Food storage and processing. A cross-cultural study of the Neolithic/Formative period of Central Europe and the USA

Summary

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

We introduce the start of an international project focusing on the interpretation of prehistoric food preparation and storage in cross-cultural perspective—both different prehistoric cultures and different traditions of archaeological research. We consider archaeological patterns in Central Europe (the European temperate zone) and in US Southwest, examining the period of early agricultural prehistory (primarily the Neolithic in Central Europe and the Formative in the US). Although the research regions are geographically and environmentally distant, similar cultural and social adaptations developed: “Neolithic” societies dependent on agriculture, reduced-mobility settlements based on shared community management, limited social hierarchy but a degree of settlement centrality, and in both cases construction of communal/monumental architecture. In both areas, underground silos were used for food storage, and plant seeds were ground using “querns” or “metates.” American archaeologists have traditionally approached the specifics of food storage and processing among pre-state societies from a functional and cultural perspective, since researchers had local ethnographic data available; European approaches have more often focused on chronology and typology. This project builds on research in both regions to analyze the technology and spatial patterns of food processing and storage in this comparative context and perspective.

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): 40027.0