Archaeology of food
Food is fundamental to our existence and until modern industrial times most people spent large parts of their days hunting, gathering, growing and preparing their food. But remnants of food in the archaeological record survive only in exceptional circumstances, for example as charcoaled grains or as residues in ceramic vessels. In the past few decades, the archaeology of food has seen a transformation. Previously, studies concentrated mainly on the vessels that contained food or drink but innovations in bioarchaeological sciences, such as ancient DNA and isotope analyses, make it possible to analyse the smallest fragments of evidence. The use and history of food and drink is now being studied in various ways, from their origins of specific plants and animals and how they were selected, their economic and ritual values, to their primary roles in forming identities and showcasing human influence and connectivity across diverse regions.
The integrated efforts of multidisciplinary approaches have become more frequent; they can reveal meaningful insights and new perspectives and provide missing pieces of the puzzle surrounding human interaction with food. The four examples of new books on this topic are diverse and discuss: the introduction of plant foods through the first farmers in Greece to the development of the now-famous Mediterranean diet; the meaning food held for the Etruscans; food provisioning and use of animals in early complex societies across the world; and, finally, the history of sugar production in the west as one of the drivers for the colonisation of the Americas and the emergence of the Atlantic slave trade.
As a connecting element across time, the archaeology of food contributes immensely to a shared deep history.
Soultana Valamoti is a renowned archaeobotanist and has researched and published widely on the archaeology of food. Plant foods of Greece focuses on her home country and in parts it feels like a personal homage to Greek foods. The multidisciplinary approach of this book—incorporating archaeological and written sources, archaeobotany, ethnography, experimental archaeology on growing plants and processing them into food—makes this work stand out and adds a practical view of the archaeobotanical sciences. Written in an accessible style, this book is well referenced with an extensive bibliography and appendices stating where plant remains were found on archaeological sites in Greece; it offers much for both the interested public and specialised scholars.
The personal and passionate Introduction to food history in Greece also describes the author's path into archaeobotany and how the discipline links her through food to past people. The book concentrates on the plants used during the Neolithic and Bronze Age in Greece and begins with the introduction of domesticated crops by the first farmers from the seventh millennium BC onwards. Slowly, over time, these new arrivals changed not only the social structure of communities but also the cuisine. The remains for these newly introduced plants is scarce in Greece, and the archaeobotanical evidence, if present, at many Neolithic sites is not well researched. Hopefully, future studies will clarify this process but for now it looks like the ‘Neolithic package’ was introduced in different areas at different times, and it is presumed that the local hunter-gatherers also contributed with their knowledge on local plants (such as grape and almond) that later became domesticated.
In the next chapter, the incoming cereals—emmer, einkorn and the newly discovered T. timopheevii wheat—are presented. Further discussions try to understand the meagre evidence and explain through ethnographic and experimental approaches how the grains were most likely processed and cooked, and thus come closer to the prehistoric recipes. The following chapter on ‘Pulses: adding protein, color and variety’ (a line I am sure to use on my children) presents the use of lentils, grass peas and bitter vetch and explains that especially lentils were more dominant than is often assumed. Again, the growing, harvesting, processing and cooking are explored in considerable detail.
The author introduces oil-yielding plants to raise awareness that the widespread use of olive oil was likely not present in prehistoric times and its use was possibly limited to special occasions. Experiments of grinding and pressing oil out of linseeds and some nuts demonstrate their capability as oil supplier. Linseeds and nuts, as well as olives, were part of the natural vegetation of Neolithic Greece and all could have been used for producing oil. During the Bronze Age, further possible oil plants were introduced. The prehistoric farmers continued to harvest nuts and fruits of wild plant species, such as grapes, figs, cornelian cherries, elderberries, wild pears, almonds and acorns. The chapter ‘Beyond prehistoric fields’ ventures into the evidence of these plants in the archaeological record and how to harvest, prepare and/or cook them so they become edible.
An informative chapter on the evidence of alcohol in prehistoric times delves into the questions of ‘the earliest wine in Europe’ and ‘beer or wine’. Though difficult to identify, the finds from Dikili Tash in the north Aegean are proof that wine making already happened in Greece in the late fifth millennium BC. Medicinal plants are at the centre of the chapter on ‘Cuisine of healing’ where the plants, such as herbs, opium poppy and terebinth, known from the archaeological record are compared to what kind of influence they may have had on health and psyche.
All of the plants discussed above needed much preparation before they were consumed and Chapter 8 studies different methods and brings together the diverse strands of research but with special emphasis on what evidence survived on domestic sites to help understand these processes of transformation. The two following chapters take a wider view: the first looks at how these foods and dishes helped shape identities in prehistoric Greece, while the second describes the author's successful outreach activities to connect the modern public to past societies through prehistoric food. After all the talking about food, the final chapter invites the reader to try some simple recipes—recipes that were probably cooked in the long-distant past by people not too different from us. This short chapter sums up the enthusiasm and successful attempt by Valamoti to establish a link between the prehistoric people and us.
I can recommend this book entirely. It is full of useful and well-researched information on food plants yet also incorporates the processes of making them into food and the development of a Greek cuisine. The foundations for today's well-loved Mediterranean diet were already laid in Neolithic and Bronze Age times, with bread, wine and olives—and of course pulses.
Another strand of the ‘Mediterranean diet’ is the subject of this edited volume which uses multidisciplinary approaches to explore the relationships that the Etruscans had with food and drink. In the Introduction, the editors Lisa Pieraccini and Laurel Taylor guide the reader through the broader connecting theme of the topic and give a short overview of the contributions. The following six chapters each deliver a different perspective, and often approach, on how to explore food and drink. Taken together these provide a deeper understanding of what food meant to the Etruscans in different areas of their lives (and deaths) as well as how the social implications of food can be explored. The chapters are all well written in an accessible style and the book is beautifully illustrated throughout.
The first contribution looks at grapevines in Etruria but instead of how wine was consumed, as in many previous studies, Andrea Zifferero looks into the production of wine. Beginning with tracing the origin of the vine as a wild form and its long and complex domestication, which is today better understood through the incorporation of biochemical and molecular analyses. The author introduces the VINUM and ArchaeoVino projects, both of which study the varietal circulation of vine growth. The idea is that through analysing DNA data of modern wild vine forms growing near Etruscan and Roman sites, it is possible to find traces of the ancient domestication and introgression of wild forms. The results of these studies are combined with the archaeological and textual record and reveal the fascinating expansion of wine production in Italy from the Late Bronze Age, but particularly in Etruria from the seventh century BC onwards.
Sarah Whitcher Kansa's chapter focuses on the many animal bones found during excavations in the Etruscan city of Poggio Civitate, Murlo, south of Florence. Through this detailed and contextualised zooarchaeological study, differences of use of meat and bones are revealed, where the elite circle of the city enjoyed certain meats—and preferred especially right-sided sheep parts—during possibly ritual dining. In contrast, the other parts of meats and bones are found in a workshop area.
After these discussions on wine and meat, the table is set to look at the over 100 known Etruscan banqueting scenes on different mediums, such as wall paintings and bronze plaques, from funerary and non-funerary contexts in the Archaic Period. Taylor proposes that these provide a nuanced reading of the feasting culture, in which the funerary scenes seldom have food or food vessels depicted, whereas the ones from non-funerary sites have lots of food, food vessels and different wine containers. The coded style of feasting seems to be one way in which the elites expressed their exclusive status.
The visual presentations of banquet scenes are also explored by Pieraccini, especially within a mortuary context and in terms of what meaning they may have held for the people who buried the deceased in the tomb. She collects evidence for food offerings in the tombs and puts both the depictions and real food into one narrative connecting them with the memory of the dead and the Etruscan funerary culture.
‘Fish and rituals’ is the topic of Daniele Maras’ contribution, in which examples of fish evidence in visual as well as archaeological and textual sources are brought together. The survey highlights the special role fish had in the life of the Etruscans, not only as consumed food, but also during rituals such as foundation rituals and as substitutes for human sacrifices. This was perhaps instigated by certain symbolic meanings that fish held for the Etruscans.
The final chapter is by Alexandra Carpino and it looks at a somewhat awkward kind of food: ‘Death – by consumption – interrupted’. The contribution is based on observations of the detailed images of the Etruscan bronze mirrors, which are part of the panoply of the elite class, and the depictions of mythological heroic figures being swallowed by dragons or dogs, as well as of Hercules suckling breastmilk and of Vilia (Hesione), a Trojan princess who escapes being devoured by a sea monster. These scenes of Greek mythology are interpreted as symbolic consumption which represent transformation.
These truly diverse approaches to studying food and drink come together to deliver many new nuances to the understanding of Etruscan culture. They successfully highlight the need to look beyond obvious legacies of this culture, such as objects and architecture, to explore the seemingly more mundane topics of food and drink.
The excellent Introduction by the editors Levent Atici and Benjamin Arbuckle leads the reader into the subject, which is especially useful because the eight example case-studies span a wide temporal and spatial frame from Bronze Age Greece, Türkiye and China, the Aksum Kingdom in Ethiopia, medieval Ireland, the Oaxaca site of Monte Albán in Mexico, Classical Maya in Guatemala, to the Mississipian period in the American Southeast. All of the studies analyse different sites and scales but address similar questions to discern patterns of food provisioning. The positioning of zooarchaeology in the wider archaeological field and the recent trend to study the social role of food are briefly discussed to ease non-specialists into the themes and to help readers understand the need for this kind of research. Food-provisioning strategy ideas and a brief definition of complex societies are also presented. The editors hope that their approach and the contributions in this book will deliver a ‘road map’ for this new research agenda to study food provisioning in complex societies through a contextualised zooarchaeology incorporating archaeological, historical and textual evidence.
Three case-studies date to the Bronze Age, the first by Arbuckle looks into the consumption and social roles wild animals had at the urban site of Acemhöyük, Türkiye. A diverse and specialised provisioning system sustained the elites’ need for food as well as for highly valuable wild animals, such as wolf, bear and aurochs and wild equids for breeding equid hybrids as work animals. Jaqueline Meier and colleagues research the food provisioning in a Mycenaean house, especially in regard to the procuring and butchering of pigs in the house, in comparison to the centralised palatial practices, where sheep and goats were sourced and prepared elsewhere. The largest urban Bronze Age site in China, the Shang city of Anyang, and its animal economy is the topic of the chapter by Roderick Campbell. Food was not only provided for the living but also in rituals for the ancestors, and provisioning was needed on a huge scale. Campbell's analyses reveal that this was achieved not by centralisation but through a network of many small self-organised groups, and that such an independent yet interchangeable network was much more stable in the face of fluctuations in supply.
Helina Woldekiros’ contribution on the developments in animal resources in the Aksumite economy in the North Ethiopian Highland in the first millennium AD highlights a hierarchical system of food provision and consumption that is mainly based on cattle and salt caravans. A similar hierarchical system built on cattle, although in a different way, is explored in medieval Ireland where Fiona Beglane compares the meat and dairy consumed in a castle, an abbey and a homestead. This multi-scale approach shows the great value that zooarchaeological studies offer in areas where interpretation has been reliant on dominant textual sources.
The excavation of the urban centre of Monte Albán in the Oaxaca Valley, Mexico (c. 500 BC–AD 850) yielded a wide array of faunal remains that were analysed and discussed by Patricia Martínez and colleagues in terms of quantity, context and taxa. These differ in areas of the city as well as changing through time. Most common are finds from local animals, such as deer, turkey, dog, peccary and hare/rabbit. Rarer species such as cougar and turtle were imported, possibly for ritual use. Sarah Newman details the relationship between the Maya and deer across time and utilises the faunal remains of the site of El Zotz, Guatemala, to focus on specialised deer procurement during the Classic Maya phase. The final chapter by Tanya Peres discusses the faunal evidence of two sites of the Mississippian Period (AD 1000–1450) of the American Southeast, one a farmstead and the other a small village. The farmstead finds are interpreted as ‘garden hunting’, where the animals that feed on the crops were found more often—due to both opportunity and pest control—whereas the village finds show a more complex system of varied species.
This review can offer only glimpses into these stimulating and informative studies, but each one explores in their own way the diversity of food provisioning in the past. Underlying themes, however, do emerge—for instance, the de-centralised networks of smaller groups to support large demand as well as centralised hierarchical systems. All contributions include a wider interpretation of the faunal evidence and incorporate these into the social, political, economical and ritual worlds of their complex societies, and clearly show the key roles that animals had in these societies. The book convincingly delivers what can be achieved with a new and deeper look at these often sparse faunal remains. A welcome addition in further studies would be the inclusion of furs and hides in these discussions, as they most likely had some or even a substantial part in the social and economic systems as well.
The book offers a diverse but coherent read and shows how zooarchaeology can widen immensely the horizon of studies in ancient societies when it is well integrated.
In this volume, María del Cristo González Marrero and Jorge Onrubia Pintado gather research concerning the westward shift of sugar-cane production from the Mediterranean across the Atlantic, driven by the Iberian monarchies during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and beyond. The history of sugar agriculture at this time is closely connected with the beginning of modern global colonialism, as the Iberian rulers searched for better growing conditions for cane. This led to many people from the new territories and from Africa being enslaved to provide cheap labour for the sugar production. The Introduction by the editors gives an overview of the historical and political trajectories that allowed and fuelled this shift as well as the development of sugar production and it delivers an excellent framework to situate the following 10 chapters. The contributions are in Spanish, French and English and are made accessible for a broader audience through summaries in all three languages before each contribution. The order follows roughly the geographical expansion of sugar production across the Atlantic from Granada, southern Morocco, Canary Islands to the first sugar mills in America, with case-studies from the Dominican Republic, Brazil and the French Antilles and back to Britain.
The first contribution by Adela Fábregas García concentrates on the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and how its traditional sugar production combined with the more cheaply produced western cane took over the European sugar market from higher quality but more expensive sugars from the East. This opened the door to its eventual future as a product of mass consumption, and therefore the need for mass production, which led disastrously to mass slavery. Moving from mainland Iberia into the Atlantic, André Teixeira and colleagues focus in their chapter on the archaeological remains of sugar production in the Atlantic archipelagos to give more depth to the dominant textual sources. After reviewing the medieval background for Portuguese sugar agriculture, the pottery record connected with sugar production is presented, followed by an evaluation of the manufacture centres on Madeira, the Azores and Cape Verdes.
Morgane Godener and Abdallah Fili compare and discuss the industrial-sized sugar factories of the Sous plain in Morocco and their impact on the environment as well as on the political and economic dynamics of the region, visibly evidenced through irrigation systems with large hydraulic networks and the production facilities. Off the coast of Morocco, we turn to the Canary Islands and two chapters that focus on the archaeology of the islands of Gran Canaria and La Gomera. Here, two teams of scholars combine the introduction of sugar agriculture with phases of population fluctuations between Indigenous people and European incomers. The technology of sugar mills is studied in detail as well through the archaeological remains. Both contributions reveal the potential for researching these underexplored areas.
According to written sources it was Columbus who brought the first sugar plants across the Atlantic to the Dominican Republic. Santiago Duval examines the island's first sugar mills and their subsequent development into an industry that was the driver for colonisation of the Americas. The excavations of the sugar mill of Diego Caballero are the starting point and heart of the chapter. The oldest sugar mill in Brazil, the Engenho São Jorge dos Erasmos, is the topic of Vera Lucia Amaral Ferlini and colleagues’ contribution. The mill is studied as the centre of a cultural landscape in which it was a production centre in the past before becoming cultural heritage in the present.
Portuguese and Spanish endeavours to explore the west were more extensive than those of most other European countries. Sébastian Pauly investigates the scarce written evidence, with the help of archaeological remains such as ceramics used in the sugar production and distribution, to shed light on the first French attempts at sugar refining in France and the French West Indies. He also seeks to find answers as to why the French were relatively late in the uptake of sugar products. Alejandra Gutiérrez compiles and evaluates the textual evidence for the use of sugar in Britain during medieval and early modern times, when sugar was mainly an item of luxury and not widely used. Until the seventeenth century, mostly refined sugar was imported from the continent; in the mid-seventeenth century, the first attempts were made to refine raw sugar in England to profit from it. The acquisition of British colonies in the Caribbean in the mid-seventeenth century boosted this process and made sugar more available. The archaeological remains of these buildings called sugar houses and the wide distribution of related ceramics deliver a clear picture of a successful local industrial enterprise in England.
In addition to the chapters focusing on the archaeological remains, the final chapter by Dolores Corbella and Ana Viña Brito is an investigation into the linguistic heritage of sugar production on the Canary Islands that added many new words to the vocabulary.
The book succeeds in highlighting the importance that archaeological remains and heritage sites can bring to the interpretation of eras and regions where written sources are traditionally dominant. The authors bring the history of sugar in the west to life and reveal insights into working in a sugar mill. Furthermore, they incorporate their findings into the bigger picture of the first wave of the colonisation of the New World, where sugar is much more than a food group but an economical and sociopolitical force.
This list includes all books received between 1 November 2023 and 31 December 2023. Those featuring at the beginning of New Book Chronicle, however, have not been duplicated in this list. The listing of a book here does not preclude its subsequent review in Antiquity.
