearly in Hazor, is their inseparable religious and political context.
See also Archaeobotany; Architectural Analysis; Bone Fat Extraction; Commensality; Feasting; Food and Politics; Food and Power; Food and Ritual; Foodways and
Religious Practices; Material Culture Analysis; Zooarchaeology
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Further Reading
Ben-Tor, Amnon. 2013. The Ceremonial Precinct in the Upper City of Hazor. Near Eastern Archaeology
76(20):81–91.
Lev-Tov, Justin, and Kevin McGeough. 2007. Examining Feasting in Late Bronze Age Syro-Palestine
through Ancient Texts and Bones. In The Archaeology of Food and Identity, edited by Katheryn C.
Twiss, 85–111. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University.
Marom, Nimrod, and Sharon Zuckerman. 2012. The Zooarchaeology of Exclusion and Expropriation:
Looking Up from the Lower City in Late Bronze Age Hazor. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
31(4):573–85.
Zuckerman, Sharon. 2007. “Slaying Oxen and Killing Sheep, Eating Flesh and Drinking Wine”: Feasting
in Late Bronze Age Hazor. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 139(3):186–204.
■ SHARON ZUCKERMAN
H E A LT H
See Paleodietary Analysis; Paleonutrition; Paleopathology
HEARTHS
See Fire-Based Cooking Features
HEDEBY
See Haithabu/Hedeby
HERBS
See Greens/Herbs
H E R C U L A N E U M A N D P O M P E I I ( I TA LY )
The particular preservation conditions created by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79
contribute significantly to our understanding of Roman food production, processing, and
consumption. Evidence includes food remains, material culture contextualized within
standing buildings, written sources, artwork, and skeletal material that together offer
complementary—and sometimes contrasting—insights into questions of diet and health.
Ongoing research continues to generate new knowledge.
The Bay of Naples has fertile volcanic soils, a favorable climate, and a reliable water
source, making it a productive agricultural region during the Roman era. A recent study
of the density of land use has identified more than 150 Roman farms in the area surrounding Pompeii, Stabiae, and Nuceria. Research incorporating pollen and seed analysis
has indicated that olives, fruit trees, and vegetables were grown across the Sarno Plain
but were also cultivated in smaller quantities within the gardens and orchards of Pompeii
and Herculaneum. Vineyards were planted not only on the slopes of Vesuvius but across
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H E R C U L A N E U M A N D P O M P E I I ( I T A LY )
the plain and within the towns themselves. Campanian wine was traded throughout the
Roman Empire, and amphorae have been found as far afield as India. Other locally obtained food products included honey from beekeeping and meat obtained from animal
husbandry and hunting. Those foods that were not found locally were relatively easily
sourced because the Bay of Naples lay at the center of a strategic network of supply routes
around the Roman Empire. Evidence from Vesuvian sites includes olive oil imported from
Tripolitania (modern day Libya), wine from Crete, and dates and plums from Palestine.
Some stages of food processing would have taken place before entering the Vesuvian
towns. For example, the absence of chaff in the sample from the Cardo V cesspit suggests
that clean grain was brought into Herculaneum, having been parched, threshed, and winnowed elsewhere. It would then have been brought into one of the town’s bakeries, where
it would have been ground into flour, used to make bread or other produce, and baked.
For many living in the Roman world, eating would have been a pragmatic and fast
affair, often while standing at the counter of one of the many shops, bars, and taverns that
can be found in Pompeii and Herculaneum (figure 31). The frequency of such sites can
probably be accounted for by the lack of full kitchen facilities in many homes, particularly
the smaller upper-floor apartments.
In domestic contexts, food would have been prepared in various places throughout a
building, with cooking taking place in kitchens that were usually located on the ground
floor. In smaller apartments, food would have been simply heated on braziers. Cooking
utensils, pots, pans, and dishes have been found in a variety of types and materials, from
ceramic to bronze and silver. Further up the social order, dining within the family or
Figure 31. The “ad cucumas” sign on Herculaneum’s Decumanus Maximus provides prices for
four different types of wine available in the adjacent tavern (SANP Foglia Archive image 14513b).
With the permission of the Special Archaeological Superintendency for Pompeii, Herculaneum,
and Stabiae, an office of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism.
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with guests would have taken place in dedicated dining rooms. Larger houses and villas
often contained more than one such room, and dining could take place inside or outside
in the garden. Numerous wall paintings and mosaics from the Vesuvian sites illustrate the
use of these spaces, including the layout of dining couches, tables, and dining services,
along with the social context of eating.
The range of foods that made up the cuisine of wealthy Romans, including stuffed
dormice, flamingos, and other delicacies, is described in ancient texts such as Apicius’s
recipe book and in literary accounts of dinner parties. Wall paintings provide evidence of
fruit and vegetables, such as asparagus, cucumbers, and carrots, and a rich variety of fish
and seafood. The preservation of organic materials through carbonization, at Herculaneum in particular, has revealed the range of foods that actually found their way onto the
Roman table in the first century AD, including bread and cakes; a range of cereals; olives;
fruit such as pomegranates, dates, figs, and pears; almonds and walnuts; eggs; broad beans;
lentils; onions and garlic; and even a piece of cheese (figure 32).
Greater understanding of what the Romans actually ate has recently resulted from the
excavation of the largest sample of Roman excrement ever found, from the tunnel-like
cesspit under the Cardo V road at Herculaneum. The preliminary results provide insight
into the diet and health of a broad cross section of Herculaneum residents. The identified
remains include both foods that had passed through the digestive tract and those that
were kitchen scraps and provide evidence for a wide-ranging diet of fruit and vegetables,
meat, and fish. In particular, figs, grapes, olives, eggs, and shellfish appeared throughout the
cesspit, as did apples and pears. Other common vegetables included cabbage, beans, and
lentils. Perhaps not surprisingly for a seafront town, seafood and fish were found in large
quantities, including cockles, mussels, cuttlefish, sea urchins, sea bream, mackerel, sardine,
eel, and anchovy. Chicken, sheep, and pig bones were also found, some with butchery
marks. Finally, this diet would have been flavored with such seasonings as dill, coriander,
mint, and even black peppercorn.
Figure 32. Left: Carbonized loaf of bread from Herculaneum. With the permission of the
Archaeological Superintendency for Naples, an office of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and
Tourism. Right: Bowl of figs excavated at Herculaneum (SANP Archive image 77615-2319). With
the permission of the Special Archaeological Superintendency for Pompeii, Herculaneum, and
Stabiae, an office of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Tourism.
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The Vesuvian sites cannot offer much insight into questions regarding the differing
diets of slaves and freedmen, as slaves would have lived within the same households as
the wealthy, and the surviving food evidence cannot be connected to individuals in such
close quarters. The Herculaneum cesspit excavation highlights the risk of correlating social status to diet, however, at least in this area of the Roman world. The organic remains
found in the cesspit below Insula Orientalis II came from a series of modest shops and
apartments, yet the owners and inhabitants obviously had a varied and healthy diet. The
skeletal material from both sites also suggests that the excavated individuals—and recent
research suggests that they were a cross section of the population, not the elderly and
infirm as has previously been suggested—generally did not suffer from poor nutrition or
illness during their growing years and had the potential for a life span comparable to that
of modern Western populations.
See also Amphorae; Archaeobotany; Architectural Analysis; Bakeries; Bioarchaeological Analysis; Domestic Sites; Latrines and Sewer Systems; Macroremains;
Markets/Exchange; Milling; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleofecal Analysis; Spatial
Analysis and Visualization Techniques; Spices; Trade Routes; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Borriello, Mariarosario, et al. 2005. Cibi e sapori dell’area vesuviana. Naples: Electa.
Curtis, Robert. 2001. Rome I and Rome II. In Ancient Food Technology, 323–419. Leiden: Brill.
Kastenmeier, Pia. 2007. I luoghi del lavoro domestico nella casa pompeiana. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider.
Pagano, Mario. 2000. L’alimentazione. In Gli antichi ercolanesi: Antropologia, società, economia, 124–27.
Naples: Electa Napoli.
Petrone, Pier Paolo, Luciano Fattore, and Vincenzo Monetti. 2002. Alimentazione e malattie ad Ercolano. In Vesuvio 79 A.D.:Vita e morte ad Ercolano, edited by Pier Paolo Petrone and Francesco Fedele,
75–84. Naples: Fridericiana Editrice Universitaria.
Roberts, Paul. 2013. Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum. London: British Museum Press.
Robinson, Mark, and Erica Rowan. 2015. Roman Food Remains in Archaeology and the Contents
of a Roman Sewer at Herculaneum. In A Companion to Food in the Ancient World, edited by John
Wilkins and Robin Nadeau. London: Wiley-Blackwell. In press.
■ SARAH COURT
HIERARCHY
See Food and Inequality; Food and Status
H I G H P E R F O R M A N C E L I Q U I D C H R O M AT O G R A P H Y ( H P L C )
High performance liquid chromatography (formerly known as high pressure liquid
chromatography) is a complementary technique to gas chromatography with a focus
on liquid phase separations. In archaeology, HPLC has seen wide usage on compounds
as diverse as lipids and amino acids and has been applied to the analysis of residues in
amphorae and other ceramic vessels. HPLC has been used successfully to detect the
presence of caffeine, theobromine, and other biomarkers of Ilex (cassina, or the black
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drink) at Cahokia (USA), as well as to identify the use of vessels for cacao, wines and
mixed beverages, and oils.
HPLC consists of a system to pump a liquid through an HPLC column, where separation occurs, and then into one of several types of detectors. HPLC columns can be
prepared using proprietary packings (i.e., materials with a set of characteristics for the
separation of a specific class of compounds) having diameters from approximately two to
ten micrometers. Two of the most frequently used column types are normal phase and
reversed phase. Normal phase columns contain a polar packing and use a nonpolar mobile
phase, while reversed phase columns, sometimes called C-18 or ODS, utilize a nonpolar
packing and a polar solvent system. The combination of solvent and column allows for
the separation of thousands of compounds having different chemical properties. Detectors
for HPLC range from refractive index (RI), which detects all things having a different
refractive index than the solvent, to mass spectrometry (MS) where one can obtain molecular weight information from a sample and, through the use of known standards and
instrument libraries, identify unknown materials. Recently there have been developments
in HPLC with the introduction of systems called uPLC that use smaller particle columns.
These instruments operate at higher pressures and require a shorter time for analysis.
See also Amphorae; Biomolecular Analysis; Black Drink (Cassina); Cacao/Chocolate;
Gas Chromatography/Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry; Olive Oil; Wine
Further Reading
Barnard, Hans, Alek N. Dooley, Gregory Areshian, et al. 2011. Chemical Evidence for Wine Production
around 4000 BCE in the Late Chalcolithic Near Eastern Highlands. Journal of Archaeological Science
38(5):977–84.
Hurst, W. J., R. A. Martin Jr., S. M. Tarka Jr., and G. D. Hall. 1989. Authentication of Cocoa in Ancient
Mayan Vessels Using HPLC Techniques. Journal of Chromatography 466:279–89.
McGovern, Patrick, Anne P. Underhill, Hui Fang, et al. 2005. Chemical Identification and Cultural
Implications of a Mixed Fermented Beverage from Late Prehistoric China. Asian Perspectives
44(2):249–75.
Passi, Siro, M. C. Rothschild-Boros, P. Fasella, et al. 1981. An Application of High Performance Liquid Chromatography to Analysis of Lipids in Archaeological Samples. Journal of Lipid Research
22(5):778–84.
Snyder, Lloyd R., Joseph J. Kirkland, and John W. Dolan. 2009. Introduction to Modern Liquid Chromatography. 3rd edition. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
■ W. J E F F R E Y H U R S T
H I L A Z O N TA C H T I T ( I S R A E L )
The remains of the earliest documented communal meals (feasts) to date were recovered
from the small cave site of Hilazon Tachtit, located on a steep escarpment in the Upper
Galilee region of Israel. The site was occupied ~12,000 cal BP during the Late Natufian
period, just prior to the adoption of agriculture in the ensuing Neolithic.The cave served
as the burial site for at least 28 individuals interred in two small structures (approxiimately
one-by-one meter in size) and three pits (figure 33).
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H I L A Z O N TA C H T I T ( I S R A E L )
Figure 33. The earliest known evidence for communal meals was recovered from the cave of
Hilazon Tachtit, Israel. Left: Two small structures and three pits were cut into the bedrock of the
cave. Hundreds of faunal remains were found in association with the burials of 28 individuals in
the cave. Photograph by Naftali Hilger. © Leore Grosman. Right: Anthropogenic damage from
the extraction of marrow and bone grease was visible on faunal remains from both structures:
(A) tortoise carapace (hard dorsal shell) fragment with evidence of burning; (B) two views of a
fresh break across a tortoise plastron (hard ventral shell); (C) cut marks on a juvenile aurochs ulna
(dorsal view); (D) third phalanx of juvenile and adult aurochs; (E) articulated aurochs astragalus
(ankle bone) and calcaneus (heel bone) (arrow indicates spiral break where calcaneus was opened
to extract marrow); and (F) two aurochs first phalanges, split vertically for marrow removal.
Photographs by Gideon Hartman. © Natalie Munro. Reprinted from Munro and Grosman 2010.
Structure A was created by quarrying the bedrock and then plastering the walls and
floor with clay and stone slabs. A ~45-year-old woman suffering from age-induced pathologies and congenital deformations of the back and pelvis was buried in association
with numerous unusual faunal remains: the wing tip of an eagle, two marten skulls, the
tail of an aurochs, the pelvis of a leopard, and more than 85 tortoise carapaces (hard dorsal
shells). Burning patterns indicate that tortoise meat was cooked in the shell before being
removed through the plastron (hard ventral shell). The complete carapaces and broken
plastrons were then deposited in the grave. The meat from 85 tortoises (~250 grams each)
could have fed at least 42 people.
Evidence for feasting is even more apparent in Structure B. Here an undecorated
burial rests upon 70 centimeters of fill rich in faunal remains. The fill contains 115 aurochs bones from at least three individuals, representing all regions of the body.The bones
of both juveniles and adults show clear signs of butchery including cut marks and fresh
breaks. Articulated elements indicate that the bones were deposited when fresh (figure
33). The large concentration of freshly deposited aurochs bones in a single structure, the
rarity of these animals in Natufian contexts, and their large body size attest to the provisioning of a community gathering that likely accompanied human burials in the cave.The
evidence for feasting at Hilazon Tachtit signifies increasingly public rituals accompanying
funerary events that likely served to bind communities undergoing significant economic
and social change at the very beginning of the transition to agriculture.
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See also Butchery; Commensality; Feasting; Food and Ritual; Offerings and Grave
Goods; Rockshelters/Caves; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Grosman, Leore, Natalie D. Munro, and Anna Belfer-Cohen. 2008. A 12,000-Year-Old Burial from the
Southern Levant (Israel): A Case for Early Shamanism. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
USA 105(46):17665–69.
Munro, Natalie D., and Leore Grosman. 2010. Early Evidence (ca. 12,000 B.P.) for Feasting at a Burial
Cave in Israel. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107(35):15362–66.
■ N ATA L I E D . M U N R O A N D L E O R E G R O S M A N
H O N E Y A N D N E C TA R
Honey, a sugar-based food source made from flower nectar by several bee species, is widely
considered to be one of the first-known sweeteners and preservatives. For centuries, honey
and beeswax have proven vital to agriculture, foodways, politics, economics, industrial and
household usage, beauty treatments, medicine, rituals, religion, and mythology.
Apiculture is well known from an early archaeological context. Ancient civilizations
foraged wild honey and constructed beehives using natural plant and animal materials.
Mesolithic rock art in Spain depicts wild honey collection, and ancient Egyptian texts and
pictorial references catalogue the importance of apiculture and honey. Ancient Greek and
medieval British texts record the popularity of honey derived from single plant species
(monofloral or “single source”). The earliest known physical apicultural remains reside
in the 3,000-year-old industrial-scale apiary at Tel Reḥov in Israel. Ethnographic studies
indicate that many ancient apicultural practices are still utilized today.
Ancient gastronomic uses for honey and nectar include sweetening dishes and drinks;
preserving meat, fruits, and vegetables; and fermenting beverages such as mead, wine, and
beer.These uses are primarily inferred from textual and pictorial sources; the simple sugars
in honey and nectar degrade quickly, and physical archaeological evidence of honey is
rare. Scientific analysis using beehive and vessel remains can be used, however, to identify
preserved bee species, beeswax, yeasts, pollen, and chemical substances that strongly suggest the presence of honey.
See also Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Beer; Documentary Analysis; Ethnographic Sources; Fermentation; Food Preservation; Mead; Rock Art;Tel ReḤov;Wine
Further Reading
Crittenden, Alyssa N. 2011. The Importance of Honey Consumption in Human Evolution. Food and
Foodways: Explorations in the History and Culture of Human Nourishment 19(4):257–73.
McGovern, Patrick E., Donald L. Glusker, Robert A. Moreau, et al. 1999. A Funerary Feast Fit for King
Midas. Nature 402(6764):863–64.
McGovern, Patrick E., Anne. P. Underhill, Hui Fang, et al. 2005. Chemical Identification and Cultural Implications of a Mixed Fermented Beverage from Late Prehistoric China. Asian Perspectives
44(2):249–75.
■ PENELOPE M. SKALNIK
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HOUSEHOLD ARCHAEOLOGY
H O R T I C U LT U R E
See Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Fruits
HOUSEHOLD ARCHAEOLOGY
One of the main concerns of household archaeology is the study of the activities that
took place within houses, particularly food processing and food consumption. In the
1980s Richard C. Wilk and William C. Rathje argued that archaeological evidence for
domestic sites provided the material evidence for households in the form of the dwelling, with its activity areas and household possessions. They also argued that households
were the locations from which labor was pooled for tasks such as food production, and
for the distribution of resources (e.g., food) from producers to consumers, within or
outside the household. These arguments tend to present a household as a single unit,
however, rather than as systems of membership where a number of people—biological
family, extended family, servants, slaves—might have lived together but potentially were
involved in the preparation and consumption of food in different ways and possibly in
different parts of the site.
The precise relationships between these various people, and their relationships to domestic foodways, will impact how and also where food would be prepared and consumed
within the household. A small household group constituting a single, or nuclear, family
group probably cooked and ate together, although we should not make assumptions regarding which members of the household were responsible for what kinds of food preparation
based on analogies with ethnohistorical or modern cultures. Household structure becomes
much more complicated in the archaeology of complex societies where large houses and
large house complexes (e.g., 18th-century plantation sites in the United States) may be
occupied by extended families or by numerous employees and also slaves. Recent studies
of industrial communities show that factors of ethnicity, language, and economics led to
the creation of complex coresident households combining nuclear and extended family
members, boarders, servants, and even multiple families who shared the domestic structure.
Coresidence in such communities did not necessarily involve the shared task of food production. Corporate households, such as the 19th-century boarding houses for mill girls in
Lowell, Massachusetts, are an excellent example of households that shared meals but were
organized around employment rather than food production or other household chores.
Complex households also are found in the Roman world. Roman families, or households (the familia), did not traditionally involve extended families under one roof but
could include numerous domestic slaves and their children and also freedmen and freedwomen in the employ of the head of the household, the paterfamilias. The large House
of the Menander in Roman Pompeii was probably occupied by such a household. It
covered over 1,800 square meters, with over 60 rooms on the ground floor and more on
the first floor. This house would appear to have had at least two areas, identified by their
fixtures as kitchens, where food may have been prepared. There are also several rooms in
this house that have been interpreted as dining rooms, based on their size, decoration, and
location. It is likely, however, that these elaborately decorated rooms were not used by the
household but instead by the paterfamilias and invited guests from outside the household.
Where the rest of the household would have taken their meals on a daily basis is unclear.
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Besides this structural and decorative evidence for foodways in the House of the
Menander in Pompeii, there is also material-cultural evidence for cooking but not necessarily located within areas with structural evidence and fixtures related to cooking.
This evidence includes a brazier and a number of ceramic vessels, made of Pompeian
Red Ware, that seem to have been used both for cooking food on and for eating from,
located close to formal dining areas. This evidence strongly suggests that cooking was not
always carried out in the faraway kitchens and carried to diners in formal dining rooms,
but it could also take place in front of such diners, whether in everyday or more formal
contexts. This contextualized evidence also suggests that archaeologists need to be wary
of designating vessels as either used for cooking or used for eating, given the great variety
of foodways practices within domestic contexts.
See also Archaeology of Household Food Production; Architectural Analysis; Domestic Sites; Herculaneum and Pompeii; Spatial Analysis and Visualization Techniques
Further Reading
Allison, Penelope M., ed. 1999. The Archaeology of Household Activities. London: Routledge.
———. 2004a. Pompeian Households: Analysis of the Material Culture. Monograph 42. Los Angeles: Cotsen
Institute of Archaeology, UCLA.
———. 2004b. Pompeiian Households: An On-Line Companion. The Stoa: A Consortium for Electronic
Publication in the Humanities, edited by Ross Scaife. http://www.stoa.org/projects/ph/home.
———. 2006a. The Insula of the Menander in Pompeii. Vol. 3, The Finds: A Contextual Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2006b. The Insula of the Menander in Pompeii Vol. III:The Finds in Context: An On-Line Companion.
http://www.le.ac.uk/archaeology/menander/.
———. 2009. Understanding Pompeian Household Practices through Their Material Culture. FACTA:
A Journal of Roman Material Culture Studies 3:11–32.
Beaudry, Mary C., and Stephen A. Mrozowski. 1988.The Archeology of Work and Home Life in Lowell,
Massachusetts: An Interdisciplinary Study of the Boott Cotton Mills Corporation. IA:The Journal of
the Society for Industrial Archeology 14(2):1–22.
Wilk, Richard R., and William L. Rathje, eds. 1982. Archaeology of the Household: Building a Prehistory of Domestic Life. American Behavioral Scientist 25(6):617–39.
■ PENELOPE M. ALLISON
H U M A N E VO LU T I O N A N D D I E T
See Digestion and Human Evolution; Teeth, Diet, and Human Evolution
H U N T E R - G AT H E R E R S U B S I S T E N C E
In 19th-century evolutionary typologies, hunter-gatherers were typically treated as wandering at will over the landscape, exerting no ownership rights over resources and subsisting on wild animals and plants that were not managed in any way. Even in the mid-20th
century, some theories for the origin of agriculture saw farming as the moment when
people finally became sufficiently knowledgeable about their environment to control it.
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In fact all recent hunter-gatherers practice low-level husbandry. Controlled burning was,
for thousands of years, a widespread and powerful influence on the landscape exercised
by hunter-gatherers in North America and Australia. “Patch burning” creates a fine-scale
mosaic of vegetation of different ages containing different edible plants and attracting different animal species.The replanting of the heads of edible tubers is also well documented
in Australia.The crucial transition between foraging and farming probably occurred when
husbandry reached a level that compelled permanent settlement in one place.
Much of our understanding of hunter-gatherer subsistence comes from ethnographic,
ethnoarchaeological, and experimental studies. Key research questions concern the origin
of hunting and gathering, strategies for minimizing risk, the choice of foraging strategies
where several alternative foods are available, the ways camping patterns map onto resource
distribution, and whether hunter-gatherers conserve their resources.
While peasants typically store harvested foods to tide them over through seasonal
shortages, hunter-gatherers minimize the risk of food shortage through their wide diet,
eating large and small mammals, reptiles, fish, animal products such as eggs and honey,
insects, and numerous plant products including fruit and berries, nuts, seeds, corms, and
tubers. Available foods may vary seasonally or, particularly in low-latitude deserts, according to longer cycles of drought and rain. Under normal conditions, less than half of
potential foods may be harvested.
Primate studies also contribute to our understanding of hunting and gathering
behaviors. Chimpanzees have an eclectic, omnivorous diet but differ strikingly in the
much smaller contribution made by meat, consuming only 10 percent as much meat
as many hunter-gatherers. The importance of predation in hunter-gatherer subsistence
requires human foragers to live at much lower population densities than chimpanzees. It
is likely that the consequent dispersal of individuals who rely on each other for cooperation resulted in the more permanent bands that characterize modern hunter-gatherers,
replacing the ephemeral task-specific parties of chimpanzees. This transition is probably
linked to the relatively modern physiology of Homo erectus, whose relative brain and gut
size imply a meat-rich diet. On the other hand, the pair-bonding of men and women
characteristic of modern hunter-gatherers and the characteristic gender division of
labor (men hunt, women gather) probably only appeared with Homo heidelbergensis,
whose skeletons display less sexual dimorphism that those of H. erectus, implying less
male–male competition for mates.
Hunter-gatherers depend on a detailed knowledge of food resources and where they
are likely to be found. Their languages typically recognize a range of ecological zones and
include the names of the plants and animals to be found in each. The choice of foraging
strategy depends on which is likely to give the best return for time expended. The answer to this question and, therefore, the optimal (best) strategy will change according to
time of day or season, depending on the current availability of alternative resources. The
highest-ranked resource might, hypothetically, provide sufficient amounts of food to be
the primary subsistence resource (almost true of bison on the Great Plains, USA). But if
it is not going to yield adequate calories because it is not encountered often enough, as
is the case with the collared peccary for the Ache of Paraguay, then further resources are
added that, although they yield fewer calories per hour of hunting and processing time,
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still increase the total number of calories gained in a day. The average return on Ache
foraging is 1,115 kilocalories (kcal) per hour. Palm trees, which only yield 946 kcal per
hour, are generally only exploited at the end of a bad day’s foraging. In central Australia,
increasing aridity during the past few thousand years led to the introduction of the specialized seed grindstone, which signals a broadening of the Aboriginal diet to incorporate
grass seeds between 3,000 and 4,000 BP. While they are time-consuming to collect and
process, some grasses regenerate quickly in large stands after fire.
In arid, low-latitude environments, water is the limiting resource. During times of
drought, hunter-gatherer bands retreat to a permanent or semipermanent water source at
the heart of their foraging range to which long-term association guarantees them preferential rights, but tend to forage more widely after rain, frequently visiting neighboring
bands to maintain friendships and alliances. In high latitudes, hunter-gatherers move camp
in order to “map on” to seasonally available resources. On the northwest coast of North
America, clans aggregated at defended coastal villages through the winter, but in spring
dispersed to their separate territories that included fishing grounds, shellfish collecting
areas, and hunting grounds in the mountains. Resources on the northwest coast were sufficiently dense to be worth physically defending, a behavior unusual among recent hunter-gatherers. Salmon and the meat of mountain goat were smoked, berries were stored
in lard, and oil extracted from fish. In the Arctic, resource patches were too dispersed to
be accessible from a single camp. Families moved seasonally between seal hunting on the
coast, collecting birds’ eggs in spring, and berry picking in the autumn.
In cases such as a salmon spawning run where fish are caught as they pass through a
narrow part of the river, or a seasonal caribou migration through a narrow mountain pass
in the Arctic, the return from a patch may be undiminished as long as the prey are moving
through, and the optimal strategy will be to stay in that spot. This may well have been the
strategy adopted 400,000 years ago by H. heidelbergensis hunting reindeer at Schöningen
(Germany), where wooden spears are preserved in brown coal.
Most vulnerable to overexploitation are large animals with a low rate of reproduction. This vulnerability has been offered in explanation of the extinction of megafauna
in North America soon after the arrival of Native Americans, and the extinction of giant
flightless birds in New Zealand within a few hundred years of the Maoris’ arrival. It is
more likely, however, that the yield from a food source such as orange trees will fall as
it is exploited, until it is better for the forager to move on than to remain and try to get
the last few, most inaccessible oranges. Here optimal behavior is unintentionally conservationist. Nukak discarded fruit stones on the edge of their camps, thus unintentionally
changing their forest ecology by creating stands of fruit trees.
See also Broad Spectrum Revolution; Cooperative Hunting; Ethnoarchaeology;
Ethnographic Sources; Experimental Archaeology; Food Sharing; Food Storage;
Foraging; Innovation and Risk; Plant Husbandry; Subsistence Models
Further Reading
Politis, Gustavo G. 2007. Nukak: Ethnoarchaeology of an Amazonian People. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast
Press.
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Rowley-Conwy, Peter, and Robert Layton. 2011. Foraging and Farming as Niche Construction: Stable
and Unstable Adaptations. In Human Niche Construction, edited by Jeremy R. Kendal, Jamshid J.
Tehrani, and John Odling-Smee. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 336(1566):849–62.
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0307.
■ R O B E R T H . L AY T O N
HUSBANDRY
See Animal Husbandry and Herding; Plant Husbandry
HYDRAULIC ENGINEERING
See Irrigation/Hydraulic Engineering
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I
ICEMAN
The Tyrolean Iceman, commonly referred to as “Ötzi,” is one of the oldest human mummies discovered. His body was preserved for more than 5,300 years in an Italian Alpine
glacier before he was discovered by two German mountaineers at an altitude of 3,210
meters above sea level in September 1991. The mummy, which dates from the Copper
Age, is now conserved at the Archaeological Museum in Bolzano, Italy, together with an
array of accompanying artifacts. The discovery of the Iceman is extremely valuable for
scientists, not only because of his historical age and the range of objects he was carrying
when he died (e.g., clothing; hunting equipment such as an axe, dagger, a bow, and a
quiver of arrows) but also because of the way he was preserved over time. The Iceman
is an “ice mummy,” that is, humidity was retained in his cells while he was naturally
mummified by freeze-drying. The body tissues and intestines are therefore still well
preserved, and this feature makes them suitable for various modern scientific investigations. A multi-slice computed tomography (CT) examination performed in 2007 clearly
demonstrated that the Iceman was killed at an age of approximately 40–50 years by a
bowshot that lacerated the left subclavian artery, likely leading to a rapid, deadly hemorrhagic shock. Based on stable isotope analysis, it was shown that the Iceman grew up
and lived the last years before his death in different valleys in the southern region of the
Alps. A paleobotanical study and pollen analyses of samples removed from his intestines
have provided important insights into his nutrition, his itinerary, and the season of his
death (in late spring). These analyses, together with molecular analysis of samples of the
Iceman’s lower intestinal tract, indicated an omnivorous diet, with both wild animal (roe
deer, ibex) and plant material (mainly Triticum monococcum or einkorn wheat). During a
recent radiological reexamination, the Iceman’s stomach was identified and shown to be
completely filled. An endoscopy-guided biopsy sample of the Iceman’s stomach contents
was taken with subsequent macroscopic, microscopic, and molecular analysis to identify
the nature of the Iceman’s last meal. These analyses indicated that the Iceman had eaten
only a few hours before his death.
See also Archaeobotany; Bioarchaeological Analysis; Biomolecular Analysis; DNA
Analysis; Gut Analysis; Mummies; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleofecal Analysis; Paleonutrition; Palynology; Stable Isotope Analysis
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Further Reading
Oeggl, Klaus, Werner Kofler, Alexandra Schmidl, et al. 2007. The Reconstruction of the Last Itinerary
of “Ötzi,” the Neolithic Iceman, by Pollen Analyses from Sequentially Sampled Gut Extracts. Quaternary Science Reviews 26(7–8):853–61.
Rollo, Franco, Massimo Ubaldi, Luca Ermini, and Isoline Marota. 2002. Otzi’s Last Meals: DNA Analysis
of the Intestinal Content of the Neolithic Glacier Mummy from the Alps. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences USA 99(20):12594–99.
Spindler, Konrad. 2000. Der Mann im Eis: Neue sensationelle Erkenntnisse über die Mumie in den Ötztaler
Alpen. Munich: Goldman.
■ FRANK MAIXNER AND ALBERT R. ZINK
IDENTITY
See Food and Identity
I M M I G R A N T F O O D WAY S
Food, like all sets of cultural objects, can empower migrant and immigrant collectives to
reaffirm and negotiate social position. The study of food and related objects reveals the
expression of continuities in and transformations to ethnic identification in the practice
of daily life. This is especially true in the context of the archaeology of migrant and immigrant dietary practices.
Archaeologists argue that foodways form a crucial facet of material culture studies
related to the social processes of movement and the formation and transformation of migrant and immigrant identities. Foodways illustrate how immigrant populations navigate
the social, economic, and political processes in new places of settlement. Archaeologists
also approach foodways as a platform for discourse on issues of power relations and the
affirmation and change of the collective consciousness. In both prehistoric and historical
contexts, archaeologists who study foodways in the daily lives and experiences of immigrants rely not just on botanical and faunal remains but instead employ a holistic approach
incorporating a myriad of objects and features related to food production, preparation,
serving, eating, and drinking. Such objects include brick ovens, utensils, pots and pans, and
ceramic, metal, and glass vessels, but also textual sources and representational art. For example, Assaf Yasur-Landau combined 12th- and 11th-century BC frescoes of Mycenaean
warriors participating in Canaanite-style feasting rituals with evidence for the differential
use of drinking bowls, as well as the adoption of cooking vessels and preparation practices of Philistine migrants to the Aegean to examine culture contact and change in the
Mediterranean. The vessels and practices represent the broader extent of cultural interaction across cultural boundaries and shifting ideologies of power and identity. Burmeister
examined the multilayered transformations and contact of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic
migrants in late- and post-Roman Britain (ca. fifth century AD). Using various lines of
material evidence, including architecture, settlement patterns, and agricultural foodways
practices, he developed a comparative model between the material culture of the homeland and new places of settlement to illustrate sociocultural continuity and transformation
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of ethnic identity over time and space. In the archaeology of the modern world, Priscilla
Wegars examined domed-rock ovens, built by Italian railroad laborers in the mid- to late
19th century along newly constructed railroad lines in America’s west, to discuss differences in food preparation and ethnic identity within railroad labor camps. Stacey Camp
studied changes in the foodways of Mexican immigrants in the United States in the late
19th century and argued that a decrease in traditional ceramic and glass vessels associated
with Mexican foodways and an increase in new objects, such as white granite, glass vessels,
and tablecloths, reflect negotiation and the complex social and economic processes of
seeking and attaining citizenship. In this context, changes in immigrant food remains and
related accessories reflect the acceptance of new sociocultural characteristics and form an
important component of social relations in new settlements where material continuities
evoke a shared heritage reinforcing traditional social behaviors.
This process is exemplified in the experience of mid- to late-19th-century Irish
immigrant and Irish American communities. The material remains of Irish and Irish
American food preparation and consumption reflect the shifting socioeconomic contexts
of negotiation between traditional identities and new behaviors. It is important to note
that meat was not the dietary foundation of the Irish rural laborer, the predominant class
emigrating to locations such as the United States. Instead the potato was a dietary staple,
and for many it was the sole means of nutrition, eaten at two and sometimes three meals,
with each person consuming on average 8 to 15 pounds a day. In this context, meat was
a luxury, and, although rare, it was consumed on special occasions and holidays.The meats
of choice were inexpensive cuts of pork and mutton. Therefore the availability of meat in
Irish immigrants’ daily diet had an enormous impact on the formation of an Irish identity
outside of Ireland and its eventual transformation over time.
Newly arrived Irish immigrants maintained a traditional preference for pork in the
form of ham hocks and pigs’ feet, as well as mutton, in contrast to a typical American diet
of beef and chicken. Over time, however, beef appears in gradually increasing amounts
in Irish immigrant assemblages. By the last decades of the 19th century, a change is evident within Irish American communities in the types and ways of preparing meat and
in dining practices. The shift includes a predominance of beef and chicken typical of
American practices and surpasses the traditional Irish immigrant diet of pork and mutton.
This subtle adoption of new foods reflects new social behaviors and speaks to changes in
the collective consciousness as individuals and communities moved away from their immigrant status toward an American identity. The change in foodways is supported by the
introduction of new ceramic and glass vessels, including meat platters and larger dinning
plates. The combined material assemblage clearly demonstrates the social and economic
processes associated with immigration, including gradual acceptance of new consumer
patterns, an eventual and desired incorporation into American society, as well as the adoption of new dietary preferences and foodways practices associated with the formation of
a new Irish American culture.
See also Creole Cuisines/Foodways; Creolization; Diaspora Foodways; Food and
Colonialism; Food and Identity; Globalization; Philistine Foodways
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Further Reading
Brighton, Stephen A. 2009. Historical Archaeology of the Irish Diaspora: A Transnational Approach. Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press.
Burmeister, Stefan. 2000. Archaeology and Migration: Approaches to an Archaeological Proof of Migration. Current Anthropology 41(4):539–67.
Camp, Stacey Lynn. 2011. Consuming Citizenship? The Archaeology of Mexican Immigrant Ambivalence in Early Twentieth-Century Los Angeles. International Journal of Historical Archaeology
15(3):305–28.
Merritt, Christopher W., Gary Weisz, and Kelly J. Dixon. 2012. “Verily the Road Was Built with
Chinaman’s Bones”: An Archaeology of Chinese Line Camps in Montana. International Journal of
Historical Archaeology 16(4):666–95.
Twiss, Katheryn C., ed. 2007. The Archaeology of Food and Identity. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 34. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
Wegars, Priscilla. 1991. Who’s Been Working on the Railroad? An Examination of the Construction,
Distribution, and Ethnic Origins of Domed Rock Ovens on Railroad-Related Sites. Historical
Archaeology 25(1):37–65.
Yasur-Landau, Assaf. 2005. Old Wine in New Vessels: Intercultural Contact, Innovation and Aegean,
Canaanite and Philistine Foodways. Tel Aviv 32(2):168–91.
■ ST E P H E N A . B R I G H TO N
I N C I P I E N T C U LT I VAT I O N
See Cultivation
I N D U S T R I A L I Z AT I O N O F F O O D A N D F O O D P R O D U C T I O N
Since laying down agricultural roots some 10,000 years ago, humans have desired to make
the process of procuring and producing food more efficient. This desire supports our
survival as a species and is nowhere more evident than in the industrialization of food.
Archaeologically, evidence for the growth of industries like honey and oil throughout
the Fertile Crescent and across the Mediterranean after 900 BC is visible in the form
of cargo on shipwrecks, abandoned beehives, and piles of discarded amphorae, including
one in Rome named Monte Testaccio (Mount Potsherd). These finds reveal the scope of
goods as they were transported from production point to point of sale. Through careful
examination of contents, markings, packaging materials, textual sources, and residues, they
reveal the extent of what humans have produced on a larger, industrial-sized scale, and
where those goods originated.
Investigation of production sites in these places of origin provides a unique opportunity to develop theories about the economic status of a region, its main crops and
resources, workforce, and environment. One specific industry that has a highly visible
archaeological signature and encompasses many aspects of industrialized food production
is sugar. Cultivation of the sugarcane plant is limited by temperature and the moisture
required to raise a successful crop. While sugar was widely consumed in India by AD 700,
sugarcane production began its rise and subsequent fall in the Mediterranean region in
the 16th century, only to rise again in the Caribbean later that same century. On Cyprus,
estates, fields, and mills dating to the medieval period yield a wealth of information about
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the specific manner in which sugar was planted, cultivated, harvested, and processed. Sites
in Cyprus were often created in the image of the Levantine sites that predated them,
but not without evidence of change. Through radiocarbon dating and various methods
of ceramic analysis, such as thin section petrography and instrumental neutron activation
analysis (INAA), the movement of the industry and associated material items from one
region to the next can be clearly determined. This type of evaluation can also yield useful evidence about where industrial goods, such as molds and pots, were manufactured
in relation to sugar mills and fields. In the case of sugar, more often than not they were
produced in close proximity to the production sites, and in large quantity. The methods
of medieval sugar production often resulted in broken pots and molds, from the constant
heating and cooling of sugar and the process of extracting the crystalized sugar from the
cones. The industrialization of food production also provides opportunity for the growth
of sister industries (e.g., transportation, storage containers), which can be noted in regions
surrounding production sites.
The well-preserved site of Kouklia-Stavros consists of a sugar mill building in which
most of the steps used to process the harvested cane can be clearly examined in one place,
and in which the development of new, more efficient techniques can also be documented.
A map of this location shows clearly defined areas for workshops, storage rooms, boiling
halls, and stoking rooms, where the fires were constantly fueled to keep the sugar syrup
boiling. A notable point of evolution is seen in the two mills, located next to one another, for crushing the cane and extracting the juice. Evidence shows one mill was largely
powered by animals, the other by water. The large-scale use of water-powered mills was
a later development in the sugar industry, specifically in Cyprus, and one that boosted
production significantly. Archaeological evidence exists for yet another shift as trade winds
were later harnessed for wind-powered mills.
Industrialization increases the volume of production and the efficiency of the process.
As quickly as production of sugar boomed in the Mediterranean region, it disappeared.
Sugar production moved into the Caribbean, where cane grew more quickly and yielded
a higher amount of juice, and became a key industry of the developing New World. As
this commodity shifted from its former role as a medicinal product, one largely consumed
by the elite, to one that was widely desired as it made its way into the diets of Europeans,
production needed to increase accordingly.
Industrialized food production also makes a product available more quickly and, in
most cases, at a lower price to the consumer. Archaeological study has revealed some of
the costs (hidden or overt) for the consumer and the laborer, however, and in some cases
a human toll that cannot go without mention. The slave industry grew and flourished
as a result of the sugar industry, in both Cyprus and the Caribbean. Standards of living
for workers and slaves were dismal and the risk of injury and death high. Sites associated
with sugar production in the Caribbean provide evidence of malnutrition in surrounding
slave communities.
Sugar offers only one example of culinary industrialization. Other early food industries
include fish and fish sauce, olive oil, salt, and meat and grain processing. Archaeological evidence for these industries is found in agricultural fields, extant structures, and archaeological
features; in documentary sources such as accounting logs and insurance maps; in the form
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of discarded packaging, containers, and other material forms; and in the remains of the food
products themselves, most often in the form of floral and faunal remains, Studies of modern
industrialized food production, though often more architectural than archaeological, include
factories, slaughterhouses and meatpacking plants, and breweries and distilleries, as well as
related aspects of refrigeration, mechanization, and transportation.
See also Architectural Analysis; Documentary Analysis; Factories; Food as a Commodity; Food Preservation; Milling; Olive Oil; Plant Processing; Salt; Slave Diet,
on West Indian Plantations; Sucrose
Further Reading
Curtis, Robert I. 2001 Ancient Food Technology. Leiden: Brill.
Flad, Rowen K. 2005. Evaluating Fish and Meat Salting at Prehistoric Zhongba, China. Journal of Field
Archaeology 30(3):231–53.
Galloway, J. H. 1977. The Mediterranean Sugar Industry. Geographical Review 67(2):177–94.
Mazzotti, Massimo. 2004. Enlightened Mills: Mechanizing Olive Oil Production in Mediterranean
Europe. Technology and Culture 44(2):277–304.
■ MICHELLE HASTINGS
INEQUALITY
See Food and Inequality
I N F O R M A L E CO N O M I C E XC H A N G E
Informal economies encompass a range of economic activities that are not officially
endorsed by a state or corporate entity. Economic activities generally considered part of
the informal economy include piracy, contraband trade (e.g., narcotics, human trafficking,
arms trade, organ trade), and internal economies (e.g., street sellers, swap meets, garage
sales). The term informal economy has been critiqued for neither describing nor encompassing the analytical potential of nonorthodox economic activities. It can include legal
and illegal trade, internal and external trade. It is poorly documented and often, though
wrongly, depicted as disorganized, ill formed, and out of control.
Archaeological considerations of informal economic activities are intimately tied
with food. There is evidence that states have attempted to regulate household economic activities as early as ancient Mesopotamia. Similarly in ancient Egypt, a class of
individuals operated as middlemen, or Shuty, who negotiated in-kind exchanges and
acted as go-betweens for thieves. Women, who were largely responsible for keeping a
household supplied with foodstuffs, would have engaged Shuty to exchange surplus
produced by the household.
In the 18th-century Atlantic world, foodstuffs were commonly traded in the informal
economy. For example, cash crops cultivated for the export market were also exchanged in
internal markets. At the same time, domestic economies were a very important dimension
of slave sociocultural life throughout the Caribbean. Archaeological attempts to docu-
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ment this trade have focused on locally made ceramics and show they were a mechanism
for enslaved laborers to transgress social and political boundaries.
Economic activities that today might be described as informal, such as prostitution,
also have been linked to food. Nineteenth-century Australian female convicts exchanged
sex for food rations, alcohol, and tobacco. In the United States there is repeated evidence
for proportionally intense use of expensive meat cuts, liquor, and fine goods in brothels
that suggests prostitution was part of a larger binge economy.
Informal economy has been critiqued as a problematic category; such activities often
operate fluidly between sectors defined as formal and informal. It is therefore as much a
political category as a pattern of economic activities distinguishable from larger regional
and interregional economic systems. Such activities are often referred to as “Black Market,” a term developed in World War II to describe the existence of market goods that
could be purchased without state-imposed ration coupons. The attempt to regulate such
activities is what makes it “Black.”
See also Archaeology of Household Food Production; Food and Politics; Food as
a Commodity; Markets/Exchange; Poplar Forest; Slave Diet, on Southern Plantations; Slave Diet, on West Indian Plantations
Further Reading
Casella, Eleanor Conlin. 2000. “Doing Trade”: A Sexual Economy of Nineteenth-Century Australian
Female Convict Prisons. World Archaeology 32(2):209–21.
Hartnett, Alexandra, and Shannon Lee Dawdy. 2012. The Archaeology of Illegal and Illicit Economies.
Annual Review of Anthropology 42:37–51.
Hauser, Mark W. 2008. An Archaeology of Black Markets: Local Ceramics and Economies in Eighteenth-Century
Jamaica. Ripley P. Bullen Series in Caribbean Archaeology, Florida Museum of Natural History.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
■ M A R K W. H A U S E R
I N F R A R E D S P E C T R O S C O P Y/ F O U R I E R
TRANSFORM INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY
Infrared spectroscopy measures the changes in energy level in chemical bonds when
hit with infrared light. Because certain bonds absorb light at specific frequencies, these
measurements can be used to characterize the molecular structure of substances. In
dealing with the complicated signatures that archaeology produces, infrared spectroscopy is usually performed with a suite of other chemical analytical methods including
GC-MS and Raman spectroscopy. Generally, chemical residue analysis focuses on lipids
and waxes absorbed by pottery, given that fatty acids decompose more slowly than other
organics, and microscopic crevices help protect embedded residues from destructive
taphonomic processes.
Since the 1970s, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has become an increasingly common technique to analyze organic and inorganic archaeological materials;
in this type of infrared spectroscopy, the raw data undergo a mathematical process known
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as Fourier transform, significantly improving data collection. Most modern IR analyses
use this method, but FTIR is still not used widely to study ancient foods. Most research
is focused on identifying unknown, potential food residues via biomarkers. To more accurately characterize ancient foodstuffs, reference collections are developed consisting of
modern botanicals and experimental reproductions. When available, paleobotanicals and
ancient foods may be analyzed both for reference and characterization. Specific foods
studied include breads and fermented beverages such as wine. Additionally, sediments are
analyzed for evidence of the use of fire.
See also Archaeobotany; Biomolecular Analysis; Bread; Cooking Vessels, Ceramic;
Experimental Archaeology; Gas Chromatography/Gas Chromatography–Mass
Spectrometry; Shipwrecks; Use-Wear or Use-Alteration Analysis, Pottery; Wine
Further Reading
Malainey, Mary E. 2011. Optical Spectroscopy. In A Consumer’s Guide to Archaeological Science: Analytical
Techniques, 453–65. New York: Springer.
McGovern, Patrick E., Benjamin P. Luley, Nuria Rovira, et al. 2013. Beginning of Viniculture in France.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 110(25):10147–52.
McLaren, Frances, and John Evans. 2002. The Chemical Identification of Ancient British Bread Flours:
Encountering and Overcoming Some of the Obstacles. In Pain, fours et foyers des temps passés/Bread,
Ovens and Hearths of the Past, edited by Kai Fechner and Marianne Mesnil. Civilisations 49(1):169–
82. doi:10.4000/civilisations.1427.
Oudemans, T. F. M, J. J. Boon, and R. E. Botto. 2007. FTIR and Solid-State 13C CP/MAS NMR Spectroscopy of Charred and Non-Charred Solid Organic Residues Preserved in Roman Iron Age
Vessels from the Netherlands. Archaeometry 49(3):571–94.
■ LAURA SHORT
I N N O VAT I O N A N D R I S K
The history of food combines conservatism and innovation. Striking examples of the
latter include adoption of exotic species (e.g., between the Old and New World) and
changes in exploitation (e.g., from gathering to cultivating plants, from eating to milking
animals), processing (e.g., improved grinding technology), preservation (e.g., large-scale
salting, canning), and cooking and presentation (e.g., elite haute cuisine). Food supply is
subject to both predictable (e.g., seasonal) and unpredictable (e.g., interannual) variability,
and humans routinely counter the risk of scarcity by exploiting a diversity of sources
and types, including undesirable “famine foods” in bad years (e.g., gathered plants among
Neolithic farmers around the Alps), by storing present abundance for future need, and by
sharing or exchanging food.
Dietary innovations have brought significant health risks. For example, abandonment
of diversified foraging for reliance on a few staple crops apparently led to nutritional
imbalances, detectable in skeletons of some early farming groups, and presumably increased the probability of wholesale subsistence failure, while adoption of food crops (e.g.,
manioc) that require careful detoxification must have posed a more direct health hazard.
Conversely, scarcity, or risk thereof, has underpinned many explanations for subsistence
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change, not least the multiregional emergence of farming around 10,000 years ago and
the development of fresh milk consumption and lactose tolerance among Neolithic Europeans.There are obstacles to adopting new foods, however, including lack of know-how
and technology (e.g., early Maori cultivation of maize and wheat) or incompatible ideas
of what is edible (e.g., maize and potato in upland southern Europe). Radical dietary
change in response to impending hunger, therefore, is more likely to involve increased
reliance on existing resources, whether previously prized or despised as fodder/famine
food (e.g., potato in Ireland and upland southern Europe, respectively).Thus, as behavioral
ecologists have argued on theoretical grounds, subsistence risk better accounts for shifts
in relative dependence on different foods than for dietary innovation.
A critical problem with heavy dependence on stored staples to weather interannual
shortage is that their shelf life is often shorter than the interval between good and bad
years, while unstored alternatives are insufficiently abundant to compensate for major
shortfalls. Within living memory across rural southern Europe, while the better-off ate
meat and leavened bread of “white” wheaten flour (with much of the bran removed), the
poor consumed pulses and dark whole-meal bread or gruel of lesser cereals. Any bran
removed from human food was fed to livestock, perhaps with small quantities of grain
from spoiled stores or low-status cereals and pulses. The relative ranking of crops broadly
reflected practical considerations. Rice, free-threshing wheat, lentil, pea, and chickpea—
relatively demanding of soil, water, or labor—were normally highly ranked, while undemanding oat and toxic bitter vetch were considered fit for livestock. The status of intermediate grains (e.g., glume wheats, barley, maize, grass pea) varied between regions, for
ecological and cultural reasons, and interannually. While in good years the poor perhaps
consumed wheaten bread and used barley as fodder, in bad years they ate barley themselves. In famine years, they “stretched” bread with added bran, acorns, and even toxic
bitter vetch—sometimes with grave consequences for health. Fodder crops and flexible
feeding of intermediate grain resulted in stronger work animals, higher milk yields, and
fatter carcasses, facilitating and encouraging sufficient production for a reserve in bad
years. Access to high-value grains and animal produce afforded a better diet, but also an
enhanced reputation for hospitality, with tangible benefits in attracting labor, spouses, and
exchange partners. The resulting disincentive to consume demeaning, low-value grains
helped reserve the latter for emergencies. In this hierarchy of foods, incentives for innovation arise from both enforced bad-year reliance on famine foods and attempts to “bank”
temporary surpluses of grain through conversion to a higher-value form (e.g., refined
grain products, produce of fattened livestock), whether for sale or diacritical hospitality.
Greco-Roman (later first millennium BC–early first millennium AD) texts reveal a
similar hierarchy, with free-threshing wheat ranked above glume wheats, barley, and other
lesser cereals. Archaeobotanical evidence for the displacement of glume wheats and naked
barley by free-threshing wheat and hulled barley perhaps reflects consolidation of this
hierarchy in Europe from the first millennium BC, but emerging isotopic evidence for
manuring of grain crops indicates more intensive husbandry of free-threshing wheat than
hulled barley from at least the sixth millennium BC at Koufovouno in southern Greece.
Analyses elsewhere of dung confirm that Neolithic livestock ate grain, while faunal studies at sites like Çatalhöyük in Turkey and Makriyalos in Greece highlight the commensal
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importance of meat throughout the Neolithic. The close association of domestic animals
and staple crops in dispersal of farming, from southwest Asia across Europe, arguably reflects the dual importance of the former in commensal politics and as a means of banking
surplus grain. In Greece, charred grape pressings and macroscopic and residue analyses of
Neolithic ceramics also highlight the importance of fermented and fruit-based beverages
in formal commensality, reinforcing the linkage between risk-buffering, commensal politics, and innovations in food and drink.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Animal Husbandry and Herding; Çatalhöyük; Commensality; Famine; Feasting; Food and Conflict; Food Preservation; Food Sharing;
Food Storage; Food Technology and Ideas about Food, Spread of; Manuring and
Soil Enrichment Practices; Secondary Products Revolution; Subsistence Models
Further Reading
Fitzhugh, Ben. 2001. Risk and Invention in Human Technological Evolution. Journal of Anthropological
Archaeology 20(2):125–67.
Halstead, Paul. 2012. Feast, Food and Fodder in Neolithic-Bronze Age Greece: Commensality and the
Construction of Value. In Between Feasts and Daily Meals:Towards an Archaeology of Commensal Spaces,
edited by Susan Pollock. eTopoi: Journal for Ancient Studies, special issue, 2:21–51. http://journal
.topoi.org/index.php/etopoi/issue/view/3.
Leach, Helen M. 1999. Food Processing Technology: Its Role in Inhibiting or Promoting Change in
Staple Foods. In The Prehistory of Food: Appetites for Change, edited by Chris Gosden and Jon Hather,
127–36. London: Routledge.
Schibler, Jörg, et al. 1997. Economic Crash in the 37th and 36th Centuries cal. BC in Neolithic Lake
Shore Sites in Switzerland. Anthropozoologica 25–26:553–70.
Vaiglova, Petra, Amy Bogaard, Matthew Collins, et al. 2014. An Integrated Stable Isotope Study of Plants
and Animals from Kouphovouno, Southern Greece: A New Look at Neolithic Farming. Journal of
Archaeological Science 42(2):201–15.
Winterhalder, Bruce, and Douglas J. Kennett. 2009. Four Neglected Concepts with a Role to Play in
Explaining the Origins of Agriculture. Current Anthropology 50(5):645–48.
■ PA U L H A L S T E A D
INNS
See Taverns/Inns
INSECTICIDES/REPELLENTS
The fossil record shows that insect pests were established by the Early Neolithic and
rapidly became significant factors that resulted in infestation or total loss of some stored
crops. Yearly losses from the infestation of cereals (e.g., Sitophilus granarius), pulses (e.g.,
Bruchus sp.), and other commodities are likely to have reached an average of 7–10 percent,
although in bad years, as finds of infested burnt grain deposits show, losses were greater.
The occasional insect in the food would have probably been considered unimportant,
but high infestation could have resulted in crops that were too toxic for consumption.
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271
Use of natural and mineral insecticides has been reported on a few archaeological
sites, where a combination of preservation, careful excavation, and relevant research has
allowed their identification. A range of methods were used, such as airtight storage and the
application of plant and animal substances, including mineral and plant ash and olive oil,
as insect repellents. Evidence from Late Bronze Age Akrotiri in the Aegean demonstrates
that inhabitants tried to separate prime consumption grain from the tailings by sieving.
Sieved residues were kept in different parts of the storeroom, and aromatic substances,
such as coriander, were stored with the infested crop, in one case, fava beans. At the
Workmen’s Village at Tell el Amarna, Egypt, ash was spread around querns to deter insect
infestation. Classical writers attest to the breadth of methods used, and these mirror more
recent ethnographic practice. In Roman Chichester (UK), evidence for mixing stone pine
seeds (Pinus pinea) with cereals has been interpreted as a measure against infestation. In
cases where infestation became too extensive, however, particularly in situations where
bulk storage was concerned, as for example in Roman granaries, insecticides could be
ineffective. Destruction of the contents of the store to avoid the infestation’s spread to
new supplies would have been the only solution, as at Roman York and Malton (UK).
See also Agriculture, Procurement, Processing, and Storage; Documentary Analysis;
Ethnographic Sources; Food Preservation; Food Storage; Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Storage Facilities
Further Reading
Panagiotakopulu, Eva. 2000. Archaeology and Entomology in the Eastern Mediterranean: Research into the
History of Insect Synanthropy in Greece and Egypt. British Archaeological International Series 836.
Oxford: Archaeopress.
Panagiotakopulu, Eva, Paul C. Buckland, and Peter M. Day. 1995. Natural Insecticides and Insect Repellents in Antiquity: A Review of the Evidence. Journal of Archaeological Science 22(2):705–10.
■ E VA P A N A G I O TA K O P U L U
INSECTS
Entomophagy, the eating of insects, is an undeniable and underestimated part of human
history. Coprolite analyses provide direct evidence of the dietary inclusion of ants, dung
beetle larvae, and caterpillars (>5,400 BP, Mexico); predaceous diving beetles (1,200–150
BP, Lovelock Cave, Nevada, USA); and termites (up to 9,500 BP, Dirty Shame Rockshelter, Oregon, USA). Screening of excavated soil from Lakeside Cave (Utah, USA) shows
the dietary use of grasshoppers (Melanoplus sanguinipes) but only when 1/16-inch (± 0.16
cm) mesh screen is used, as insect remains may be very small as a result of taphonomic
processes.Vast numbers of these grasshoppers drowned in the Great Salt Lake and washed
up on the shores, forming windrows of salted and sun-dried grasshoppers that could easily
be collected. Hearths and roasting pits also demonstrate intentional insect consumption,
for example, at Leigh Cave (2200 BC, Wyoming, USA), where cooked remains of several
hundred Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex) were found. The Aztecs semicultivated edible insects such as the eggs of aquatic true bugs (Hemiptera, Nepomorpha). Bundles of
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twigs of grasses or reeds were placed in the bottom of shallow parts of Lake Texcoco, for
example. The female insects laid their eggs on these bundles, which were then harvested.
Archaeological evidence of semicultivation is difficult to retrieve. The Amerindians today
semicultivate palm weevil larvae (e.g., Rhynchophorus palmarum). Female beetles lay their
eggs in trunks of fallen palm trees. Some Amerindian groups deliberately fell palm trees
at designated times and places, thereby controlling predictability and availability of larvae
supply. This practice is believed to be of ancient origin. Archaeological evidence, though
biased toward Western sites (a result of excellent preservation) and limited by methodological complications, indicates that throughout history humans have procured, processed, and consumed a large variety of insects, and these activities may have influenced
settlement/subsistence patterns.
See also Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Landscape and Environmental
Reconstruction; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleofecal Analysis; Paleonutrition;
Rockshelters/Caves
Further Reading
Sutton, Mark Q. 1995. Archaeological Aspects of Insect Use. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory
2(3):253–98.
Van Huis, Arnold, Joost Van Itterbeeck, Harmke Klunder, et al. 2013. Edible Insects: Future Prospects for
Food and Feed Security. FAO Forestry Paper 171. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations. http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e00.htm.
Van Itterbeeck, Joost, and Arnold van Huis. 2012. Environmental Manipulation for Edible Insect Procurement: A Historical Perspective. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 8:3. doi:10.1186/1746
-4269-8-3.
■ J O O S T VA N I T T E R B E E C K
I R R I G AT I O N / H Y D R A U L I C E N G I N E E R I N G
The remnants of canals, channels, dams, terraces, ditches, and raised fields represent one
of the largest and most widespread categories of archaeological features (figure 34). These
features demonstrate ingenious efforts to respond to the mosaic ecologies that shaped
the most critical resource on which organisms depend: water. Archaeologically, the study
of irrigation clarified fundamental processes of historical change and social evolution.
This work was stimulated by Karl Wittfogel’s highly influential book Oriental Despotism:
A Comparative Study of Total Power, which argued that despotic political systems emerged
out of a need to administer large hydraulic projects.
Archaeologists now recognize that the relationship between irrigation technologies
and sociopolitical complexity was variable. Not only did nonstate societies maintain impressive water management systems, most state-level societies’ relationships to hydraulic
projects were socially, economically, and politically multifaceted. Archaeologists first hypothesized that Teotihuacán, a large urban center in central Mexico, was a hydraulically
based state, though the small size of its riverine sources places doubt on this theory. Mesopotamian states existed in a lattice of thousands of square kilometers of canals, which
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Figure 34. Very High Resolution, panchromatic Quickbird satellite image (60 centimeters/
pixel) of a section of an ancient buried raised field (chinampa) farming system in Lake
Xaltocan, north of present-day Mexico City. The lake has been drained, and the raised
field system is no longer visible on the surface. The satellite image shows that the system
was built with a three-part hydraulic canal system, with two large primary canals (up to
60 meters wide and 7 kilometers long) that transported freshwater and provided a major
transportation artery. Water from primary canals was transported throughout the field
system via secondary canals, up to six meters in length, of various orientations. Tertiary
canals (between two and four meters in width) separated individual fields into long narrow
planting platforms. Secondary canals often divided groups of fields and tertiary canals into
smallholding parcels. This image displays an area of secondary canals (a sample of which
is marked with large arrows) and tertiary canals (a sample of which is marked with smaller
arrows). Image by Christopher T. Morehart.
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made this arid region one of the most agriculturally productive landscapes in prehistory.
Yet these systems were the result, not the cause, of sociopolitical complexity. The Hohokam in the American Southwest developed a large, highly integrated canal system that
drew water from the Salt River to irrigate more than 20,000 hectares of land, but in the
absence of a regional state. The precontact, complex chiefdom in Hawai‘i was agrarian,
but the political bureaucracy had virtually no role in the irrigation of local watersheds. In
Bali, a hierarchically organized system of canals and rice terraces has existed for centuries
through careful management by local kin groups and religious institutions, not through
state control. A vast system of raised fields once surrounded the Lake Titicaca Basin of
Bolivia, but local kin groups, not the Tiwanaku state, controlled them. In the Basin of
Mexico, the Aztec Empire encouraged the development of over 12,000 hectares of raised
fields. Even in this case, however, the farmers themselves managed the system.
As these cases demonstrate, one cannot assume a direct relationship between political
organization and water management. Researchers have estimated parameters that lead to
specific management pathways, which involve system size, integration, and number of users. Less hydraulically integrated systems, such as the lacustrine-based raised field systems
of Bolivia or the Aztec chinampas in central Mexico, did not pose the same kinds of organizational challenges as formal irrigation systems. Larger, more hydraulically integrated
irrigation systems, however, are at increased risk of stress, which is typically resolved via
some type of administrative hierarchy. Managerial institutions are not necessarily state institutions, however, as the Hohokam case demonstrates, and they can be either consensual
or nonconsensual strategies of governance.
It is challenging for archaeologists to document these variables, though present-day
systems offer an important source of information to infer the social and structural
dimensions of extinct systems. In the past, archaeologists were reliant on field survey
and mapping to record the physical properties of irrigation systems, a laborious and
time-consuming endeavor. Methodological limitations often caused researchers to underestimate the extent of irrigation in a landscape. With increased availability of aerial
photography, however, including previously classified government surveillance images,
and reduced costs of satellite data, particularly those with very high resolution, archaeologists have been able to map ancient irrigation and water management systems on
previously impossible scales.
The study of irrigation and water management helps us to comprehend organizational relationships, environmental impact, and sociopolitical complexity. Archaeologists
have documented and developed a good understanding of water management systems
that differ in size, degrees of integration, relationships to political economic entities, and
periods of usability. These variables are fundamental to promoting long-lasting and sustainable irrigation systems today. It is here where archaeologists can contribute directly
to contemporary policy.
See also Agricultural Features, Identification and Analysis; Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Food and Politics; Food Production and the Formation of Complex Societies; Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Sustainability;
Water; Water Supply and Storage
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Further Reading
Downing, Theodore E., and McGuire Gibson, eds. 1974. Irrigation’s Impact on Society. Tucson: University
of Arizona Press.
Hunt, Robert C. 1988. Size and the Structure of Authority in Canal Irrigation Systems. Journal of Anthropological Research 44(4):335–55.
Mabry, Jonathan B. 1996. The Ethnology of Local Irrigation. In Canals and Communities: Small-Scale
Irrigation Systems, edited by Jonathan B. Mabry, 3–30. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Scarborough, Vernon L. 2003. The Flow of Power: Ancient Water Systems and Landscapes. Santa Fe, NM:
School of American Research Press.
Scarborough,Vernon L., and Barry L. Isaac. 1993. Economic Aspects of Water Management in the Prehispanic
New World. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Steward, Julian Haynes. 1955. Irrigation Civilizations: A Comparative Study. Washington, DC: Pan American Union.
Wittfogel, Karl A. 1957. Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
■ C H R I S T O P H E R T. M O R E H A R T
I S O T O P I C A N A LY S I S
See Stable Isotope Analysis
I VO RY
See Tools/Utensils, Organic Materials; Weapons, Bone/Antler/Ivory
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J
J A M E S T O W N , V I R G I N I A ( U N I T E D S TAT E S )
Jamestown Island is the site of England’s first successful transatlantic colony.There in 1607,
the joint-stock Virginia Company of London established James Fort for the purpose of
resource exploitation in the hope of immediate profits. This objective, at the expense of
agricultural pursuits, left the settlers reliant on provisions sent by the company and on
food gained by trade with the Virginia Indians. Both sources were unreliable and inadequate for long-term sustenance, leading to bouts of starvation in the colony and, most
notably, the “starving time” winter and spring of 1609–10 when three-fourths of the
colonists died.
Archaeological excavations since 1994 have uncovered the fort’s tightly dated contexts. Numerous Virginia Indian cooking pots suggest that Powhatan women may have
been preparing meals for the colonists prior to 1609 hostilities. Lipid analysis of residues
on one Native clay pot revealed that it had once been used to cook a corn and meat (possibly venison) stew. Evidence of food is also present through European ceramic victualing
containers for butter, oil, and fish. Faunal analyses of the 1607–10 contexts established
that wild species of fish, fowl, turtles, deer, and small mammals accounted for half of all
the meat remains. Cattle were indicated by barreled provisions. “Starving time” contexts
contained taboo and uncustomary foods including snakes, frogs, rats, mice, raptors, musk
turtles, dogs, cats, and horses. In 2013, archaeological findings of processed human remains
confirmed the survival cannibalism that was documented during the “starving time.”
Stable isotope analyses of the bones indicated that the 14-year-old female was from the
southern coast of England and probably was from a high-status family. This constitutes
the only tangible evidence of anthropophagy by Europeans from the colonial period.
See also Cannibalism; Famine; Food and Colonialism; Preferences,Avoidances, Prohibitions,Taboos; Stable Isotope Analysis; Use-Wear or Use-Alteration Analysis, Pottery
Further Reading
Carson, Cary, Joanne Brown, Willie Graham, et al. 2008. New World, Real World: Improvising English
Culture in Seventeenth-Century Virginia. Journal of Southern History 74(1):31–88.
Horn, James, Douglas Owsley, Beverly Straube, and William M. Kelso. 2013. Jane: Starvation, Cannibalism,
and Endurance at Jamestown. Jamestown, VA: Jamestown Rediscovery Project.
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Straube, Beverly A. 2001. “But Their Victualls Are Their Chiefest Riches.” In Jamestown Rediscovery VII,
35–52. Richmond, VA: Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
■ B E V E R LY S T R A U B E
J E R I M A L A I C AV E ( E A S T T I M O R )
Jerimalai Cave (42–38 KYA) is currently the oldest prehistoric site used by modern humans in Wallacea. It is located at the eastern end of East Timor, where Pleistocene raised
coralline terraces with many caves and shelters run parallel to the present coastline. The
site also contains the oldest evidence of tuna or fast-swimming fish exploitation (42–38
KYA) and the oldest shell-made fishhooks (16,000–23,000 BP). The site produced a rich
assemblage of cultural material, including well-preserved faunal remains, stone artifacts
(n=9,752), bone points, Trochus shell fishhooks, and shell beads dating to the terminal
Pleistocene. Fish bones are predominant in the faunal assemblage, both by number and
weight (~56 percent). Nearly 50 percent of the total fish assemblage in the earliest occupation levels consists of tuna and trevallies. A total of 38,687 fish bones and 23 taxa
were identified (MNI=796; NISP=2,822) from a single one-by-one-meter unit (Square
B). The MNI of tunas accounts for approximately 16 percent of total MNI. Parrotfish,
trevallies, triggerfish, and groupers follow in MNI and NISP. Rays and sharks, including
Carcharhinidae, are both recognized. Where fish are less dominant, the remains of marine turtles as well as small quantities of murid rodents, bats, birds, and various terrestrial
reptiles are found, indicating opportunistic exploitation by foragers of the limited range
of vertebrates found on Timor at the time. Together, the finds from East Timor demonstrate the high level of maritime skills and technology needed to colonize the islands of
Wallacea, as well as Australia and Near Oceania.
See also Fish/Shellfish; Fishing; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Tools/
Utensils, Organic Materials; Weapons, Bone/Antler/Ivory; Weapons, Stone;
Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
O’Connor, Sue. 2007. New Evidence from East Timor Contributes to Our Understanding of Earliest
Modern Human Colonisation East of the Sunda Shelf. Antiquity 81(313):523–35.
O’Connor, Sue, Rintaro Ono, and Chris Clarkson. 2011. Pelagic Fishing at 42,000 Years Before the
Present and the Maritime Skills of Modern Humans. Science 334(6059):1117–21.
■ R I N TA R O O N O
J O YA D E C E R É N ( E L S A LVA D O R )
The Joya de Cerén site was a village of Maya farmers in what is now El Salvador. The
Loma Caldera volcanic eruption at about AD 630 preserved the village and its farmlands
to an extraordinary degree. Each household had three buildings: a domicile for daytime
activities and for sleeping, a storehouse, and a kitchen. More than half of the stored food
was found in the kitchen, but substantial amounts were kept in the storehouse and some
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in the domicile. The thatch roofs of all buildings collapsed because of the overburden of
five meters of volcanic ash, but thatch and all the foods inside the buildings were preserved. Maize (corn) was stored on the cob in granaries, and three species of beans and
squash seeds were stored in pottery vessels. Chili peppers were strung from rafters, and
cacao (chocolate) was stored in both bean and processed form in pottery vessels.
Each household maintained a kitchen garden with a wide range of species, including
medicinal and flavoring plants as well as two root crops: malanga (Xanthosoma violaceum) and
a few manioc (Manihot esculenta) plants. Manioc tubers usually are harvested individually
from a kitchen garden, when the family needs a good carbohydrate addition to a meal, and
the plant continues growing. Surrounding the household were extensive fields devoted
to the seed crops maize, beans, and squash, all planted on small ridges with walkways in
between. Maya farmers consistently built these ridges perpendicular to slope, to maximize
infiltration of rainwater as well as to retard soil erosion. The farmers apparently increased
the size of the ridges during the growing season, packing soil around the stalks, probably to
counter windthrow as maize is susceptible to being blown over by moderately strong winds.
The preserved maize plants were
mature when they were buried in ash
and had been deliberately bent over
to prevent nutrients from reaching
the ears while drying in the fields, indicating that the eruption most likely
occurred in the month of August
(figure 35). Maize productivity was
extremely high adjacent to households, probably because kitchen and
human waste would help fertilize the
nearby fields and human presence
would decrease herbivory.
Two hundred meters south of
the village was an area devoted exclusively to cultivation of manioc.
Manioc is a small tree that develops
many large long tubers that are
excellent caloric sources. Manioc
can be harvested six months after
planting, but farmers prefer to wait
about a year for a better yield, and
can delay for longer if they wish.
Manioc does not have a specific Figure 35. Excavations exposed a maize plant from
an agricultural field south of the village of Joya de
harvesting time, in contrast to maize
Cerén, El Salvador. The plant had been doubled
and other seed crops. The fields of over to prevent nutrients from reaching the mature
three farmers were on gently sloping maize ear while drying in the field. It was buried and
(six to ten degrees) land, probably to preserved in situ by the volcanic explosion of AD
shed excess moisture. Manioc prefers 630. Photograph by Payson Sheets, Department of
drier conditions, and the Cerén area Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder.
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279
is located toward the wet end of the spectrum to which it can adapt. The farmers planted
in large elevated beds, creating soft soils that also assisted with tuber growth. Harvesting was
fundamentally different from that in the kitchen garden. All plants were harvested en masse,
yielding an estimated minimum of ten tons of tubers.The farmers constructed flat platforms
on both sides of their fields, presumably to serve as processing areas. Once a tuber is out of
the ground, it must be processed within a few days, and certainly some of the harvest was
consumed as food. Alternately, manioc can be fermented into a mildly alcoholic beverage
or dried and ground into flour that can preserve indefinitely if kept dry.The liquid is an effective glue, and two religious buildings in the village were painted white with an unknown
adhesive that is now suspected to be from manioc.
One of those religious buildings was devoted to community ceremonialism, and a
harvest ritual was being held the evening that Loma Caldera volcano erupted. The residents evidently were celebrating the maize and manioc harvest, and fermented beverages
from both plants likely were being consumed, along with a wide range of solid foods.
All villagers participating in the ceremony escaped from the building and plaza around
it, but how far they were able to travel before being overtaken by the hot volcanic gases
and ash as they fled to the south is unknown.
Certainly a most crucial element in the viability of a society, whether it is a small hunting-and-gathering band or the capital of an empire, is the adequacy of the food supply.
The variety of species, and their amounts, must be sufficient to feed the population under
average as well as unusual conditions. Societies with sustainable food production have
engineered resilience to variation, such as unusually wet years or droughts. Agriculturally
based cultures must regulate population related to productivity to avoid vulnerability
to climatic or other stresses. Archaeologists, often with the assistance of botanists, have
been successful in discovering many of the species of plants utilized by ancient peoples.
The result is a list of species, but rarely can key factors be known, including the relative
amounts of different species, how they were cultivated, and the locus of decision making.
The evidence recovered from Joya de Cerén is remarkable then for providing such complete documentation of the agricultural practices supporting this village of Maya farmers.
See also Agricultural Features, Identification and Analysis; Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Agriculture, Procurement, Processing, and Storage; Archaeobotany; Archaeology of Household Food Production; Cacao/Chocolate; Chili Peppers; Foodways and Religious Practices; Maize; Manioc/Cassava; Root Crops/
Tubers; Sustainability
Further Reading
Lentz, David, Marilyn P. Beaudry-Corbett, Maria Luisa Reyna de Aguilar, and Lawrence Kaplan. 1996.
Foodstuffs, Forests, Fields, and Shelter: A Paleoethnobotanical Analysis of Vessel Contents from the
Ceren Site, El Salvador. Latin American Antiquity 7(3):247–62.
Sheets, Payson, ed. 2002. Before the Volcano Erupted: The Ancient Céren Village in Central America. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Sheets, Payson, David Lentz, Dolores Piperno, et al. 2012. Ancient Manioc Agriculture South of the
Ceren Village, El Salvador. Latin American Antiquity 23(3):259–81.
■ P AY S O N S H E E T S
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K
K A B A H , M AYA R O YA L K I T C H E N ( M E X I C O )
In the Maya area, kitchens or food preparation areas (known in Maya as k’óobeno’ob) are
spaces characterized by small-sized constructions, built mainly with perishable materials,
located near waste areas that have an abundance of animal bones, lithic artifacts, and utilitarian pottery related to cooking. A number of kitchens associated with palace complexes
and the homes of the elite have been identified archaeologically. In the Puuc region of
Yucatan, royal kitchens can be recognized by the following features:
• They are located in the most discrete areas of the palace complexes. Their access
is restricted, while still allowing smooth movement to the main buildings. For
example, in Kabah, the kitchen or k’óoben is located at the lowest level of the palace group; in Sayil it is behind the palace; at Labná the food preparation area is
surrounded by vaulted buildings, restricting access further, as if trying to hide the
activities that were performed there from prying eyes.
• Buildings for the storage and preparation of food are easily distinguished by
their masonry foundations and walls and roofs of wood and thatch, unlike the
administrative and elite buildings, which were made entirely of masonry and have
elaborate facades.
• In the space around the k’óobeno’ob, various activities were carried out, such as
grinding, butchering animals, cooking, and serving prepared foods. These tasks
can be inferred from the presence of distinct sets of artifacts, such as grinding
tools (manos and metates); water reservoirs (known locally as pilas); percussion
and cutting tools (axes, scrapers, knives, prismatic blades, and hammer stones);
remains of hearths (ashes and burnt stones); and vessels used for storage, preparation, transportation, or food consumption (pots, pans, plates, cups, and bowls).
Underground cisterns (chultuno’ob) that guaranteed water supply, a necessity for
preparing food but also for cleaning, also have been detected in the vicinity of
the royal kitchens.
The remains of the royal kitchen of Kabah are located in the lowest level of the palace,
covering an area close to 1,200 square meters. The architectural elements that form this
area are a rectangular platform, two stairways that allow easy access to the Main Plaza and
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Figure 36. Hypothetical reconstruction of food preparation areas (known in Maya as k’óoben’ob)
at the Maya Royal Kitchen at Kabah, Mexico. Drawing by architect Arturo Valle Uicab.
residential areas, as well as six rooms built with masonry foundations (figure 36).The walls
and roofs were constructed of perishable materials. In this space archaeological evidence
has been recorded that, together with the chemical data (potential for hydrogen-pH, carbonates, phosphates, and proteins), identifies several distinct areas of activity:
• The zone for preparing nixtamal (maize dough) and other seeds was recognized by
high concentrations of carbonates, which indicates that maize was cooked here by
using lime (nixtamalization), as well as by a pH level indicating that a hearth existed.
Next to this archaeologists found a metate and large quantities of pottery, including
the remains of pots, pans, plates, bowls, and cups.
• The area for butchering and cooking animals has seven pilas, around which were
found considerable ash residue and vessels with the same shapes as those already
mentioned. Seventy-four tools made of obsidian, chert, and limestone, most of
them complete, were found in association. Because of their position, it is likely that
they were used in this location. Among those tools identified were prismatic blades,
axes, arrowheads, scrapers, hammers, drills, knives, flattening tools, manos, tamuladores
(mashing instruments), and polishers. These tools were kitchen utensils used to saw,
butcher, skin, fillet, cut bone, drill, pound, grind, and tenderize meat. Chemical
analysis of this area showed high concentrations of pH and phosphates, which is
consistent with cooking activities where animals were butchered and prepared.
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• The storage area for culinary utensils was identified by the presence of pottery and
stone tools inside the rooms. The chemical signature indicates average values of pH
and phosphates and a low level of carbonates.
Evidence from the Royal Kitchen of Kabah shows that it is a place in which large
amounts of food were prepared daily. This is comparable to what is known from historical accounts of the dietary habits of the Aztec Tlatoani (ruler or king) Moctezuma II, for
whom more than 30 kinds of stews were prepared according to Aztec custom, and more
than 300 dishes cooked daily. The vast quantity of remains from Kabah suggests that the
elite residents of this palace also could have fabulous banquets daily, and not only during
celebrations and rituals.
See also Archaeobotany; Archaeology of Cooking; Architectural Analysis; Cooking
Vessels, Ceramic; Feasting; Food and Status; Food Storage; Maize; Material Culture Analysis; Nixtamalization; Soil Microtechniques; Tools/Utensils, Ground
Stone; Tools/Utensils, Stone; Water; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Delvendahl, Kai. 2010. Las sedes del poder: Evidencia arqueológica e iconográfica de los conjuntos palaciegos mayas
del Clásico Tardío. Mérida, Mexico: UADY.
Díaz del C., Bernal. 1980. Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España. México City: Porrúa.
Landa, Diego de. 1978. Relación de las cosas de Yucatán. México City: Porrúa.
López B., Roberto. 2006. Platillos suculentos en vajillas elegantes: Un acercamiento a la “alta cocina”
del Clásico Maya. Lakamha’ 5(20):3–8.
Manzanilla N., Linda, ed. 1987. Cobá, Quintana Roo: Análisis de dos unidades habitacionales Mayas del Horizonte Clásico. México City: UNAM.
Pierrebourg, Fabienne de. 2006. Espacios y áreas de actividad en la Plataforma del Cabrío, Kabah. 2007.
In XX Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, edited by Juan Pedro Laporte, Bárbara
Arroyo, and Héctor Mejía, 214–35. Guatemala City: Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología.
Toscano H., Lourdes, and Gustavo Novelo R. 2012. La cocina real de Kabah,Yucatán. Paper presented
at the XXVI Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueológicas en Guatemala, Guatemala City.
Toscano H., Lourdes, Gustavo Novelo R., David Ortegón Zapata, et al. 2012. Proyecto investigación y
restauración arquitectónica en Kabah,Yucatán: Informe preliminar de la temporada 2011 y propuesta para la
temporada 2012. Mérida, Mexico: Archivo de la Sección de Arqueología del Centro INAH Yucatán.
■ M A R Í A D E LO U R D E S TOS C A N O - H E R N Á N D E Z
A N D G U S TAV O A D O L F O N O V E L O R I N C Ó N
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L
L A C TA S E P E R S I S T E N C E A N D D A I R Y I N G
The development of agricultural societies, dating back to around 10,000 years ago, is a
recent innovation in the timeline of human evolution. It has led, however, to fundamental changes in human ecology, involving new ways of living and eating, and is associated
with a number of innovations, many of which have reshaped the adaptive landscape of
humans. Among these, lactase persistence (LP) is probably the best studied. Lactase is
the enzyme that enables the digestion of the milk sugar lactose. Its expression decreases
after the weaning period is over in most mammals, including most humans. In some
humans, however, particularly in those populations that have a history of dairying, lactase is expressed throughout adulthood. In Africa and the Middle East, several variants
have been found to associate with LP, while a single variant (−13,910*T) has been
identified in Europe and the Indian subcontinent. It is possible to obtain estimates of
the age of specific LP-associated variants by studying genetic variation in surrounding
regions. Interestingly, they all bracket the time when dairying began in the corresponding regions. For variants to be so recent and yet so frequent, natural selection is very
likely to be involved. The estimated selection strengths required to explain the age/
frequency distributions of −13,910*T and −14,010*C are indeed among the highest
estimated for any human genes in the last ~30,000 years (1.4–19 percent and 1–15
percent, respectively). While the selective advantages of drinking milk without symptoms of lactose intolerance are still a matter of debate, evidence from dairy fat residues
detected in potsherds and from allele frequencies in ancient European populations indicates dairying was practiced before LP arose or became common. A spatially explicit
simulation modeling approach suggested selection on the −13,910*T allele originated
in central Europe about 7,500 years ago.
See also Biomolecular Analysis; Cattle; Digestion and Human Evolution; Milk
and Dairy Products; Residue Analysis, Dairy Products; Secondary Products
Revolution
Further Reading
Evershed, Richard P. 2008. Experimental Approaches to the Interpretation of Absorbed Organic Residues in Archaeological Ceramics. World Archaeology 40(1):26–47.
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Gerbault, Pascale, Anke Liebert,Yuval Itan, et al. 2011. Evolution of Lactase Persistence: An Example of
Human Niche Construction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological
Sciences 366(1566):863–77. doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0268.
■ P A S C A L E G E R B A U LT A N D M A R K G . T H O M A S
L A K E V I L L AG E S ( E U R O P E )
Lake villages or lake dwellings, prehistoric settlements built on the water or the shores
of lakes and rivers, are known from several archaeological periods. Most famous are the
Neolithic lake dwellings of Europe, especially those in the circum-Alpine region (Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, and Slovenia), named to the UNESCO World
Heritage list in 2011. The earliest circum-Alpine dwellings date to around 4200 cal BC.
This type of settlement continued until the Late Bronze Age, ending around 800 cal BC.
There are earlier Neolithic lake dwellings such as the site of La Draga in northeast Spain,
however, that date to around 5300 cal BC. In the Baltic region and in Scotland and Ireland
lake dwellings (crannogs or artificial islands) are mostly dated to the Late Bronze/Iron Age
(around 1200 until 500 cal BC).
In lake villages, archaeological deposits or cultural layers are often well preserved in a
waterlogged state. Plant remains are particularly well preserved. Macroremains such as seeds,
fruits, and cereal chaff are typically recovered. This gives archaeologists considerable insight
into the diversity of plant use. People in the lake villages were farmers, cultivating plants and
keeping domestic animals. Gathering and hunting also played an important role, however.
Very important cultivated plants in the Neolithic circum-Alpine lake villages were
wheat (a mostly tetraploid naked wheat, emmer, and, more rarely, einkorn) (figure 37),
barley (a multirowed form), flax, and opium poppy. Rarely represented are peas. Inhabitants also relied on hazelnuts, crab apples, acorns, and many other species of gathered
wild plants. Direct evidence of diet has been recovered from residues adhering to cooking
pots (figure 38) and from human excrement. A popular dish was a sort of stew containing
cereals, wild plants, and meat.
See also Archaeobotany; Barley; Biomolecular Analysis; Cereals; Cooking Vessels,
Ceramic; Macroremains; Paleofecal Analysis; Use-Wear or Use-Alteration Analysis, Pottery; Wheat
Further Reading
Jacomet, Stefanie. 2007. Neolithic Plant Economies in the Northern Alpine Foreland (Central Europe)
from 5500–3500 BC cal. In The Origins and Spread of Domestic Plants in Southwest Asia and Europe,
edited by Sue Colledge and James Conolly, 221–58. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
———. 2009. Plant Economies and Village Life in Neolithic Lake Dwellings at the Time of the Alpine
Iceman. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 18(1):47–59.
Jacomet, Stefanie, Malgorzata Latalowa, and Felix Bittmann, eds. 2014.The Potential of Palaeoecological
Studies in Archaeological Wetland Sites of the Southern Baltic Sea Regions. Vegetation History and
Archaeobotany 23(4):339–40.
Menotti, Francesco, and Aidan O’Sullivan. 2013. The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
■ S T E FA N I E J A C O M E T
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Figure 37. Imprint of a wheat ear, possibly Triticum
durum, on the bottom of a ceramic pot from the site
of Arbon-Bleiche 3, a late Neolithic circum-Alpine,
pile-dwelling settlement (dated by dendrochronology
between 3384 and 3370 BC) on the southeast shore
of Lake Constance, Canton Thurgau, Switzerland.
Photograph by Daniel Steiner. Courtesy of Amt für
Archäologie Thurgau, Switzerland.
Figure 38. Organic materials, including food remains such as seeds, fruit stones, and cereal chaff,
are often preserved in a waterlogged state. Excavations of a Neolithic pile-dwelling at the site of
Riedmatt, Canton Zug, Switzerland (3230 cal BC), revealed broken pottery, charcoal, and faunal
remains among the preserved posts. Photograph by Rolf Glauser (†) (Archiv Archäologie). Courtesy
of Amt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie, Kanton Zug, Direktion des Innern, Switzerland.
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L A N D S C A P E A N D E N V I R O N M E N TA L R E C O N S T R U C T I O N
Landscape in archaeology refers most fundamentally to the physical or natural world
that is the backdrop for human activities. Landscape is also defined as the relationship
between people and the places they inhabit, especially the ways people conceptually
organize space and give meaning to their surroundings. Landscapes are physical (landforms and vistas), biological (plants and animals), and ideological (imbued with cultural
meaning). The role that landscape plays in food and foodways is profound, as the production of food is intricately linked to both the physical environment and people’s beliefs about their relationships with the land. Because landscapes of food production are
anthropogenic (human created), reconstruction of these environments is an important
tool for understanding past cultures.
Some food plants may have originated in people’s unconscious activities in the landscape. For example, a domesticated form of goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri ssp. jonesianum), which provided nutritious seeds and greens, was domesticated in northeastern
North America by 2,500 BP. It underwent genetic modification as a result of human
activities and likely began the domestication process as a weedy camp follower—a plant
whose germination and growth was encouraged by disturbed ground. The seedbed hypothesis suggests that competition for faster germination among weedy plants that are
associated with disturbed areas, such as those around human settlements, facilitated humans’ use and led to plant domestication.
Deliberate management of vegetation was a common way people engaged and
modified landscapes for food. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, native peoples of North
America burned brush-filled environments to increase deer populations and to encourage
certain plants such as nut-bearing trees or plants that yield fruits or tubers. This management technique created the parklike landscape noted by early European explorers. In
swidden, or slash-and-burn, agriculture, people clear areas of dense forests for small gardens or fields.This practice is common in tropical areas and transforms plant communities
in ways that leave traces for generations.
Some food production activities have left highly visible, enduring impacts on the geophysical landscape. People in the Andes, throughout Southeast Asia, and in the Philippines
constructed extensive terraces for fields of rice, barley, wheat, and maize. These terraces
reduced the angle of slopes and greatly increased agricultural productivity in mountainous
regions. One complex of terraces in the Philippines has been in use for 2,000 years and
has been designated a World Heritage Site. The Peruvian Andes has particularly extensive
and complex systems of land and water control features: raised fields, rain-fed and irrigated terraces, and irrigation canals. Other anthropogenic features raised the productivity
of landscapes, including chinampas in the Valley of Mexico and gravel mulch gardens
created by ancestral Pueblo peoples.
People’s relationship with the landscape is not limited to altering their environment. For some societies, features of the landscape provide cues for food-producing or
food-gathering activities. For example, the Wampanoag peoples of New England told
17th-century French explorer Samuel de Champlain that they planted corn (maize) when
oak leaves were the size of a squirrel’s foot, and the Arrernte of Australia use the acacia
to indicate when game animals are good to hunt.
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Embedded in anthropogenic landscapes are social and political meanings. During the
17th century, native peoples of New England planted orchards as one way of demonstrating ownership and control over traditional lands in the face of an encroaching colonial
government. Environmental reconstruction of the spaces surrounding historic-period
house lots in New England has allowed researchers to explore changes to food production
that accompanied urbanization and the development of a middle class.
The broad range of activities relating food and landscape calls for the application of a
variety of analytical tools. Methods may include geophysical and topographic mapping
surveys. Satellite imagery and LiDAR (light detecting and ranging) not only map the
geophysical aspects of terrain such as topography and terraces but also can be used to
analyze vegetation cover to identify anthropogenic ecosystems. Sedimentation rates in
lake cores from central Mexico were used to explore the impact of different land-use
regimes: maize agriculture under the Aztecs and animal husbandry and plow agriculture
under Spanish colonists. Studies of domestication and food production use a variety
of botanical and faunal methods. Macrobotanical (seeds and larger plant parts) analysis
is typically used to explore the morphological changes that accompany plant domestication. Palynology (pollen analysis) has been used to identify the production of crops
and ritually important plants such as cotton in gravel mulch gardens in the American
Southwest. Microscopic wood charcoal from sediments provides evidence of the use of
fire as a land management tool.
Environmental reconstructions frequently employ botanical analyses to re-create
past vegetation as a proxy for the environment as a whole. Palynology is perhaps the
most common tool, but phytoliths (silicate deposits in plant cells) have been important for identifying grasslands and in tropical areas where pollen may not preserve
well. Starch grains are used to specifically identify food components as well as general
vegetation. Microfauna (e.g., snails and insects) are useful for reconstructing localized
environments. Because of the highly specific niches they occupy, some beetles are
particularly helpful for determining anthropogenic environments associated with food,
such as storerooms or house interiors, or determining the presence or the condition of
foods such as spoiled grains.
Recent trends in landscape analysis emphasize methodological advances for mapping
the physical environment, such as LiDAR. GIS (geographic information system) has
become an important tool for examining agricultural features, such as irrigation canals,
gravel mulch gardens, and terraces, and their relationship to the landscape. Recent work
has concentrated on increasing temporal and spatial resolution to provide more precise
reconstructions and employing cross-disciplinary analyses. Combinations of methods,
pollen, charcoal, chironomids (midges), fauna, and sediments have been particularly useful
for examining the dramatic changes in landscapes associated with the Viking occupation
of Iceland. Research questions also focus on social aspects, exploring such issues as the
construction of landscapes to provide visible manifestations of social power and the creation of sacred and profane spaces.
See also Agricultural Features, Identification and Analysis; Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Archaeobotany; Irrigation/Hydraulic Engineering; Multi- and
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Interdisciplinary Approaches; Palynology; Phytolith Analysis; Plant Domestication; Soil Microtechniques; Spatial Analysis and Visualization Techniques;
Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Anschuetz, Kurt F., Richard H. Wilshusen, and Cherie L. Scheick. 2001. An Archaeology of Landscapes:
Perspectives and Directions. Journal of Archaeological Research 9(2):157–211.
Bain, Allison. 1998. A Seventeenth-Century Beetle Fauna from Colonial Boston. Historical Archaeology
32(3):38–48.
Chase, Arlen F., Diane Z. Chase, John F. Weishampel, et al. 2011. Airborne LiDAR, Archaeology, and the
Ancient Maya Landscape at Caracol, Belize. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(2):387–98.
■ H E AT H E R B . T R I G G A N D D AV I D B . L A N D O N
L AT R I N E S A N D S E W E R S Y S T E M S
Throughout history, as groups of people came to live together by the hundreds and then
thousands, close living conditions increased the risk of epidemics and water pollution,
making efficient waste disposal essential. As human settlements became larger and more
complex, the problem of disposing of liquid and solid waste became ever more pressing.
Latrines and sewer systems represent intentional and more permanent efforts to deal with
this issue. These sites are primary sources of evidence for the foodways, dietary practices,
and health of past populations. Related features, such as drainage ditches, also hold considerable evidence of these food-related practices.
Some of the earliest evidence of organized waste disposal comes from the Palace of
Knossos (2000–1700 BC), the center of Minoan civil and religious power. Both a water
supply system and sewage disposal system were constructed. Rainwater was stored in
cisterns and was then made available, via terra-cotta pipes, for a variety of uses including
flushing latrines, while wastewater was channeled out into the river. It was not until the
rise of the city of Rome that another such complex sewage system was created, this time
on a larger scale. By the sixth century BC, channels had been dug to drain the marshland
on the edge of the settlement; residents also used these ditches to dispose of their waste.
Conduits were constructed along main roads within the city to allow water to empty
into the Cloaca Maxima, the huge drain that led to the Tiber River. Over the centuries,
the Romans became ever more accomplished at hydraulic engineering, organizing their
towns with complex water supply systems, including aqueducts built both below and
above ground. In parallel, they organized water drainage via sewer systems that ran under
the streets, and although these were created primarily to service public buildings, they
were eventually connected to many private houses.
The cities destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 provide unique insight into
many aspects of daily life in the Roman period, including the problem of waste disposal.
The recently excavated sewer under the Cardo V street in Herculaneum was the repository
for waste from an entire urban block, known as the Insula Orientalis II (figure 39). Chutes
from latrines and kitchens were channeled into it, not only from the ground floor but also
from at least three upper floors that made up the Insula Orientalis II building. The absence
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Figure 39. Plan of the archaeological site of Herculaneum. Branches of the town’s sewer
that have been investigated are shown in red; the hypothesized sewer branch under Cardo
IV is indicated by a green line; the water drainage channels that ran along the sides of the
Decumanus Maximus are indicated by a blue line. Drawing by D. Camardo based on A. Maiuri,
Ercolano, Tav. V (Rome 1958). Inset: The sewer under Herculaneum’s street known as Cardo III.
Photograph by D. Camardo/Herculaneum Conservation Project.
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of an outlet toward the sea suggests that it was a closed system, more like a large septic tank.
Built in the Claudian period, the sewer gathered material via a system of chutes, tunnels,
and precisely calculated sloping surfaces. Sewage would have built up in a large conduit that
must have been periodically emptied by gaining entry via inspection hatches located within
many of the insula’s ground-floor shops. The sediment that built up beneath the Cardo V
was 80–135 centimeters deep and was formed mainly of organic material and kitchen waste
that was probably used to fertilize agricultural land. This deposit was sealed by the volcanic
material of the AD 79 eruption. In total, 775 sacks of organic sediment were excavated,
each one containing about 15 liters of material. A first campaign of wet sieving of nearly 10
percent of the sediment revealed eggshells, poppy seeds, fig seeds, olive pits, fish scales and
bones, small animal and bird bones, sea urchin spines, and seafood shells.
Various types of latrines, preserved by the volcanic eruption, were connected to the
Herculaneum sewer system, and parallels can be found with the latrines at Pompeii. In
Herculaneum, 83 latrines have been identified in the houses, shops, and public buildings
of the excavated area (figure 40). Latrines seem to have been an important feature of the
Romans’ homes, given that almost every house in Herculaneum had one or more of
them. The most common type of latrine found on the ground floor was a small cubicle
in which a seat (a wooden board with a central hole cut into it) was installed. In most
cases the cubicle was built within a larger room used as a kitchen, with which it shared
waste chutes. This type of latrine had a floor paved with tiles that sloped down toward
Figure 40. Reconstruction of the public latrine found in Herculaneum’s Central Baths. Drawing
by Mario Notomista/Herculaneum Conservation Project.
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the chute. Buckets of water would have been used to wash the waste down the chute
and into the public sewer or cesspit. On the upper floors, a niche latrine was most commonly used. In this case the wooden toilet seat was installed within a small niche. The
hole in the seat was placed directly above the waste chute so that the excrement would
have fallen directly down the chute to a sewer or cesspit. These latrines would also have
needed water to work properly. Along with traces of organic remains that line the route
down to the sewer, lime-scale buildup can be seen within the downpipes, a clear sign
that water constantly flowed down them. Further analysis of the material collected from
the excavation of the sewer beneath Cardo V and the town’s many latrines, both private
and public, is expected to produce significant information on the diet and health of the
ancient population of Herculaneum.
See also Archaeobotany; Flotation; Herculaneum and Pompeii; Manuring and Soil
Enrichment Practices; Middens and Other Trash Deposits; Paleodietary Analysis;
Paleofecal Analysis; Paleonutrition; Water Supply and Storage
Further Reading
Camardo, Domenico. 2006. Water Supply and Drainage at Herculaneum. In Cura Aquarum in Ephesus,
vol. 1, edited by Gilbert Wiplinger, 183–191. Leuven: Peeters.
Hobson, Barry. 2009. Latrinae et Foricae: Toilets in the Roman World. London: Gerald Duckworth.
Jansen, Gemma C. M., Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, and Eric M. Moormann, eds. 2011. Roman Toilets:
Their Archaeology and Cultural History. Leuven: Peeters.
Maiuri, Amedeo. 1958. Ercolano, Tav. V. Rome: Instituto Poligrafico della Stato.
■ DOMENICO CAMARDO
LEGUMES AND PULSES
Legumes, plants belonging to the Leguninosae family, and pulses, or legumes that are
grown primarily for their seeds, have formed staples for human societies since prehistoric times. Pulse seeds are a frequent find at archaeological sites, while pod preservation
is extremely rare. Pulse seed consumption has provided human populations with plant
protein, complementing starch intake from cereals, while cultivation of pulses in rotation
with cereals has helped to secure soil nutrient availability.
Near Eastern hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic were harvesting wild lentils at Kebara
(50,000 BP) and wild bitter vetch at Ohalo (23,000 BP) (Israel). Wild pulses also were
harvested by early cultivators of the region around 12,000 years ago. Most specialists
consider cultivation of wild pulses a prerequisite of domestication, though Ladizinsky
has argued that domestication traits in some wild pulse species like lentils could have
developed prior to cultivation. For most pulse species of western Asia and Europe, the
wild progenitors and their modern geographic distribution are known. Some, like wild
pea, are thought to have originated within the Fertile Crescent; others extended farther
north, or had a narrow geographical distribution (e.g., wild chickpea). Wild pulses were
also harvested by Mesolithic inhabitants of prehistoric sites of the Mediterranean such as
Franchthi Cave (Greece) and Grotta del Uzzo (Sicily).
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Morphological traits, including a very gradual increase of seed size and reduction of
seed-coat thickness, are used to identify the transition from wild to domesticated species.
Domesticated lentils (Lens culinaris), peas (Pisum sativum), chickpeas (Cicer arietinum), and
bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia) are considered to be components of the Near Eastern Neolithic
“package” that spread with agriculture from the Near East to Europe (seventh millennium BC onward) and other areas of the Old World. Divergences from this model occur,
however, such as the near absence of chickpea and the common presence of grass pea,
which is not a “package” species, in Neolithic southeastern Europe. Celtic beanlike seeds
(Vicia faba), either a wild form or in incipient cultivation, were harvested 11,000 years
ago in northwest Syria and Israel; this species is also known from Mesolithic and Early
Neolithic settlements of the western part of the Mediterranean but is absent from the
Neolithic of Greece and Bulgaria. In the Bronze Age (third to early first millennium BC),
it was cultivated in Greece and parts of central Europe but not in Bulgaria. During the
Bronze Age, systematic cultivation of Cyprus vetch (Lathyrus ochrus) and Spanish vetchling (Lathyrus clymenum) was practiced on the Aegean islands, and the use of the latter is
also attested in the Levant. Today these are minor food crops of the Aegean. Other pulse
species that were brought into cultivation in the Near East and the Mediterranean include
fenugreek, lupins, and common vetch.
In South Asia indigenous pulse species were brought into cultivation from the third
millennium BC onward, around the same time that pulses of western Asian origin appear
in parts of India. Mung bean (Vigna radiata) was a major Neolithic crop in south India and
perhaps the western Himalayan foothills. Other Indian pulses encountered in the archaeobotanical record include horsegram (Macrotyloma uniflorum, 2500 BC), moth bean (Vigna
aconitifolia), urd bean (Vigna mungo), and pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan, mid- to late second
millennium BC). Some of the pulses of South Asia, such as cowpea (Vigna unguiculata)
and hyacinth bean (Lablab purpureus [L.] Sweet), may have originated in Africa, though
adequate archaeobotanical data are lacking at present. Cowpea has been found in Ghana
as early as the second millennium BC. Cowpea and horsegram probably spread from India
to Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian pulses, including soybean (Glycine max) and the azuki
bean (Vigna angularis), are encountered in the archaeobotanical records of prehistoric
Korea, China, and Japan. Their exploitation goes back to approximately 9,000 years and
5,000 years ago, respectively; both were domesticated in several locations in East Asia.
In America various bean species, including common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) and lima
bean (P. lunatus), appear to have been domesticated independently in both Mexico and the
Andes, as indicated by analyses of modern cultivated and wild populations of this species.
AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) dates from Mesoamerican common beans do not
provide evidence for their cultivation prior to 2,500 years ago in Mexico, while earlier
dates are available for domesticated common and lima beans in the Peruvian Andes and
coastal Peru (3,500–5,600 BP).
Evidence for processing and cooking pulses for human consumption is usually inferred by the properties of the different species, from modern culinary practice, and from
ethnographic accounts. Ancient Greek and Roman texts also provide information on the
status of pulses as food, methods of cooking, and their use in soups, as roasted snacks, or
as flour for bread making. Grass pea and bitter vetch (usually considered a fodder crop)
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were probably detoxified by soaking or boiling in water, as well as by removal of the
seed coat through grinding. Split bitter vetch seeds, probably treated with hot water, have
been identified at the Early Bronze Age (third millennium BC) site of Agios Athanasios in
northern Greece, while pulse flour has been identified at Bronze Age Akrotiri (mid-second millennium BC) on the island of Santorini. Splitting of pulses reduces both toxicity
and cooking time and increases digestibility. The resulting mushy dish is still consumed
in different parts of the Old World (fava, modern Greece; dhal, India).
See also Archaeobotany; Bean/Common Bean; Cultivation; Franchthi Cave; Macroremains; Neolithic Package; Plant Domestication; Plant Processing; Wild Progenitors of Domesticated Plants
Further Reading
Castillo, Cristina, and Dorian Q Fuller. 2010. Still Too Fragmentary and Dependent upon Chance?
Advances in the Study of Early Southeast Asian Archaeobotany. In 50 Years of Archaeology in Southeast
Asia: Essays in Honour of Ian Glover, edited by Bérénice Bellina, Elisabeth A. Bacus, Thomas Oliver
Pryce, and Jan Wisseman Christie, 92–111. Bangkok: River Books.
Flint-Hamilton, Kimberly B. 1999. Legumes in Ancient Greece and Rome: Food, Medicine or Poison?
Hesperia 68(3):371–85.
Fuller, Dorian Q, and Emma L. Harvey. 2006. The Archaeobotany of Indian Pulses: Identification, Processing and Evidence for Cultivation. Environmental Archaeology 11(2):219–46.
Kislev, M. E. 1989. Origins of the Cultivation of Lathyrus sativus and L. cicera (Fabaceae). Economic Botany
43(2):262–70.
Lee, Gyoung-Ah. 2013. Archaeological Perspectives on the Origins of Azuki (Vigna angularis). Holocene
23(3):453–59.
Lee, Gyoung-Ah, Gary W. Crawford, Li Liu, et al. 2011. Archaeological Soybean (Glycine max) in East
Asia: Does Size Matter? PLoS ONE 6(11):e26720. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0026720.
Valamoti, Soultana Maria, Aikaterini Moniaki, and Angeliki Karathanou. 2011. An Investigation of Processing and Consumption of Pulses among Prehistoric Societies: Archaeobotanical, Experimental
and Ethnographic Evidence from Greece. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 20(5):381–96.
Zohary, Daniel, Maria Hopf, and Ehud Weiss. 2012. Domestication of Plants in the Old World. 4th edition.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
■ S O U LTA N A M A R I A VA L A M O T I
LIPIDS
See Biomolecular Analysis
LITHICS
See Tools/Utensils, Stone; Use-Wear Analysis, Lithics; Weapons, Stone
LOW-LEVEL FOOD PRODUCTION
See Cultivation; Plant Husbandry
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M A C R O B O TA N I C A L R E M A I N S
See Macroremains
M AC R O F LO R A L R E M A I N S
See Macroremains
M AC R O R E M A I N S
Macroremains are remnants of plants that are recovered from archaeological contexts and
can be observed by the naked eye or under low-power magnification.They range from tiny
seeds to large wooden beams, and include a wide array of resources such as wood, bark,
stems, leaves, nutshells, fruits, seeds, and tubers, as well as other plant parts and tissues.Today it
is widely recognized that macroremains provide the kind of data needed to answer questions
about diet, origins of food production, diffusion of cultigens, biodiversity, land-use strategies,
medicinal and ritual practices, and technological and economic uses of plants.
Macroremains become a part of archaeological matrices through discard, loss, or
abandonment. They can survive the physical and chemical ravages of time if carbonized,
desiccated, frozen, or waterlogged. These natural processes inhibit the growth of decomposers like bacteria or saprophytic fungi, slow the rate of enzyme action, and lower the
speed at which chemical reactions occur. Desiccation, quick-freezing, and waterlogging
are remarkable for the types of plant tissue preserved, if not for the sheer abundance of
material. Most macrobotanical remains are derived from open-air archaeological sites in
mesic or moderately moist contexts, however, where they are subjected to a host of small
organisms that facilitate decomposition and to oscillations between wet and dry regimes
that increase their susceptibility to chemical decomposition.
Prior to excavation, decisions need to be made on how much and from what contexts
macrobotanical samples will be collected. Sampling strategies keep processing and analysis
from reaching unmanageable proportions, while affording an assemblage that is representative of the total population of plant remains at a site. A thorough consideration of
research questions should guide one’s choices. Sampling strategies can be combined into
two basic groups: sediment column sampling, used to establish broad, diachronic trends,
and horizontal sampling, used to answer synchronic questions about diet and nutrition.
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A decision needs to be made about how the macroremains will be recovered. Macroremains can be retrieved by hand, in the screen, or via flotation samples (i.e., block
units of sediment are removed and taken to the lab for processing). When choosing a
retrieval method or combination of methods, the biases of each should be considered.
For example, hand collection and screening are biased toward larger, readily visible plant
remains. In the case of field screening, the collected remains will be those pieces with a
minimum dimension greater than the size of the mesh. Flotation, although not without
its own biases, makes it possible to collect even the tiniest of macroremains. Because
macrobotanical remains can be preserved in different states—carbonized, desiccated,
frozen, waterlogged—one also needs to consider preservation when planning for the
collection of remains. While it may be acceptable to “float” carbonized macrobotanical
remains, the water used in the flotation process may cause desiccated tissues to expand
and fracture. To facilitate the separation of desiccated plant remains from their dirt
matrix, it may be wiser to dry-screen samples through a nest of progressively smaller
geological sieves. When handling waterlogged remains, it becomes essential to prevent
them from drying out; drying can create conditions for decay and cause distortions
that can impede identification. For similar reasons, the thawing of frozen macroremains
requires special treatment.
Identification of macrobotanical remains requires access to comparative collections, as
classification to botanical families, genera, species, and subspecies is accomplished mostly
by visually comparing archaeological specimens to known specimens. Moreover, identification depends on the condition of the remains (how eroded or fragmented they may
be) and on the abilities of the researcher to discern diagnostic attributes.
Quantification can be problematic. For example, how does one quantify fragments of
seeds or wood? Counts and weights are often used, despite the fact that absolute measures
are heavily influenced by factors such as preservation and sampling. While they do not
necessarily alleviate all the biases, manipulations of counts and weights (e.g., conversion
factors, diversity indices, rankings, ratios, and ubiquity measure) do help to standardize
the remains. Even more sophisticated statistics like multivariate analysis, while useful, do
not preclude the biasing of plant assemblages by cultural, natural, or analytical processes
that may ultimately influence interpretations.
Problem orientation and subsequent interpretations are project-specific and are
structured as much by theoretical perspectives as by available time and money. While
one may never realize all the nuances of past human-plant interrelationships, studies of
macroremains, especially when combining other analyses (e.g., pollen, phytoliths, starch
grains, DNA, and residues), can result in sophisticated understandings of the dynamic
relationship between past peoples and plants.
See also Archaeobotany; Feddersen Wierde; Flotation; Haithabu/Hedeby; Lake Villages; Oedenburg; Quseir al-Qadim
Further Reading
Beck, Wendy. 2006. Plant Remains. In Archaeology in Practice: A Student Guide to Archaeological Analyses,
edited by Jane Balme and Alistair Paterson, 296–315. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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Fritz, Gayle J. 2005. Paleoethnobotanical Methods and Applications. In Handbook of Archaeological Methods, vol. 2, edited by Herbert D. G. Maschner and Christopher Chippindale, 773–834. Lanham,
MD: AltaMira Press.
Lennstrom, Heidi A., and Christine A. Hastorf. 1995. Interpretation in Its Context: Sampling and Analysis in Paleoethnobotany. American Antiquity 60(4):701–21.
Pearsall, Deborah M. 2000. Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures. 2nd edition. San Diego, CA:
Academic Press.
Sobilik, Kristin D. 2003. Archaeobiology. Archaeologist’s Toolkit 5. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
Van Zeist, Willem, Krystyna Wasylikowa, and Karl Ernst Behre, eds. 1991. Progress in Old World Paleoethnobotany. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.
Wright, Patti J. 2010. On Methodological Issues in Paleoethnobotany: A Consideration of Issues,
Methods, and Cases. In Integrating Zooarchaeology and Paleoethnobotany, edited by Tanya M. Peres and
Amber M. VanDerwarker, 37–64. New York: Springer.
■ PAT T I J . W R I G H T
MAIZE
Maize, beans, squash, chili peppers, and tomatoes have been the primary staples of New
World foodways for millennia. Archaeologists have long maintained that maize, the major
Mesoamerican food staple, played a central role in the shift to agricultural subsistence,
sedentism, social stratification, and precocious ceramic innovation throughout the Americas. The economic importance of maize has been linked to processing technologies and
associated material culture in the archaeological record. Isotopic signatures from the bones
of ancient skeletons document the earliest evidence of maize-based subsistence economies and long-term economic dependence.
Maize or corn (Zea mays L.) is monophyletic. It arose from a single domestication
event ca. 7,000 years ago, a direct descendant of an annual grass, teosinte (Zea mays ssp. parviglumis), a wild grass native to the Balsas River drainage in southern Mexico. The genus
Zea includes cultivated maize (Z. mays ssp. mays), and the various subspecies of teosintes
are classified as members of the grass family Poaceae. The fruit of Poaceae is a caryopsis,
that is, it has the appearance of a seed. All taxa of Zea have a central spike or terminal
branch, which is a continuation of the central inflorescence axis or rachis. Teosinte has
male and female flowers on the same branch and kernels encased in a hard outer casing
called a glume. Maize is highly branched, with a male inflorescence (tassel) on its central
branch and female inflorescences (cobs) on auxiliary branches. Maize male inflorescences
(tassels) are distinguished by a stiffer, stronger, and more densely beset central terminal
spike, with more highly exaggerated and slender lateral branches than subspecies of other
Zea taxon. While maize seed dispersal is totally dependent upon humans, teosinte fruit
cases are not. Maize is highly mutagenic; kernel color and ear morphology are directly
affected by wind pollen from maize cultivated in surrounding fields.
The origins of maize have been a matter of considerable scientific debate, largely
because of its phenotypic characteristics versus those of teosinte and its importance as a
food crop. While theories of a wild maize ancestor have been largely discarded, there is
no archaeological evidence from early cave and rockshelter sites such as Guilá Naquitz or
those in the Tehuacán Valley to suggest that teosinte fruit cases were exploited for food.
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Some archaeologists maintain that instead teosinte was exploited initially for its stalk sugar
for use as a condiment or for fermentation, and archaeological evidence indicates that
early on maize stalks were chewed and perhaps used to make intoxicants such as pulque.
The Tehuacán Valley sequences show that maize subsequently became an important food
source and a staple by ca. 1500 BC.
The domestication of food crops like maize represents a process of evolutionary
change involving the genetics of plant populations. These changes are primarily in response to human influence or conscious selection for certain favorable traits, or unconscious selection—that is, genetic responses to human modification of the environment
or management of reproduction. The gradual interdependence and changes in adaptation
associated with plant domestication involve a shift to sedentary, permanent settlements
associated with rivers and streams and away from the mobile lifestyles of hunters and
gatherers. Archaeologists have long maintained that ceramic technology and grinding
stones (manos, metates) at New World archaeological sites developed simultaneously and
that these material forms and technologies are emblematic of maize-based agricultural
economies. Ceramic containers and processing stones were seen as essential for processing
this food crop into flour for mass consumption. With the advent of 14C dating, however,
multidisciplinary research at numerous Mexican rockshelters and caves indicates that
maize appeared long before the associated processing tools.
Recent advances in scientific analyses and increased understanding of the plant itself
suggest the role of maize as a food source was more complex than previously understood.
In Mesoamerica, maize cultivation was accompanied by the adoption of nixtamalization.
Nixtamal is a Nahuatl term that refers to the preparation of maize kernels by soaking or
cooking in an alkali solution using limewater (calcium hydroxide) and wood ash (potassium hydroxide). Processing releases enzymes and niacin (vitamin B3) that enhance the
absorption of amino acids. Mycotoxins such as molds and fungi are reduced by 90–94
percent. Thus maize consumed as tamales, tortillas, hominy, and so on is significantly
more nutritious, with an improved and enhanced flavor and aroma. Maize as flour (i.e.,
tamales or tortillas) is indigenous to Mesoamerican cuisines. Recent stable carbon isotope,
molecular, and ethnobotanical evidence indicates that previous assumptions regarding the
economic importance of unprocessed maize to prehistoric cultures needs to be reassessed,
however, particularly theories that processed maize was necessary for the development of
complex societies in Mesoamerica.
Research surrounding the origins of maize has been critical to understanding the
shift from hunting and gathering to agricultural economies. Our current perceptions
regarding its economic importance are largely based upon scientific research on the
plant itself. New analytical techniques, however, including isotopic analysis of bone
collagen and residue analysis of ancient pottery, now allow us to look directly at diet
and foodways, adding to our understanding of the complexity of this human-plant relationship. Future research will be able to directly document the economic importance
and various roles of maize in ancient economies throughout the Americas, and to more
precisely determine its importance to the development of social complexity and the
sudden collapse of Pre-Columbian cultures.
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See also Agriculture, Origins of; Archaeobotany; Bean/Common Bean; CHICHA;
DNA Analysis; Food Production and the Formation of Complex Societies; Guilá
Naquitz; Mesoamerican Archaic-Period Diet; Nixtamalization; Plant Domestication; Plant Processing; PULQUE; Quids; Residue Analysis, Starch; Stable Isotope
Analysis; Tehuacán Valley
Further Reading
Byers, Douglas S., ed. 1967. The Prehistory of the Tehuacán Valley.Vol. 1, Environment and Subsistence. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Flannery, Kent V., ed. 1986. Guilá Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early Agriculture in Oaxaca. San Diego,
CA: Academic Press.
MacNeish, Richard S. 1992. The Origins of Agriculture and Settled Life. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press.
Staller, John E. 2010. Maize Cobs and Cultures: History of Zea mays L. Berlin: Springer.
Staller, John E., Robert H. Tykot, and Bruce F. Benz, eds. 2006. Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Linguistics, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize. Walnut Creek,
CA: Left Coast Press.
■ J O H N E . S TA L L E R
M A N I O C / C A S S AVA
Cassava or manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz, Euphorbiaceae) is the third most important
source of calories in the tropics after rice and maize. A woody shrub grown for its starchy,
tuberous roots, the cassava plant is tolerant of drought and acidic, nutrient-poor soils,
making it a cheap and reliable source of carbohydrates for some of the world’s poorest
populations. While native to the New World, cassava is grown throughout the humid
tropics worldwide. Plants are propagated by stem cuttings, with roots typically harvested
several months after planting. Cassava varieties are numerous and vary tremendously in
growth habit, leaf and root morphology, and agroecological adaptation, as well as in levels
of potentially toxic cyanogenic glucosides. Varieties have traditionally been classified as
either “sweet” (low cyanide) or “bitter” (high cyanide); the former may be consumed after
simply boiling the root, while the latter require additional processing (including grating
and soaking in water or fermentation) prior to consumption. There is little evidence that
the bitter/sweet classification reflects genetically distinct subgroups within the crop. Once
harvested, cassava roots are highly perishable, and as a consequence the crop tends to be
grown either by subsistence farmers for local consumption or industrially for processing
into tapioca and other starch products.
Until the last two decades, very little was known about cassava’s center of domestication or early cultivation history. As a crop of humid lowlands, archaeobotanical preservation is poor, and well-preserved remains tend to come from arid sites that do not reflect
the crop’s earliest use. A compounding problem is that archaeobotanical data, where
available, have suggested an early and rapid spread following cassava’s domestication,
further hindering efforts to trace its origin and diffusion. Traditional botanical data (e.g.,
morphological characters) offered little resolution in identifying cassava’s closest wild relatives or likely center of domestication. The genus Manihot comprises approximately 98
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species distributed from the southern United States to Argentina—many of which, like
cassava, are highly variable morphologically. In the absence of a readily recognized direct
wild ancestor, researchers proposed multiple hybridization events, potentially involving
species distributed throughout the neotropics.
Advances in our understanding of cassava’s origin and early history have come from
two complementary areas of research: evolutionary genetics and archaeobotanical analysis.
Beginning in the 1990s, molecular genetic data were used to examine cassava’s evolutionary relationship to wild Manihot species. Comparisons of DNA sequences and other
genetic markers between cassava and wild Manihot species revealed that the crop is not a
hybrid but rather is derived from a single wild species in South America, M. esculenta ssp.
flabellifolia (Pohl) Ciferri, and that domestication most likely occurred in a region along
the southern border of the Amazon basin.
Documentation of the crop’s postdomestication diffusion has been greatly facilitated
by methodological developments in archaeobotanical starch grain analysis. These have
permitted the recovery and identification of cassava starch grains, even in the absence of
recognizable macrobotanical remains. Starch grain data provide clear evidence that cassava
was already widely cultivated throughout Mesoamerica and Central and South America
by 6,500 BP. At sites in the Peruvian coastal zone (e.g., Quebrada de las Pircas in the Zaña
Valley), cassava remains have been dated to ca. 7,950 ± 180 BP; this suggests that cassava’s
earliest cultivation in the Amazonian lowlands must have been even earlier. Further from
the center of origin, cassava starch grains recovered from grinding stones in the Porce
and Cuaca Valleys of north-central Colombia have been dated to ca. 7,500 BP. In Central
America, cassava starch grains from the Aguadulce site in Panama are approximately 6,900
years old. Within the Caribbean, cassava starch grains isolated from processing tools in
Puerto Rico have been dated to ~3,300–2,900 BP. Pollen grains also indicate an early
diffusion, with pollen that is likely to be from domesticated cassava dating to ~5,800 BP
and 4,500 BP in archaeological contexts along the Gulf Coast of Mexico and Belize,
respectively. Thus, while archaeological evidence within cassava’s Amazonian center of
origin remains scarce, data from outside this region leave little doubt as to this crop’s early
domestication and rapid dissemination throughout the New World tropics.
See also Archaeobotany; Biomolecular Analysis; DNA Analysis; Palynology; Plant
Domestication; Plant Processing; Residue Analysis, Starch; Root Crops/Tubers;
Starches, Role of; Tools/Utensils, Ground Stone
Further Reading
Isendahl, Christian. 2011. The Domestication and Early Spread of Manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz): A
Brief Synthesis. Latin American Antiquity 22(4):452–68.
Olsen, Kenneth M., and Barbara A. Schaal. 1999. Evidence on the Origin of Cassava: Phylogeography
of Manihot esculenta. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 96(10):5586–91.
Piperno, Dolores R. 2006. Identifying Manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz) and Other Crops in Pre-Columbian Tropical America through Starch Grain Analysis: A Case Study from Central Panama. In
Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms, edited by Melinda A. Zeder, Daniel
G. Bradley, Eve Emshwaller, and Bruce D. Smith, 46–67. Berkeley: University of California Press.
■ KENNETH M. OLSEN
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MANURES AND OTHER FERTILIZERS,
I D E N T I F I C AT I O N A N D A N A LY S I S
Aside from the reliance on ethnographic and written records, the use of fertilizers in
archaeological contexts can largely be assessed in two ways. The first relies on the artifactual or morphological evidence of the deposition of soil amendments into contexts that
are believed to have been gardens or agricultural fields. The second relies on chemical or
molecular proxies that are indicative of the addition of particular amendments to the soil;
these proxies may be applied to the cultivated areas (i.e., soils), to botanical materials, or
to the tissues of humans or animals.
By virtue of their capacity to dissolve and release nutrients—characteristics that
make them valuable in agriculture—fertilizers are unlikely to persist in the soil over
archaeological timescales. Nevertheless, the presence of animal excreta in archaeological contexts has been deduced on the basis of a number of indicators: clear physical
presence of the excreta (coprolites), spherulites (crystalline structures that form in animal guts), plant and arthropod remains (mites, dung beetles), spores of coprophilous
fungi, and eggs of internal parasites. These indicators are generally consistent with the
presence of animal waste but not necessarily of its use as a fertilizer. As such, they are
highly dependent on solid contextual data.
The practice of amending the soil may take on a very specific tone, with the addition
of fertilizers from particular sources, or it may be more generalized, incorporating a broad
range of domestic refuse. In the latter case, fertilization may be identified by the presence
of materials that are not necessarily fertilizers but are associated with domestic spaces.
The wide dispersal of ceramic sherds or charred plant remains across large areas in the
immediate vicinity of human occupations may represent the utilization of domestic refuse
(including animal waste products) in intensive agriculture. Similarly, the wide distribution
of highly fragmented bone is suggestive of the use of bone meal as a fertilizer (although
the use of general household debris is also possible).
Several chemical or molecular markers have been employed to detect fertilization
practices. Soil phosphate content is a general indicator of anthropogenic activity, including the deposition of organic fertilizers, but it cannot be unequivocally associated with
the activity of fertilization. More specific animal fecal biomarkers have recently been
employed, focusing on the detection of sterols and bile acids in sediments from archaeological contexts. These markers are excreted in the feces of mammals and are relatively
resistant to degradation in comparison to other organic components of animal manure.
In addition to detecting the presence of animal feces, the use of multiple biomarkers has
the potential to distinguish fecal products derived from specific sources (e.g., cow and
sheep vs. human, pig vs. human, mammal vs. bird).
Isotopic studies offer several potential means with which to detect prehistoric fertilization practices.The application of animal manures to agricultural fields tends to increase
the nitrogen isotopic composition (d15N) of plants. The magnitude of this difference
varies strongly with the type and amount of fertilizer applied. The difference in d15N
values between fertilized and unfertilized plants is relatively modest for manure derived
from ruminant herbivores such as cattle, larger for manures derived from pigs and poultry,
and extremely large for manure derived from seabird guano. Nitrogen isotopic analysis of
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human or animal remains can provide evidence of the use of fertilizers, but this is only
clear when the fertilizer causes a large effect on plant d15N values and there are no other
foods with similar carbon isotopic compositions (as is the case for C3 plants fertilized
with seabird guano). Where fertilizers cause more modest effects on plant d15N values,
it is difficult to differentiate between the consumption of animal protein and fertilized
plant protein on the basis of bulk isotopic data derived from animal tissues such as bone
collagen. Nitrogen isotopic data have the potential to provide clearer evidence of past
fertilization practices via the analysis of sediment profiles or archaeobotanical remains,
provided that it can be demonstrated that the isotopic signature is not the product of
post-depositional processes. Such data would be extremely valuable because they would
provide very clear evidence that manures actually were used to fertilize crops, rather than
simply documenting the local presence of manure.
See also Agricultural Features, Identification and Analysis; Biomolecular Analysis;
Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Manuring and Soil Enrichment
Practices; Soil Microtechniques; Stable Isotope Analysis
Further Reading
Bogaard, A., T. H. E. Heaton, P. Poulton, and I. Merbach. 2007. The Impact of Manuring on Nitrogen
Isotope Ratios in Cereals: Archaeological Implications for Reconstruction of Diet and Crop Management Practices. Journal of Archaeological Science 34(3):335–43.
Bull, Ian D., I. A. Simpson, P. F. van Bergen, and R. P. Evershed. 1999. Muck ’n’ Molecules: Organic
Geochemical Methods for Detecting Ancient Manuring. Antiquity 73(279):86–96.
Canti, M. G. 1999. The Production and Preservation of Faecal Spherulites: Animals, Environment and
Taphonomy. Journal of Archaeological Science 26(3):251–58.
Holliday, Vance T., and William G. Gartner. 2007. Methods of Soil P Analysis in Archaeology. Journal of
Archaeological Science 34(2):301–33.
Jones, Richard, ed. 2012. Manure Matters: Historical, Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives. Farnham,
UK: Ashgate.
Miller, Naomi F., and Kathryn L. Gleason. 1994. Fertilizer in the Identification and Analysis of Cultivated Soil. In The Archaeology of Garden and Field, edited by Naomi F. Miller and Kathryn L. Gleason,
25–43. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Shahack-Gross, Ruth. 2011. Herbivorous Livestock Dung: Formation, Taphonomy, Methods for Identification, and Archaeological Significance. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(2):205–18.
Szpak, Paul, Jean-Francois Millaire, Christine D.White, and Fred J. Longstaffe. 2012. Influence of Seabird
Guano and Camelid Dung Fertilization on the Nitrogen Isotopic Composition of Field-Grown
Maize (Zea mays). Journal of Archaeological Science 39(12):3721–40.
■ PA U L S Z PA K
M A N U R I N G A N D S O I L E N R I C H M E N T P R AC T I C E S
Farmers have always drawn upon a wide array of materials to improve soil fertility and
yields. The generation of human excreta, animal dung, and plant residues by all agrarian
communities has ensured their universal application as manures irrespective of time
and place. The precise quantities and ratios applied might vary considerably, however,
depending on the balance and output of farming regimes, population size, cultural
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mores, religious tenets (resulting, for instance, in the avoidance or favoring of dung from
particular animals), the sophistication of scientific knowledge, and health concerns.
Furthermore, individual access to manure has always been influenced by social status,
affluence, and size of landholding.
Across time, most agrarian economies have supplemented their basic manure supplies with other locally sourced materials including household detritus and food waste,
although much of the latter often would be fed directly to animals. Lime and marl were
favored dressings wherever geological deposits occurred. Peat and stubble were commonly burned and plowed into the soil. In coastal areas sand, shell, seaweed, and fish were
regularly applied. The use of nitrogen-fixing plants such as lupins and clover is recorded
from at least the Roman period; so too the application of bird guano. More recently,
byproducts of industrial processes such as soap ashes, shoddy (waste wool clippings), malt
dust, furriers’ chippings, horn shavings, and fellmongers’ cuttings (pieces of hides or skins
that are being prepared for tanning) have added to the variety of manuring admixtures.
Historical documentation and ethnographic examples are extensive and warn against
viewing manure as a simple fertilizer. From Poland to India, the size of one’s manure heap
has been used historically as an indicator of relative affluence. Biblical references associating dunghills with the salvation of the poor or places to which the rich fall have ensured
that manure has carried a unique social and theological significance in Judeo-Christian
contexts. Hindus understand the product of the sacred cow to be imbued with powers
over and above its nutritional value. For Roman and medieval farmers (both Christian
and Muslim), manure was spread according to elemental principles. Hot and moist animal
dungs helped to balance cold and dry soils; fertilizers such as hearth ashes and pottery
were applied to cold and wet soils, while cold and moist vegetal matter best enriched hot
and dry fields. The timing of application also was dictated by season, by wind direction,
and by the phases of the moon, the former since these too affected the balance between
hot, cold, wet, and dry, the latter because the moon was thought to affect whether the
nutritional value of the manure was drawn into (waning) or up from (waxing) the ground.
Until recently, it was difficult to augment these sources with archaeological data. Most
manures are organic and rapidly degrade; few leave a visible trace in the archaeological
record, although soil darkening can signal the application of humic-rich matter. The
durability of inorganic materials such as pottery does allow the extent and timing of
plowing episodes to be mapped where sherds have become integrated into the manure
mix although the interpretation of this evidence remains problematic. In recent decades
biological and geochemical analyses have begun to reveal the previously invisible signs of
manuring. These include lipid and isotopic analyses, which hold the potential to identify
the presence of human and animals fecal matter or the growing of nitrogen-fixing crops,
respectively, and the study of plant and insect macrofossils, which has helped to pinpoint
the use of stable manures and to locate midden sites. Dirt DNA, magnetic susceptibility,
soil micromorphology, and total phosphate concentration, when used in combination
with ethnographic and historical sources, have enabled geoarchaeologists to tease out local methods of manuring and the materials used. The potential of dirt DNA has recently
been demonstrated in a study in Greenland proving the contribution of feces and urine
from domestic animals in the preparation of cropping areas. Combinations of these meth-
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ods have been deployed on the Scottish mainland and isles, as well as in the Netherlands,
to investigate the creation of anthropogenic and plaggen soils (rich soils comprising peat
and rotted stable bedding). Given cultural preferences as well as socioeconomic factors,
health beliefs, and other influences on manuring practices, these scientific approaches
offer new and exciting insights into the complex decisions taken by farmers in the past
to maintain soil fertility.
See also Agricultural Features, Identification and Analysis; DNA Analysis; Documentary Analysis; Ethnographic Sources; Foodways and Religious Practices;
Landscape and Environmental Reconstruction; Manures and Other Fertilizers,
Identification and Analysis; Soil Microtechniques
Further Reading
Forbes, Hamish. 2013. Off-Site Scatters and the Manuring Hypothesis in Greek Survey Archaeology:
An Ethnographic Approach. Hesperia 82(4):551–94.
Jones, Richard, ed. 2012. Manure Matters: Historical, Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives. Farnham,
UK: Ashgate.
Kenward, Harry, and Allan Hall. 1997. Enhancing Bioarchaeological Interpretation Using Indicator
Groups: Stable Manure as a Paradigm. Journal of Archaeological Science 24(7):663–73.
■ RICHARD JONES
MARINE MAMMALS
Marine mammals (e.g., whales, seals, porpoises, dolphins, and walruses) were a valuable
source of meat and fats in hunter-gatherer-fisher populations. Sea mammals provide a
large supply of meat (a single humpback whale providing 40 tons of meat) and blubber.
Marine mammals represent a high calorific return per individual captured and therefore
were a valuable resource for archaeological populations through time in coastal regions
across the world. Farming populations also exploited marine mammals, as seen in zooarchaeological assemblages from the Neolithic onward in the Scottish Atlantic islands.
Ethnographic studies of the Topnaars in Namibia have demonstrated that whale meat can
be boiled, dried, or consumed raw. Dried whale meat can be stored, making it a valuable
resource when alternative nutrition is unavailable.
Marine mammal exploitation can be difficult to identify archaeologically as whale
meat is often butchered on-site and taken back to settlements without any bone being
removed. Indirect techniques can be used to try to understand whale consumption. The
presence and abundance of other prey species may indicate whether specialized economies were being practiced. New techniques also have been developed to identify marine
mammal fats in pottery vessels and have potential to inform on archaeological marine
mammal consumption.
Marine mammals can be procured through active hunting of targeted species using
harpoons and other paraphernalia, or through passive procurement such as beachcombing as seen in the Scottish North Atlantic islands. Procurement can be assessed by analyzing species representation at sites. The homogenous nature of marine mammal bone
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fragments makes species identification difficult, however, and thus it is also difficult to
determine active versus passive whaling.
See also Bioarchaeological Analysis; Butchery; Ethnographic Sources; Foraging;
Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Stable Isotope Analysis; Weapons, Bone/Antler/
Ivory; Weapons, Metal; Weapons, Stone; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Cramp, Lucy, and Richard P. Evershed. 2013. Reconstructing Aquatic Resource Exploitation in Human
Prehistory Using Lipid Biomarkers and Stable Isotopes. In Treatise on Geochemistry. Vol. 14, Archaeology and Anthropology, edited by Thure Cerling, 319–39. 2nd edition. Oxford: Elsevier.
Mulville, Jacqui. 2002. The Role of Cetacea in Prehistoric and Historic Atlantic Scotland. International
Journal of Osteoarchaeology 12(1):34–48.
Smith, Andrew B., and John Kinahan. 1984. The Invisible Whale. World Archaeology 16(1):89–97.
Yesner, David R. 1980. Maritime Hunter-Gatherers: Ecology and Prehistory. Current Anthropology
21(6):727–50.
■ JENNIFER R. JONES
M A R K E TS / E XC H A N G E
Until recently, most archaeologists afforded little role to either exchange or markets when
it came to the procurement of food. In preindustrial contexts, most households historically have been viewed as largely self-sufficient, only moving toward food transfers when
pushed by population/environmental imbalances or pulled by tribute-seeking elites.
Now, based on new conceptual and empirical advances, this perspective is being revised
through the recognition that interhousehold cooperation, including exchanges of food
(and other goods), has had a much more central role in human history than was previously
envisioned. Around the world, the sharing of comestibles and associated food preferences
underpins social identities and cohesion. Intensified cultivation of olives and grapes in the
Mediterranean world and xerophytic plants such as agaves in Mexico constructed new
human niches that fostered intensified food exchanges in those regions.
As archaeologists long have recognized, face-to-face reciprocal exchanges as well as
top-down tribute exactions have served as important modes to distribute food in many
historical contexts.Yet in addition to these means of transfer, marketplace exchanges have
also been shown to have long-standing significance in many regions of the world. For
example, in both pre-Hispanic Mexico and ancient Rome, food exchanges in marketplaces were central features of their economies. Yet given their scope and diversity, these
impressive market systems and others known historically, such as in Classical Greece
and Byzantium and from the Warring States period in China, did not develop without
historical antecedents. Those marketplace exchanges almost certainly had much deeper
histories than many social scientists have presumed.
On a theoretical level, the long-held, rather stark theoretical dichotomies drawn between command and free economies as well as primitive and modern economic systems
are now under rigorous challenge and are being reframed. No longer can it be presumed
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that preindustrial economies were always centrally controlled or administered. Likewise,
it is becoming apparent that all economic systems are embedded in their broader societal
contexts, even those associated with contemporary nation-states. Thus, when it comes to
the comparative investigation of economic systems, whether past or present, the question
is not whether or not they were state/politically controlled but how economic practices,
including food procurement, were intertwined and shaped by political and other societal
institutions, including definitions of property, modes of revenue generation, means and
networks of commodity distribution, as well as other considerations.
Although textual data still provide the firmest evidence for preindustrial markets, archaeologists have refined a series of procedures to identify marketplaces based on spatial analyses
as well as chemical studies of sediments. Other investigations have examined intrasettlement
and regional distributions of goods as indicators of market-based exchanges. Ultimately, the
strongest empirical evidence (and the best avenue to avoid equifinality) that archaeologists
can employ to identify marketplace exchanges is implemented through multiscalar research
designs that examine several of the aforementioned indicators while ruling out alternative
hypotheses that favor large-scale redistribution (such as massive central storage facilities).
Through reciprocity, redistribution, marketplace exchanges, and other modes of economic transfer, people across time have been remarkably active in moving food products
long distances and then adopting the introduced comestibles into their core culinary
practices. Few people are aware that the potato was not native to Ireland, or the tomato
to Italy, or sugarcane to the Caribbean. All of these foods were carried halfway across the
globe before profoundly affecting the histories of the regions where they were brought.
Available transport technologies do have a limiting effect when it comes to the movement of staple foods in bulk. If more calories are needed to move heavy loads than are
retrieved from the burden’s consumption, then it is unlikely that such movements will
often occur. Until the advent of large-scale seaborne vessels and motorized transport,
high-status and lighter-weight foods (such as spices) were exchanged over much longer
distances than were large amounts of staple foods (such as grains). The maize in the diet
of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II was almost entirely grown in central Mexico surrounding his capital, Tenochtitlán, yet the cacao from which his frothy beverage was made is
said to have been brought regularly to him and his court from coastal Veracruz where
it was harvested. Thus, although exchanges of food are subject to real constraints, both
environmental and transport, people have been remarkably creative when it comes to
circumventing both of these impediments, moving their preferred foods across the world.
See also Archaeology of Household Food Production; Columbian Exchange; Consumption; Food and Capitalism; Food and Politics; Food as a Commodity; Food
Production and the Formation of Complex Societies; Globalization; Informal
Economic Exchange; Shipwrecks; Soil Microtechniques; Spatial Analysis and Visualization Techniques; Trade Routes
Further Reading
Blanton, Richard, and Lane Fargher. 2008. Collective Action in the Formation of Pre-Modern States. New
York: Springer.
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Feinman, Gary M. 2013. Crafts, Specialists, and Markets in Mycenaean Greece: Reenvisioning Ancient
Economies; Beyond Typological Constructs. American Journal of Archaeology 117(3):453–59.
Feinman, Gary M., and Christopher P. Garraty. 2010. Preindustrial Markets and Marketing: Archaeological Perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology 39:167–91.
Feinman, Gary M., and Linda M. Nicholas. 2012. The Late Prehispanic Economy of the Valley of
Oaxaca, Mexico: Weaving Threads from Data, Theory, and Subsequent History. Research in Economic
Anthropology 32:225–58.
Garraty, Christopher P., and Barbara L. Stark, eds. 2010. Archaeological Approaches to Market Exchange in
Ancient Societies. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.
Morrisson, Cécile, ed. 2012. Trade and Markets in Byzantium. Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and
Colloquia 4. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks.
Temin, Peter. 2013. The Roman Market Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
■ GARY M. FEINMAN
M AT E R I A L C U LT U R E A N A LY S I S
The archaeological material culture of food is rich. It encompasses landscapes, built environments, features, and artifacts. Archaeologists often deal with agricultural landscapes
but may analyze any type of cultural landscape where humans interacted with food. On
a colonial plantation, for instance, in addition to gardens, pastures, and fields, they also
may consider the connections that tie the kitchen to its outdoor surroundings, the main
house, and any relevant outbuildings, such as a coop or smokehouse. The archaeological
remains of food mills, root cellars, kitchens, storerooms, dining rooms, banquet halls, or
feasting structures are a few of the food-related architectural elements found in excavation. Examples of archaeological features that are linked to food include hearths, ovens,
storage pits, or middens. Yet food-related artifacts constitute the bulk of this ensemble,
from agricultural tools to storage containers, cooking utensils, and the objects that people
used for eating and drinking. Finally, some researchers consider that the body itself and
the remains of plants and animals are part of this ensemble.
Following social anthropologists such as Jack Goody, archaeologists find it convenient
to conceptualize the relationship between food and people as a series of practices organized into five main groups. These steps are generally defined as food production or
acquisition, distribution or storage, preparation, consumption, and disposal. One of the
strengths of material culture is that it is present at all of these stages and can therefore
shed light on each of them. Artifacts alone may support the collection and production
of food, as well as its transport and storage. They tend to play a crucial role during its
transformation and consumption. Even when artifacts do not have a specific function
in regard to food discard, they may influence how leftovers are handled and often enter
the archaeological record together with food refuse. Feasting practices, in particular, can
generate as many material culture remains as food waste.
Materials matter because they determine how things are preserved in the ground. It
is likely that in many societies—from contexts as diverse as most Paleolithic cultures to
pre-1950 Iceland—a significant proportion of food-related artifacts were made of organic materials such as wood, grass, leather, bone, or even foodstuffs themselves. In most
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of medieval Europe, for example, food was served and consumed on trenchers made
of stale bread. Yet the conditions necessary for the preservation of organic remains are
not common at archaeological sites. Furthermore, metals are often recycled. Glassware
tends to be specialized—in particular, for serving and drinking cold liquids—and foodrelated stone vessels or stone tools, such as mortars or grinders, are relatively rare. Pottery
thus receives the bulk of attention and best exemplifies the diversity of data that can be
culled from artifacts. Archaeologists may study its composition, morphology, decoration,
markings, physical properties such as its reaction to thermal shock, use-wear, repairs, or,
increasingly, the food residues found within it. In addition, what often distinguishes these
analyses from other types of inquiries is the special attention archaeologists pay to issues
of quantification and provenience.
In archaeology, the context in which an object, a feature, a construction, or a landscape
exists is as informative as the intrinsic attributes of those objects or features. Contexts
stem first from provenience, or the precise location where something is found, and run
the gamut of food-related cultural practices—some food artifacts, for example, are recovered as grave goods or as trash in cemeteries. Contextual studies can be done at different
levels, from a single household or a community to the intersocietal scale, but the most
in-depth approaches often try to combine several kinds of data—for instance, architecture,
artifacts, and food remains. In many cases, this archaeological context also can be enriched
through other lines of evidence, in particular, history, ethnography, and ethnohistory. In
order to write detailed, contextualized, and culturally specific reviews of material culture, archaeologists may therefore rely on a wide array of sources, including documents,
artwork, oral informants, or modern archaeological experiments. Each kind of source is
complementary and only needs to be critically assessed for its relevance to the study, the
types of data it will yield, as well as its inherent biases and limits.
The research themes archaeologists explore through the material culture of food are
extremely varied. Using tableware alone, historical archaeologists have examined issues of
identity in relation to gender, age, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status,
taste, or other sociocultural constructs such as gentility. They have also considered notions
of aestheticism, agency, class formation, colonialism, consumption, and domesticity. In doing
so, they have borrowed a long list of sociocultural theses, including several Marxist concepts,
Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital and habitus, Thorstein Veblen’s conspicuous consumption,
Norbert Elias’ civilizing process, Neil McKendrick’s consumer revolution, or Michel Foucault’s reflections on power. Moreover, the growing body of archaeological research carried
out about one general theme—feasting practices—showcases the multifaceted nature of the
material culture of food. Since feasting often entailed special serving vessels, cooking utensils, and locations, this topic has led to the discussion of sites as diverse as chiefly residences
in Hawai‘i, imperial open patios in the Central Andes, Maya settlements in Honduras, elite
houses of the Aztecs in Mexico, platform mounds in North America, Neolithic henge enclosures in Britain, Iberian oppida in Spain, Gaulish sanctuaries in France, palatial architecture
in the Aegean, and prehistoric burials throughout the world, from Norway to Greece, the
Near East, Egypt, the Philippines, and China. It is also this ubiquity, combined with a great
variety, which makes the material culture of food such a potent line of study.
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MEAD
See also Agricultural/Horticultural Sites; Agriculture, Procurement, Processing,
and Storage; Archaeology of Cooking; Architectural Analysis; Cooking Vessels,
Ceramic; Cooking Vessels, Metal; Cooking Vessels, Other Materials; Documentary Analysis; Ethnographic Sources; Experimental Archaeology; Feasting; Food
and Dining as Social Display; Food and Identity; Household Archaeology;
Middens and Other Trash Deposits; Offerings and Grave Goods; Storage Facilities; Tools/Utensils, Decorated; Tools/Utensils, Ground Stone; Tools/Utensils,
Metal; Tools/Utensils, Organic Materials; Tools/Utensils, Stone; Weapons,
Bone/Antler/Ivory; Weapons, Stone
Further Reading
Hicks, Dan, and Mary C. Beaudry, eds. 2010. The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Pennell, Sara. 1998. “Pots and Pans History”: The Material Culture of the Kitchen in Early Modern
England. Journal of Design History 11(3):201–16.
Twiss, Katheryn C. 2012. The Archaeology of Food and Social Diversity. Journal of Archaeological Research
20(4):357–95.
■ MYRIAM ARCANGELI
MEAD
Mead is among the contenders for the oldest fermented beverage, possibly even preceding
the Neolithic. Produced with honey as the carbohydrate source and with a variety of
yeasts (most often Saccharomyces cerevisiae) as the fermenting agent, mead leaves traces in
the archaeological record via residues containing pollen or beeswax in excavated ceramic
vessels and metal cauldrons. Archaeological evidence is reinforced by the appearance
of mead in mythology and folklore, historical writings, etymologies from ancient languages, and paleolinguistic analyses. Given that ancient peoples often added honey when
fermenting cereal grains or grapes and other fruits, however, interpretations of residues
should be made with caution. Archaeological reports of mead based on residues in drinking vessels encompass the Bell Beaker culture (Copper to Bronze Age Europe), Hallstatt
and La Tène cultures (Iron Age Europe), and Germanic societies (AD 100, Skudstrup,
Denmark). Drinking horns, the archetypical vessels for mead consumption, have been
excavated from various locations in the British Isles and northern Europe and are represented in the Bayeux Tapestry and various Viking-era figurines and stone carvings. Mead
halls, venues for consumption of mead by Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic kings and chieftains,
also have been excavated, their construction and contents analyzed, and their ritual and
social functions deduced in detail. Premodern woodcuts, chapbooks (short tracts that often included recipes and recommendations for gardening or housekeeping), and artifacts
attest to production and consumption of mead into modern times.
See also Carvings/Carved Representations of Food; Documentary Analysis; Fermentation; Honey and Nectar; Material Culture Analysis; Oral and Folk Narratives;
Wine; Yeast
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Further Reading
Crane, Eva. 1999. The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. New York: Routledge.
Dugan, Frank M. 2008. Fungi in the Ancient World: How Mushrooms, Mildews, Molds and Yeast Shaped the
Early Civilizations of Europe, the Mediterranean, and the Near East. St. Paul, MN: APS Press.
———. 2009. Dregs of Our Forgotten Ancestors: Fermentative Microorganisms in the Prehistory of
Europe, the Steppes and Indo-Iranian Asia, and Their Contemporary Use in Traditional and Probiotic Beverages. Fungi 2(4):16–39.
Hornsey, Ian S. 2003. A History of Beer and Brewing. Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry.
McGovern, Patrick E. 2009. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Pollington, Stephen. 2003. The Mead Hall: The Feasting Tradition in Anglo-Saxon England. Norfolk, UK:
Anglo-Saxon Books.
■ FRANK M. DUGAN
M E AT
Meat has been a fundamental component of human diet since our origin as a species.
Humans can survive without eating meat, as widespread vegetarianism in current and past
cultures demonstrates, but they are omnivorous, and as such they will opportunistically
seek any source of food—including meat. Early hominids exploited animal flesh, though
the extent to which this was the product of hunting or scavenging is still the subject of
debate. Although most primates predominantly eat plants, fruits, and insects, their consumption of meat is well documented. Chimpanzees, the closest relatives to humans, hunt
on a regular basis and also have been known to predate on juvenile humans.
For most of the Paleolithic, human societies relied on hunting animals and gathering
plants. The relative proportion of meat in the diet varied by time period and region, but
the consumption of the flesh of wild animals was vital for the survival of many Paleolithic
communities. In the Upper Paleolithic some human groups specialized in the consumption of the flesh of specific preys. Examples include reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in Europe,
horses (Equus ferus) in central Asia, gazelles (Gazella sp.) in western Asia, bison (Bison bison)
in North America, and guanacos (Lama guanicoe) in South America. In Africa the great
variety of ungulates (hoofed animals) has led to a greater diversification of human preys.
Archaeological evidence indicates that toward the end of the Paleolithic, prey specialization gave way to a much broader spectrum of hunted animals. While in earlier
times hunters had been interested mainly in large game, by the end of the Paleolithic
(and Mesolithic) smaller mammals and birds were consumed more frequently. It has been
argued that this transition marked a period of resource crisis, for climatic, ecological, or
demographic reasons, eventually leading to the domestication of animals and the onset of
the Neolithic (about 10,000 years ago).
Though archaeologists initially believed that in the Early Neolithic, domestic animals
were exploited only for meat production rather than secondary products (e.g., milk, wool,
traction), this view has gradually been revised, mainly in light of the evidence of organic
residues from pottery that demonstrates the early exploitation of milk. Nevertheless, the
consumption of the meat of important food animals such as cattle (Bos taurus), sheep
(Ovis aries), goat (Capra hircus), and pig (Sus domesticus) was fundamental for life in the
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Neolithic—and in later times. These animals spread out from their original centers of
domestication in the Old World, and by early modern times, their meat was consumed
everywhere in the world. The meat of wild animals was still consumed, but in most communities it became of secondary importance to that of domestic livestock.
The chicken (Gallus domesticus) is the only other animal to have ever matched the
importance of these early domesticates as a meat resource, providing humans around
the world with a common and reliable source of food. Other birds, such as goose (Anser
anser) and duck (Anas platyrhynchos) in the Old World and turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
in the New World, were also, in later times, domesticated for meat, but never assumed
the importance of chicken. Domesticates of regional importance include Old and New
World camelids, the yak (Bos mutus) in southern central Asia, and the reindeer (Rangifer
tarandus) in the Arctic area.
Given the right circumstances, humans have basically eaten (and still do) any animal
whose flesh is not toxic or otherwise threatening to human health. Meat consumption
has been dictated not only by subsistence needs, however, but also by social rules and
religious beliefs. Meat taboos are widespread and have been attested archaeologically.
Some cases, such as the Hindu repulsion for eating beef and the Jewish and Muslim refusal of pork, are particularly well known. The archaeological evidence has highlighted
other cases in which apparently available meat sources were deliberately avoided. The
meat of the domestic horse (Equus caballus) has never been a staple, for example, unlike
its wild counterpart. In several cultures the consumption of horse meat has been and
is deliberately avoided.
In historical times the consumption of meat has maintained its great dietary importance for human societies but is increasingly embedded in patterns of social distinction.
Archaeological and historical sources from classical times suggest that meat was mainly
consumed in a ritualized form, particularly in Archaic and Classical Greece. Lavish, meatbased banquets notoriously characterize the excesses of the Roman aristocracy, though
archaeological evidence suggests that the much-discussed consumption of suckling pigs
was almost exclusively an Italian phenomenon. While in Italy the consumption of pork
predominated, in all other areas of the Roman Empire mutton or beef were the most
commonly consumed meats.
In medieval times, meat consumption was a key criterion of social differentiation.
The lower classes ate meat only very occasionally, while the aristocracy could dine lavishly on great meat-based banquets. The type of meat that was eaten was an important
social indicator, with venison and the meat of many other wild mammals and birds
being the privilege of the upper classes. By and large poor people mainly ate meat
in a preserved form (e.g., bacon). The consumption of fresh meat was regarded as a
luxury and, in rural areas, was probably limited to occasional feasting events. Increased
urbanization went hand in hand with a higher consumption of meat and the gradual
development of a market economy. It was, however, not until the second half of the
20th century that meat consumption reached, in the wealthy Northern Hemisphere,
the levels that we are used to today. After aiming, for most of their histories, to maximize their access to meat resources, human societies, ironically, now face the challenge
of reducing their dependence on meat.
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See also Animal Domesticity; Animal Husbandry and Herding; Butchery; Cattle;
Chicken; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence; Pig; Preferences, Avoidances, Prohibitions,
Taboos; Secondary Products Revolution; Sheep/Goat; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Clutton-Brock, Juliet. 2012. Animals as Domesticates: A World View through History. East Lansing: Michigan
State University Press.
Harris, Marvin. 1998. Good to Eat: Riddles of Food and Culture. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
Milner, Nicky, and Preston Miracle, eds. 2002. Consuming Passions and Patterns of Consumption. McDonald
Institute Monograph. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Woolgar, Chris, Dale Serjeantson, and Tony Waldron, eds. 2006. Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
■ U M B E RTO A L B A R E L L A
MEDICINAL PLANTS
See Greens/Herbs; Plants
M E S OA M E R I C A N A R C H A I C- P E R I O D D I E T
Mesoamerica is one of the three most important centers for plant domestication and the
emergence of agriculture in the world. One of its more important and distinctive cultural elements is the milpa, the complex agroecosystem based on maize, beans, squashes,
and chili peppers to which other wild, domesticated, and semidomesticated species (e.g.,
tomato, tomatillo, and agaves) are added, depending of the region. One of the central
questions concerning the high cultural development of this region is how successive
Mesoamerican cultures achieved the alimentary, agronomic, and ecological complementarities of the species upon which the milpa is based. It has been hypothesized that the
basic Mesoamerican diet could have been shaped in the Archaic period (7000–2400
BC), before the invention of ceramics and before the domestication of the plants upon
which it is based. This has been suggested by the fact that populations of the putative
wild ancestors of these species can be consumed in at least 20 different dishes that remain
part of the contemporary foodways of poor peasants and are still prepared with tools and
techniques that were available in the Archaic: sun drying, roasting, toasting, baking, cracking, grinding, crushing, fermenting, and soaking in plain water and water with ashes and
using three-stone fireplaces, stone toasters, crushers, grinders, rock pits, and at least three
types of earth ovens. The Mesoamerican Archaic-period diet could be based on at least
68 plant species, the nutritional complementarity of which could be one of the incentives
for their domestication and for the development of the milpa agricultural system. Cooking
in water and vapor, nixtamalization (soaking and cooking with water that contains lime),
and possibly distillation were the most important innovations following the development
of ceramics. They facilitated the transformation of the ingredients, raised their quality and
the number of dishes, and introduced new selective pressures on the cultivated plants, all
of which probably had an impact on their diversification, domestication, and productivity,
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and on the complexity of the agro-food system. The persistence of many of these dishes
in Mexican foodways today shows the biocultural importance of the Mesoamerican diet.
See also Agriculture, Origins of; Archaeology of Cooking; Bean/Common Bean; Chili
Peppers; Cultivation; Maize; Nixtamalization; Plant Processing; Squash/Gourds
Further Reading
Zizumbo-Villarreal, Daniel, Alondra Flores-Silva, and Patricia Colunga-GarcíaMarín. 2012.The Archaic
Diet in Mesoamerica: Incentive for Milpa Development and Species Domestication. Economic Botany 66:328–43.
Zizumbo-Villarreal, Daniel, and Patricia Colunga García-Marín. 2010. Origin of Agriculture and Plant
Domestication in West Mesoamerica. Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 57(6):813–25.
■ PAT R I C I A C O L U N G A - G A R C Í A M A R Í N
AND DANIEL ZIZUMBO-VILLARREAL
MESOLITHIC DIET
The Mesolithic period in northwestern Europe extended from ca. 9,500 BP to 5,500 BP.
In southern Scandinavia, where it is referred to as the Late Mesolithic Ertebølle Culture,
it continued until ca. 5,200 BP. The vegetation of temperate Europe went through some
major changes during this period, from forests dominated by pine and pine-birch during
the Pre-Boreal and Boreal, to the development of mixed deciduous forests during the
Atlantic, with trees such as oak, hazel, elm, lime, and ash.
Studies of Mesolithic subsistence diet have long focused on animal and fish resources.
This is mainly a factor of the abundance of bone remains and artifacts associated with
hunting and fishing found at archaeological sites. Among many Mesolithic sites excavated in Europe, there are four with outstanding preservation of organic material: Star
Carr in England, Tybrind Vig in Denmark, and Hardinxveld-Giessendam and Rotterdam
Yangtzehaven in the Netherlands. These sites provide information about the economic
aspects of Mesolithic Europe. Terrestrial animals such as red deer, elk, roe deer, wild pig,
and aurochs were regarded as important game animals in the Mesolithic. Various small,
fur-bearing mammals such as beaver, otter, and marten were hunted or trapped. There
is evidence also for fowling and fishing. A wide range of fish species from both marine
and freshwater habitats were incorporated into the Mesolithic diet. Evidence for subsistence activities is particularly abundant at coastal Late Mesolithic Ertebølle sites. Artifacts
associated with fishing, such as hooks, leisters (three-pronged spears), weirs, bone points,
nets, boats, and paddles, are well preserved from this period. Shell middens from coastal
sites in southern Scandinavia document use of shellfish (mainly oysters and mussels) in
the Late Mesolithic period.
Although there were some early attempts to emphasize the importance of plant foods
during the Mesolithic, the lack of archaeobotanical evidence, or at least the limited range
of encountered species, prevented a direct assessment of the relationship between animal
sources and plant food components. Even when the recovery of plant remains was part
of archaeological research, it often resulted in a rather limited spectrum of plant foods,
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mainly hazelnuts, complemented by acorns, water chestnut, and fleshy fruits such as wild
strawberry, crab apple, sloe plum, hawthorn, raspberries, and rowanberries. Recently, the
deployment of scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques to identify charred remains of vegetative plant tissue derived from underground storage organs, also known as
storage parenchyma, has shown that starchy root foods, including true roots, tubers, rhizomes, and bulbs of various plant species, are among the food resources that contributed
substantially to the Mesolithic diet.
Roots and tubers likely formed the most abundant and readily available source of
starch in the increasingly forested environment of Mesolithic temperate Europe. Individual groups of hunter-gatherers probably exploited 20–30 species of edible roots in
the course of their annual rounds. The few examples of nonvegetative starchy foods in
Mesolithic Europe would have included oak acorns, water chestnuts, inner bark tissue of
birch and pine, and water lily seeds (Nymphaea spp. and Nuphar lutea).
Recent analysis of plant remains shows diversity in the resources exploited by Mesolithic groups. One of the members of the buttercup family, lesser celandine (Ranunculus
ficaria), was a well-known root vegetable among Mesolithic groups in temperate Europe.
Lesser celandine often grows in extensive stands and can provide a plentiful harvest of
starchy tubers from just one plant. The tubers, however, contain toxins and have to be
processed (dried, cooked, or baked in hot ashes) before they can be eaten. Charred tuber
remains of lesser celandine were found at a number of Middle to Late Mesolithic sites,
including Hardinxveld-Giessendam Polderweg, Hardinxveld-Giessendam De Bruin, and
Rotterdam Yangtzehaven, all in the Netherlands, and at Staosnaig on Colonsay Island in
Scotland. Another starchy root food well known to many if not to all groups living along
the North Sea coast in early prehistory was the sea beet (Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima) (figure
41). The plant occurs naturally on shingle beaches, tidal drift deposits, and the drier areas
of salt marshes. Numerous charred root remains recovered from occupation deposits at
the Late Mesolithic Ertebølle site at Tybrind Vig in Denmark indicate that sea beet roots
formed part of the local diet. Charred remains of sea beet roots were also found at Early
to Middle Mesolithic sites in the Dutch province of Groningen, and charred fruits (perianths) were found at the Ertebølle site Møllegabet II in Denmark.
Two additional examples of root foods dated to the Late Mesolithic Ertebølle period come from the site of Halsskov in Denmark. These are bulbs of ramsons (Allium
cf. ursinum) (figure 41) and tubers of pignut (Conopodium majus); both were found in
a charred state. Allium ursinum is a perennial herb with the strong smell and flavor of
garlic; it often forms extensive patches in shady, damp, deciduous forests. Both the leaves
and the bulbs are edible. At Halsskov the bulbs would have been gathered and used as
main food or cooked as flavoring with other foods. Cooking would convert the bulb’s
major carbohydrate, inulin, which is neither easily digestible nor very palatable, into
sweet-tasting fructose. For the inhabitants of Halsskov and perhaps other sites, ramsons
would have been the first root as well as green vegetable to appear in spring. The tubers
of pignut (Conopodium majus), a member of the Apiaceae family, can be found in open
woodland and grasslands. They grow at the base of the stem and have a mildly nutty
flavor when cooked. Interestingly, the tubers cannot be harvested by pulling the stem
of the plant, as it is thin and breaks very easily. This suggests that the tubers at Halsskov
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Figure 41. Evidence of plant consumption during the Mesolithic period includes the sea beet
root and bulbs of ramsons. Top left: SEM micrograph of a charred fragment of parenchyma
derived from the sea beet root (Beta vulgaris ssp. maritima) from a Late Mesolithic Ertebølle
site at Tybrind Vig in Denmark, showing concentric rings of xylem and broad bands of storage
parenchyma between each ring; top right: collecting sea beet roots on the Dutch North Sea
coast near Bergen in August; bottom left: charred bulb of ramsons (Allium cf. ursinum) from the
Late Mesolithic Ertebølle site at Halsskov in Denmark; bottom right: bulbs of ramsons dug out in
April before flowering. Courtesy of Lucy Kubiak-Martens, BIAX Consult.
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were dug out with some kind of digging tool, after which they were brought to the
site, where they were most likely used as food.
Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were consistently attracted to marsh and water plants as
sources of starchy food. The charred remains of arrowhead tubers (Sagittaria cf. sagittifolia) found at the Early Mesolithic site of Całowanie in Poland suggest that tubers were
deliberately dug up and brought to the site; arrowhead tubers grow in shallow water or
swampy ground and they are rather deeply buried in the mud. Exposure to a domestic fire
must have been part of their preparation prior to consumption. The presence of charred
rhizome remains of the common club-rush (Schoenoplectus lacustris) at the Early to Middle Mesolithic site Rotterdam Yangtzehaven in the Netherlands suggests that the people
who visited the dune site collected the starchy rhizomes of this marsh plant. Interestingly,
the transverse section of one of the specimens revealed a very smooth, clear-cut surface,
suggesting that the rhizome was cut prior to becoming charred—an obvious sign of
processing by humans. The interpretation of rhizomes of this species as food is supported
by archaeobotanical finds from other Early to Middle Mesolithic sites in the Netherlands.
Tubers of various horsetail species (Equisetum spp.) may have provided a starchy
food source. Although horsetails are rarely considered as a food source because of their
high silica content, it is mainly the stems that are rough and silicon-impregnated, while
the tubers contain much starch and have a sweet taste. Charred remains of Equisetum
sp. tubers found at various Early to Late Mesolithic sites across temperate Europe may
therefore have been part of the diet. It is likely that several knotgrass species (Polygonum) as well as the closely related dock species (Rumex) were collected in Mesolithic
Europe for their edible rhizomes and for their greens. The charred rhizome remains
of knotgrass (Polygonum sp.) found at the Early Mesolithic site at Całowanie in Poland
reflect some food processing methods.
The examples of starchy foods discovered in the last two decades and presented here
have considerable implications for the way we view the plant component of Mesolithic
diet.There are clear indications that starchy foods were frequently gathered, implying that
starch was a significant dietary energy source in Mesolithic Europe. Mesolithic groups
explored and used a broad range of plant species and many ecological zones in their search
for vegetative and nonvegetative starchy foods. The finds of charred archaeological parenchyma from Mesolithic sites will continue to hold our interest. Although it is difficult,
and perhaps still too early, to estimate the complex proportion between animal protein
and plant foods (starchy foods in particular), it is clear that a more balanced view of the
Mesolithic diet is emerging from archaeological sites.
See also Archaeobotany; Fish/Shellfish; Foraging; Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence;
Paleodietary Analysis; Plant Processing; Root Crops/Tubers; Scanning Electron
Microscopy; Shell Middens; Star Carr; Starches, Role of; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Clarke, David L. 1976. Mesolithic Europe: The Economic Basis. In Problems in Economic and Social
Archaeology, edited by Gale de Giberne Sieveking, Ian H. Longworth, and K. E. Wilson, 449–81.
London: Duckworth.
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Kubiak-Martens, Lucy. 2002. New Evidence for the Use of Root Foods in Pre-Agrarian Subsistence
Recovered from the Late Mesolithic Site at Halsskov, Denmark. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
11:23–31.
Mason, Sarah L., Jon G. Hather, and Gordon C. Hillman. 2002. The Archaeobotany of European Hunter-Gatherers: Some Preliminary Investigations. In Hunter-Gatherer Archaeobotany: Perspectives from the
Northern Temperate Zone, edited by Sarah L. Mason and Jon G. Hather, 188–96. London: Institute of
Archaeology, University College of London.
Price, Douglas T. 1989. The Reconstruction of Mesolithic Diets. In The Mesolithic in Europe: Papers
Presented at the Third International Symposium, Edinburgh, 1985, edited by Clive Bonsall, 48–59. Edinburgh: John Donald Publisher.
Zvelebil, Marek. 1994. Plant Use in the Mesolithic and Its Role in the Transition to Farming. Proceedings
of the Prehistoric Society 60:35–74.
■ LU CY KU B I A K- M A RT E N S
MICROFLORAL REMAINS
See Palynology; Phytolith Analysis
MICROMORPHOLOGY
See Soil Microtechniques
MICROSCOPY
See Scanning Electron Microscopy
MIDDENS AND OTHER TRASH DEPOSITS
The term midden has traditionally been used to define a “trash” deposit, broadly consisting
of waste occupation debris, ranging from single dumps to long-term buildups of material
from sedentary communities. Deposits classified as midden can be incredibly diverse and
heterogeneous, however, and it is generally acknowledged that even within a single site, all
“midden” deposits are not necessarily the same thing. At some sites, the term midden may
not be used at all, with such deposits being referred to simply as trash, domestic waste, or
discard deposits. The term trash pit has been used to describe shorter-lived features, deposited within pits rather than mounds or spreads of debris. As human activity invariably
produces waste byproducts, it is fair to say that most types of archaeological sites will be
associated with a form of midden, though not all middens are composed exclusively of
food waste. Fuel byproducts are another major waste component, for example.
Midden debris may include plant remains, animal bones, pottery and stone tool debris,
decayed organic remains, human and animal dung, and artifacts. As such they are incredibly useful repositories of information on diet and subsistence. In some cases they may be
the primary source of information on these activities. For example, at the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük,Turkey, primary activity residues in buildings are rare, thus it is the
midden deposits that provide the vast majority of ecofacts. Human remains also have been
found in some middens. Middens may be dominated by a single class of material—for
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example, shell middens. Shell middens are found all over the world, often but not always
associated with coastal populations. They are some of the most extensively studied types
of midden deposits and are sometimes treated as archaeological sites in themselves. These
single-material middens are linked to a more limited range of activities than those composed of more diverse deposit types, but even here there is diversity in their composition
and interpretation. The shell middens of Denmark (køkkenmødding or kitchen mound)
consist of food processing waste. The Pacific Northwest coast of the United States is also
notable for its extensive shell midden deposits.
The literature on midden deposits is as diverse as the deposits themselves, and several
key areas of research can be identified. Several studies are concerned with midden formation processes. As a subcategory of site-formation processes, this is a means of understanding human activity in the past. For all types of middens, consideration of taphonomy
and formation processes is crucial to understand the deposits fully and must occur before
cultural inferences can be made. Dietary reconstruction and analysis of resource exploitation are also major areas of research. The overall assemblage of mollusks or animal bones
gives information on species exploitation at a site. More detailed analyses of different contexts and strata within middens enable reconstruction of how this exploitation changes
over time. Measurements of the change in size of shellfish species have been used to infer
human impact on these populations, for example. Studies of midden composition can
provide information on wider questions of trade and ecology, as well as localized activity,
and isotopic analysis of faunal remains from feasting middens has provided insight into
animal husbandry practices. Plant remains in middens also provide information on diet.
Plant remains are typically found as charred remains but also may be present as silica phytoliths and mineralized remains. Although charred plants may typically be a result of fuel
use, dietary information also can be obtained from plant processing waste or the discard
of food that is accidentally burned.
Midden deposits can be approached at a range of scales, from macro- to microlevel.
Analytical methods vary depending on the research questions, the type of midden deposit,
and level of preservation. For example, middens dominated by shells or other faunal remains require a zooarchaeological approach. Oxygen isotope analysis is frequently applied
to shell middens alongside species assessments to interpret seasonality of coastal resource
exploitation. During excavation, it is often necessary to divide middens into broad stratigraphic layers because of the apparent homogeneity at the macroscale or complexity that
precludes excavation of individual layers. The latter is preferred when possible to separate
material from different episodes of deposition. Depth of accumulation may give insight
into whether deposits were formed rapidly or gradually over time, though in some cases
deep deposits can be a result of relatively short-lived activities.
At the macroscale, the clustering and spatial arrangement of different components
within the midden (e.g., faunal remains, charred macrobotanical remains, ceramics) may
be studied. It is often useful to consider different classes of material together to reconstruct
activities, and to assess long-term changes in disposal patterns. Middens are especially
useful for this type of integrated research, as they may contain several classes of material
in association. The sediments themselves, and the depositional relationships between the
different components, are also significant. The use of microarchaeological methods such
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as thin section micromorphology can reveal information that is otherwise invisible—for
example, the presence of ard marks provides evidence that middens in prehistoric Britain
were used for small-scale agriculture.
All of these studies rely on the development of appropriate sampling strategies,
which can impact the interpretation of species compositions. Ethnoarchaeological research also provides useful insights into the motivations behind disposal behavior for
different classes of material.
See also Agricultural Features, Identification and Analysis; Archaeobotany; Çatalhöyük; Ethnoarchaeology; Shell Middens; Soil Microtechniques; Stable Isotope
Analysis; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Guttman, E. B. A. 2005. Midden Cultivation in Prehistoric Britain: Arable Crops in Gardens. World
Archaeology 37(2):224–39.
Hayden, Brian, and Aubrey Cannon. 1983. Where the Garbage Goes: Refuse Disposal in the Maya
Highlands. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 2(2):117–63.
Schiffer, Michael B. 1987. Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press.
Shillito, Lisa-Marie, Wendy Matthews, Matthew J. Almond, and Ian D. Bull. 2011. The Microstratigraphy of Middens: Capturing Daily Routine in Rubbish at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey. Antiquity
85(329):1024–38.
Stein, Julie. 1992. Deciphering a Shell Midden. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
■ L I SA- M A R I E S H I L L I TO
M I L I TA R Y S I T E S
A good soldier is well fed. In 1795 Napoleon Bonaparte famously stated that “an army
marches on its stomach,” and this accurately reflects the importance—and the difficulty—
in provisioning a fighting force that is far from home and far from safe, predictable sources
of supply. Soldiers’ diaries, officers’ orderly books, and letters sent home have always made
references to food and drink, and historical sources such as these give archaeologists clues
as to what evidence for food we might hope to find when we dig at military encampments.
Archaeology has been conducted at many of the military sites created over the past
several thousand years, but no matter the time period, similar questions may be asked
regarding the foods consumed by armies. Was the food fresh or preserved by salting,
smoking, or drying? Was it prepared by roasting or boiling, or eaten raw? Did officers
and their men eat essentially the same foods, and did men in the field eat the same foods
as their families back home? Can the remnants of cooking pans and pots reveal the size
of the group that was dining together, whether in huts, barracks, or tents? And can food
remains reveal the ethnicity or country of origin of the soldiers?
Soldiers almost invariably have foraged for food to supplement their often-meager rations, and thus archaeologists search for evidence of wild foods that would not have been
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documented in military records, as well as alternative foods that might have been purchased
from civilian merchants (sutlers) who were attached to most military camps.The quantification of faunal remains can be difficult, however, because of off-site butchering. In a classic
cautionary study, John Guilday discovered relatively few butchered animal bones at the
British site of Fort Ligonier (1758–66) in western Pennsylvania (USA). Only through the
use of historical records was he able to determine that most butchering was done off-site,
and most of the meat ration (salt pork) left no archaeological record at the site.
Battlefields typically lack food remains, and it is the forts and encampments that
have substantial food middens, built up over months or years of habitation. Some of the
best evidence for food along military frontiers comes from the Roman forts positioned
along Hadrian’s Wall in northern England.Vindolanda is the best-documented of these,
with abundant archaeological evidence that includes masses of animal bones in ditches
at the fort from the consumption of beef, pork, venison, goat, chicken, whooper swans,
and even oysters and mussels. Archaeological finds, coupled with references in some
well-preserved writing tablets, also indicate the consumption of grain, cabbages, beans,
fruit, nuts, honey, eggs, wine, beer, olive oil, various sauces and olives, as well as exotic
condiments such as pepper. Roman-style dining and drinking vessels of pottery, glass,
and bronze were recovered. Ovens for baking bread and hearths for roasting meat also
were exposed. Archaeology thus supports the interpretation that soldiers on Rome’s
northern frontier dined quite well. Though the presence of Roman foods and foodways
is strong, there is nonetheless some suggestion of the ethnicity of soldiers. Along the
Antonine Wall on the northwest frontier, for example, locally made pottery similar to
that from North Africa was recovered.
In more recent times, a dependence upon sutlers to add variety to the military diet
has been amply demonstrated by the excavation of a sutling house on the Hudson River
in Fort Edward, New York (USA), where a merchant, Edward Best, maintained a tavern
and sold supplies to the British army during the French and Indian War. In a period when
the military chiefly ate beef and pork, much of it salted, the burned remains of Mr. Best’s
house (1757–58) contained sheep and fish bones and a wide range of wine glasses and
other drinking vessels. The broken remains of wine bottles were ubiquitous, with well
over 10,000 fragments, reinforcing the popular assumption that alcohol was the favorite
vice of the British army. Regular rations, typically transported over long distances, resulted
in a fairly monotonous diet at most military camps. Sutlers clearly provided a welcome
variety of alternative foods and dining experiences and, above all, a great deal of liquor.
Archaeological sites from the American Civil War in the 1860s have provided rich
evidence for food and foodways. The ditches at the U.S. Army depot at Camp Nelson in
Kentucky (1863–66) included remains of beans, cowpeas, lentils, beef (especially ribs and
hind shanks) and pork (hams and hocks), ceramic storage and serving vessels, plus ample
bottle glass. The presence of sheep and rabbit bones suggests some variation in the meat
portion of the diet. Historical records indicate that sutlers’ stores provided a great variety
of food and drink, including onions, potatoes, canned condensed milk, butter, hardtack,
cookies, fried pies, canned meats and oysters, dried beef, sausages, dried and salted fish,
sardines, eggs, flour, coffee and tea, beer, wine, and whiskey. Bottles for alcoholic beverages
provide evidence of social status, with wine and whiskey often reflecting a higher status.
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The analysis of skeletal remains also provides direct evidence for the types of food
that soldiers consumed. Dietary deficiencies are often reflected in bones, suggesting inadequate nourishment or vitamin deficiencies that would have undercut the effectiveness
of any fighting force. It cannot be overemphasized that military leaders are keenly aware
of the importance of properly feeding their soldiers, contributing to good troop morale
and, ultimately, to victory.
See also Archaeobotany; Bioarchaeological Analysis; Butchery; Distilled Spirits;
Food and Identity; Food and Status; Material Culture Analysis; Middens and Other
Trash Deposits; Oedenburg; Paleodietary Analysis; Paleonutrition; Zooarchaeology
Further Reading
Birley, Robin. 2009. Vindolanda: A Roman Frontier Fort on Hadrian’s Wall. Gloucestershire, UK: Amberley.
Delo, David M. 1998. Peddlers and Post Traders: The Army Sutler on the Frontier. Helena, MT: Kingfisher
Books.
Geier, Clarence R., David G. Orr, and Matthew B. Reeves, eds. 2006. Huts and History:The Historical Archaeology of Military Encampment during the American Civil War. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Guilday, John E. 1970. Animal Remains from Archaeological Investigations at Fort Ligonier. In Archaeological Investigation of Fort Ligonier, 1960–1965 by Jacob L. Grimm, 177–86. Pittsburgh: Carnegie
Museum.
McBride, W. Stephen, Susan C. Andrews, and Sean P. Coughlin. 2000. “For the Convenience and Comforts of the Soldiers and Employees at the Depot”: Archaeology of the Owens’ House/Post Office
Complex, Camp Nelson, Kentucky. In Archaeological Perspectives on the American Civil War, edited by
Clarence R. Geier and Stephen R. Potter, 99–124. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Starbuck, David R. 2010. Excavating the Sutlers’ House. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.
■ D AV I D R . S TA R B U C K
M I L K A N D DA I RY P R O D U C TS
Dairying is a prehistoric, Old World technology, depicted in representational art and
t