Cooking Up the Past: Food and Culinary Practices in the Neolithic and Bronze Age Aegean

This volume focuses on the ways in which the production and consumption of food developed in the Aegean region in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age, to see how this was linked to the appearance of more complex forms of social organization. Sites from Macedonia in the north of Greece down to Crete are discussed and chronologically the papers cover not only the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age but extend into the Middle and Late Bronze Age and Classical period as well. The evidence from human remains, animal and fish bones, cultivated and wild plants, hearths and ovens, ceramics and literary texts is interpreted through a range of techniques, such as residue and stable isotope analysis. A number of key themes emerge, for example the changes in the types of food that were produced around the time of the Final Neolithic-Early Bronze Age transition, which is seen as a particularly critical period, the ways in which foodstuffs were stored and cooked, the significance of culinary innovations and the social role of consumption.

Table of Contents

Cooking up the past: entre traditions et innovations dans le Néolithique et l'âge du Bronze égéens (Josette Renard)
The Sources and Consumption of Food
Cooking up the Labyrinth: exploring 'cuisine' at Branze Age Knossos (Valasia Isaakidou)
Carcasses and commensality: investigating the social context of meat consumption in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Greece (Paul Halstead)
Economie vivrière et alimentation carnée on Grèce méridionale du Néolithique moyen à la fin de l'âge du Bronze (Armelle Gardeisen)
La mer dans l'assiette: l'exploitation des faunes aquatiques dans l'alimentation en Égée pré- et protohistorique (Tatiana Theodoropoulou)
Traditional foods and culinary novelties in Neolithic and Bronze Age northern Greece: an overview of the archaeobotanical evidence (Soultana-Maria Valamoti)
The Preservation and Preparation of Food
Food Preservation in Greece during the Late and Final Neolithic periods (William Cavanagh)
'Il n'y a pas de cuisine sans feu': une approche des techniques culinaires au Néolithique et à l'Âge du Bronze Ancien à travers les structures de combustion en Grèce du Nord (Evanthia Papadpoulou and Sandra Prévost-Dermarkar)
Les installations culinaires dans un village du Brnze Ancien en Gréce du nord: Archontiko Giannitson (A. Papaefthymiou, A. Pilali and E. Papadopoulou)
Beeswax in Neolithic perforated sherds from the northern Aegean: new economic and funtional implications (Oreste Decavallas)
Early Bronze Age cooking vessels from Thebes: organic residue analysis and archaeological implications (Maria Roumpou, Kyriaki Psaraki, Vassilis Aravantinos and Carl Heron)
The Role of Pottery
Community and competition: the social life of food and containers at Aceramic and Early Neolithic Knossos, Crete (Peter Tomkins)
The production and consumption of pottery in the Neolithic Peloponnese (Christopher Mee)
Pottery, cuisine and community in the Neolithic of north Greece (Dushka Urem-Kotsou and Kostas Kotsakis)
What are the legs for? Vessels with legs in the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Aegean (Marina Sophronidou and Zoï Tsirtsoni)
Des enfants nourris au biberon à l'Âge du Bronze? (Maia Pomadère)
The Dead and Their Diet
Stable isotope analysis of human remains from the early Halladic site of Perachora, Korinth, Greece (Eirini I. Petroutsa, Michael P. Richards and Sotiris K. Manolis)
Aspects anthropologiques et paléopathologiques de la malnutrition à Argos (HA, HM) (Phillippe Charlier)
Health and diet during the Middle Bronze Age in the Peloponnese: the site of Kouphovouno (Anna Lagia, Eirini Petroutsa and Sotiris Manolis)
Apport de la paléodontologie à la compréhension des practiques alimentaries et des modes de vie des populations égéennes protohistoriques (Laurence Hapiot)
Broadening the Historical Perspective
The Consumption of dog-meat in classical Greece (James Roy)
La cuisine des bébés en Grèce classique: analogies culinaires des médecins hippocratiques (Lydie Bodiou)

edited by Christopher Mee and Josette Renard