special section

GemtsenOf calories and culture

Introduction to an Archaeological dialogues special section on food and foodways

How did people feed themselves in the past? Archaeologists have been asking this question since the early years of the discipline and it remains an important topic to the present day. Perhaps not surprisingly, eating and drinking are among the most essential activities for human survival. Moreover, even though we do not frequently excavate food in a strict sense of the term, a great deal of the artefacts that we find are directly or indirectly related to food, its procurement and production, preparation and consumption and its waste products. In recent years, archaeologists increasingly recognise the cultural and social significance of food (and the animals and plant from which it stems). In this introduction to a special section on the archaeology of food and foodways I would like to reflect briefly on the potential of food archaeologies for studying diverse aspects of life as well as social processes in past societies. In parts of the world such as Scandinavia and the Netherlands, where archaeology developed in close correspondence with ecology and biology, zooarchaeology and palaeoethnobotany established themselves early on as specialised subdisciplines dealing with palaeo-environment, diet and nutrition. Subsistence studies have grown to maturity in the context of diverse theoretical orientations, including functionalism, N e w Archaeology and Marxist approaches. Many of the research methods and techniques that are now standard elements of archaeological excavation and analysis we owe to these fields. Especially with respect to the ecological and economic dimensions of food, they have provided us with strong foundations for further research.These approaches share an emphasis on the production, procurement and exchange of food. Less attention is paid to food preparation and consumption; in a somewhat cynical vein, one could say that eating and drinking is seen primarily in terms of caloric intake. Interestingly, the theme of food habits was scarcely picked up by post-processual archaeologists in the 1980s and early 1990s. Whereas material culture studies, mortuary rituals, ideology and power became arenas for heated debate between scholars taking up materialist and idealist positions respectively, themes such as subsistence and diet have remained firmly anchored within ecological and processualist realms until quite recently. Perhaps this is understandable given the specialised character of a field that uses primarily ecological data, but it is remarkable nevertheless. If one considers the fact that food is not only about calories but that it is fundamentally cultural as well, it appears in hindsight that it would have had all the elements as a field for processual - post-processual debate. I am not arguing that it is time to sharpen the knifes again; at this point, it appears more fruitful to make use of the progress that has been made both by cultural and ecological approaches and look at how the

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two can be combined in a way that leads to a broader and more balanced understanding of ancient societies and their foodways. Several recent publications indicate that this is a more widely held opinion (see especially the articles in the volume edited by Gosden and Hather (1999); Garnsey 1999 for an example from ancient history). The fact that food and foodways are becoming popular themes of research at the moment can be related to a more general trend in the humanities. Some studies on food in anthropology are classics in the field (e.g. Douglas 1975; Levi-Strauss 1978; Goody 1982; Mintz 1985), and the topic has been addressed from a multitude of perspectives in more recent years. Important themes are food symbolism, exchange, ritual, commensality, gender and social identity (for examples, cf. Counihan and Van Esterik 1997). Perhaps characteristic of food studies in these fields is that food and eating habits often function as a lens, a means of analysing broader social and cultural patterns and processes. This, I feel, is where the study of food and foodways has a considerable potential for archaeology as well. I realise that by proposing to address a middle ground between the biological and cultural character of food I am ignoring an important underlying problem. In his contribution to the theme section, Alexander Verpoorte raises the question whether it is possible to truly resolve the nature-culture dichotomy with regard to food studies, or landscape or body for that matter. It is clear that for most pre-modern societies this division is meaningless, but how can we understand food as a hybrid between nature and culture without referring to these categorisations themselves? Given Verpoorte's discussion of this problem (and see also Gosden 1999), I feel permitted to restrict myself to a more pragmatic question: what are some of the elements for a theoretically informed, fruitful archaeology of food and foodways? T h e majority of the questions on food that have been investigated to date have focused on the kinds of food that were eaten (diet), and the ways in which it was procured from the environment (subsistence, exchange). Questions regarding the social and cultural context of eating and drinking have been given much less attention. The fact that eating is such a fundamental aspect of living suggests, however, that this is an important area of research. In the first place, a focus on food and eating presents a means to investigate practices of everyday life and elementary social relationships. W h o was involved in the different stages of producing and preparing food? W h o did and did not eat together, and how did commensality contribute to the construction of identity and kinship? But in all societies food also fulfils important functions outside the domestic group. As Maurice Bloch observes, the existence of specific types of food and drink that act as prime 'social conductors' is an almost universal phenomenon (Bloch 1999). It can be alcoholic drinks, meat, rice, honey, and even though these 170 often do not make up an important proportion of the diet and may be consumed only at special occasions, they are essential for the reproduction of society. Archaeologically, faunal and botanical remains are primary sources of evidence for investigating patterns of food preparation and consumption. It is important, in this respect, however, not to assume that these assemblages are direct reflections of all consumed foods or of local food production. As Mike Parker Pearson points out in his contribution, domestic animals may be exchanged or used in rituals, while at the same time a significant part of the diet, e.g. hunted animals, may never make it to the settlement. Newly developed techniques for the chemical analysis of food residues on pottery provide an additional means of study-

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ing food preparation and consumption (cf. Campbell, this volume). The full potential of more indirect, but equally important categories of material culture has hardly been explored in this respect. Pottery is the first category that comes to mind here, at least for agricultural communities. Given the fact that most of the uses of pottery are related to the storage, preparation, serving and consumption of food and drink, it is surprising how little serious attention has been paid to this in ceramic studies (but e.g. Meadows 1997).The spatial and architectural context of food preparation and consumption forms another potential source of information on the social aspects of culinary practices. An archaeology of food habits will thus benefit from greater attention to all relevant categories of material culture. The potential of this is explored by Joanita Vroom. Combining ceramics from a regional survey project in Greece with iconographic materials and written documents, she observes a shift during the Medieval and Post-Medieval periods from communal to non-communal and back to communal dining habits. The middle phase corresponds to the period of Frankish rule in Greece, which brings out the significance that food and eating habits can have at times of culture contact. As Parker Pearson's paper makes clear, culinary practices cannot be studied without asking the question why certain foods are eaten and others considered non-edible. In all societies, the foods that are eaten are a selection of what is available, and there are numerous ethnographic examples of groups that ignore sources of food that are abundantly available to them and that to our western eyes would make for a suitable and tasty dish. This underscores the importance for all kinds of food studies of considering the symbolic meanings that are attached to food and its animal and plant origins. The article by Ewan Campbell presents an archaeological inquiry into the symbolic classification and cosmological roles of animals in the Hebridean Iron Age. Distinctions that were made between wild and domestic animals as well as in some cases between young and mature animals correspond to consumption patterns and preparation techniques (both represented by food residues on pottery and bone assemblages) but also to the deposition of animal remains in different contexts. Let me, by way of conclusion, mention one other topic that can act as a lens and provide a wider perspective on society and culture. This is feasting, which involves the communal consumption of food and drink in ceremonial or ritualised contexts (Dietler 1999). Feasts are an important social and cultural phenomenon in almost all societies, events in which simultaneously key ideological values are made explicit, political alliances and relationships of power forged and negotiated, and exchanges between human and between different dimensions of the socio-cosmological order made. Feasting is often archaeologically identifiable, for example from large concentrations of serving and dining vessels, depositions of multiple 171 slaughtered animals, or from specialised equipment such as wine drinking apparel. These and related themes were discussed at a symposium titled From calorie to culture that was held in Leiden in May 1999, organized by the Dutch research institute for archaeology ARCHON.The goal of this symposium was to explore approaches to food that went beyond the 'calorie-approach'. Many of the papers presented an interdisciplinary perspective, some taking inspiration from the social sciences or history, others combining archaeological data sets with historical or iconographic records. The symposium made clear that food as a cultural category presents itself as a rich theme of archaeological research, and that its study

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offers ways to understand multiple aspects of social life and processes in the past. Three of the four articles (Parker Pearson,Vroom and Verpoorte) in this thematic section were presented originally as papers at the symposium. The article by Campbell is included as it adds a significant perspective and category of material to the theme. A commentary by Susan Alcock concludes the special section. The Archaeological Dialogues Foundation is grateful to the following institutions for their generous financial support that made the publication of this special section possible: Stichting Museum voor Anthropologie en Praehistorie, the State Service for Archaeological Investigations (ROB), the Archaeological Institute of the Free University (AIVU), and Archeoplan.

References
Bloch, M., 1999: Commensality and poisoning, Social research 66,133-149. Counihan, C. and P. Van Esterik (eds), 1997: Food and culture. A reader, New York and London. Dietler, M., 1999: Rituals of commensality and the politics of state formation in the "princely" societies of early Iron Age Europe, in P. Ruby (ed.), Les princes de la protohistoire et Vimergence de I'etat, Naples, 135-152. Douglas, M., 1975: Implicit meanings. Essays in anthropology, London and Boston. Garnsey, P., 1999: Food and society in classical antiquity, Cambridge (Key themes in ancient history). Goody, J., 1982: Cooking, cuisine and class. A study in comparative sociology, Cambridge. Gosden, C , 1999: Introduction, in C. Gosden, and J. Hather (eds), The prehistory of food. Appetites for change, London and New York, 1-9. Gosden, C. and J. Hather (eds), 1999: The prehistory offood. Appetites for change, London and New York. Levi-Strauss, C , 1978: The origin of table manners. Introduction to a science of mythology 3, London (translated by J. and D.Weightman). Meadows, K.I., 1997: Much ado about nothing: the social context of eating and drinking in early Roman Britain, in C.G. Cumberpatch and P.W. Blinkhorn (eds), Not so much a pot, more a way of life. Current approaches to artefact analysis in archaeology, Oxford, 21-35. Mintz, S.W., 1985: Sweetness and power. The place of sugar in modern history, Harmondsworth.
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