Paleonutrition (original) (raw)

Food for thought. Onthe culture of food and the interpretation of ancient subsistence data

The study of ancient food habits often includes scientific or technical analyses of some sort, e. g. osteoloical, plant macrofossil, bone chemical or organic chemical analyses. Quite a lot of effort is put into understanding the formation processes and post-depositional changes such as decomposition and taphonomy. The cultural aspects of the formation of these materials are often not considered at all. This paper presents a food culture model and considers some of its consequences for the interpretation of subsistence data based on ancient material remains.

Archaeology, anthropology and subsistence

Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute, 2001

Wherever and whenever one may wish to place the roots of the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology, the subsistence-based categories of savage hunters and civilized farmers still lie at the heart of the division of much contemporary intellectual labour. The sources of these categories can be traced back into the seventeenth century, although they were first systematically related to (pre)history and cultural difference in the mid-eighteenth century. The subsequent relations between these categories and the changing disciplines of ethnology, ethnography, and archaeology have not remained constant over time or space. However, the underlying assumption that subsistence practices are meaningful and useful societal categories has persisted for the past 250 years. The relationship between such concepts, the closely associated idea of social evolution, and anthropology and archaeology, in particular from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, is examined. It is suggested that finding ways of writing across such categories is a necessary step for the future of both disciplines.

The connections between health and diet in prehistoric populations

2003

The connections between health and diet in modern populations are well established. Numerous studies have been conducted attempting to assess the dietary health of prehistoric populations from an examination of their skeletal remains. The health status of a population can provide crucial evidence in discussions of major changes in subsistence, and, in theory, much can be established from a study of skeletal remains. Assessments of child and adult mortality, stature, dental health, the identification of specific nutritional deficiency diseases and other conditions can provide vital evidence to enable an interpretation of dietary sufficiency to be made. However, in practical terms, there are many problems in conducting such a study. Poor preservation of skeletal remains, inadequate retrieval methods, a skeletal assemblage unrepresentative of the size or composition of the whole population, inaccurate methods of osteological analysis, and the non-specific nature ofmany pathological les...

Archaeology, evidence and anthropology: circular arguments in the transition from foraging to farming

The archaeology of pre-farming societies has long depended on anthropology, especially for understanding hunter-gatherer societies. The models created go well beyond subsistence economics, and ethnographic analogy is used to construct many aspects of past lives. Models range in sophistication from the simplistic to elaborate and carefully considered approaches, but all run the risk of re-inventing a modern, or near modern, way of life into the distant past. This does not only effect past societies, but, especially in cognitive approaches, has an impact on our perceptions of present-day small-scale societies. I will consider the problems in the over-use of analogies, consider the use of 'hunter-gatherer' as a category in prehistory, and then consider the archaeological evidence from the period of transition to farming, concluding that from the Natufian to the PPNB we have societies that do not have easy analogues in the ethnographic present.

Archaeobotany and the social context of food

Acta Palaeobotanica, 2002

Acta Palaeobot. 42(2): 196-202, 2002 Archaeobotany and the social context of food CAROL PALMER1 and MARIJKE VAN DER VEEN2 School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, Leicester, LEI 7RH, UK; e-mail: 1 cp24@ie.ac.uk , 2 mvdl@leicester.ac.uk ...

Food, economy and society: Multi-faceted lessons to learn from ancient plant remains

Plant remains and animal bones from archaeological excavations form the basis for interpretation in ancient food studies. This paper presents the methods and theory of archaeobotany, followed by a discussion of the Danish archaeobotanical record. The often very well-preserved archaeobotanical assemblages, of which some examples are presented below, hold great potential for providing new insights on ancient agriculture and food practices.