Mesolithic and Neolithic Recipes under the Microscope: A Comprehensive Approach for the Study of Archaeological Food Remains

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeogastronomy: Grocery Lists as Seen from a Multidimensional Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Research into food in archaeology has traditionally focused on the potential resources and ingredients from the identification of recovered plant and animal remains, as well as cooking technologies including pottery, ground stone tools, fire installations, etc. However, the different processes behind the preparation of food and meals have only recently started to be disentangled. Advances in the application of coherent and cohesive methodological approaches involving different types of high-resolution microscopy (Digital Microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy) in combination with Organic Residue Analysis (ORA) have enable the successful identification of a variety of archaeological food remains, shedding light on past food choices and cuisine. These methods have provided a new means of characterizing archaeological assemblages with charred food remains present as representative of past “recipes,” allowing the study of the chaîne opératoire of food, which links plants and animals to cooked products for consumption. This paper presents methods and results from the study of Mesolithic and Neolithic food remains from a variety of geographical regions, from Iberia to East Asia.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeogastronomy: Grocery Lists as Seen from a Multidimensional Perspective   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39964.0