Preparing the Surface (PRESUR): The Forgotten Step of “Seasoning” Food Processing-Ground Stone Tools and Its Implications for Use-wear Analysis

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In Southwest Asia ground stone tools used in food processing, like mortars and querns, started proliferating at the end of the Paleolithic. Recently these tools have received increased attention with researchers attempting to establish what food these tools were used to process through microscopic use-wear and residue analysis. However, there is an aspect of tool use that most use-wear studies neglect to recognize: “seasoning” the tool. Seasoning is the act of preparing the tool before initial use by processing then discarding material, thus “sealing” the active surface and preventing harmful grit and rock particles from entering the foodstuff. Not considering this crucial step in tool surface preparation potentially means that use-wear analyses, both qualitative and quantitative, fall short when assessing subsequent use. My study is an experimental program based on ethnographic data and input from current culinary traditions and tests ways of seasoning tools that would have been available to people in Southwest Asia 15,000 years ago. It will track the wear traces resulting from experimental seasoning on tool replicas, creating a baseline for future research, while refining current approaches in ground stone use-wear analysis and improve our understanding of past foodways.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38978.0