Bread, Apples, and Cereal Grains: Analyzing a Collection of Carbonized Food from Robenhausen, Switzerland

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper presents the results of research on a collection of food from Robenhausen, a lake-dwelling site southeast of Zurich. These specimens are part of a larger collection that was recovered in the late 19th century and is housed at the Milwaukee Public Museum. The material includes thirteen bread fragments, seventy-five apple pieces, and thousands of cereal grains. This research focuses on the identification of the grains and the processing methods used at lake dwellings to create a temporal framework based on species present and the way they were manipulated. In addition, many of the bread fragments include visible cereal grains, which may indicate grain preference in bread making, while the convex shape of these pieces indicates the shape of the surface on which they were baked. The size of the apple pieces indicates that they are crab apples, which were harvested and divided longitudinally, then left to dry prior to carbonization. The purpose of this research is to document this material and demonstrate its utility despite the orphaned state of the collection. In addition, this information will contribute to data from modern excavations at circum-Alpine sites and more broadly, to an understanding of food processing in Neolithic Europe.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 26207