Abstract
This paper presents an integrated methodology for the analysis of archaeological remains of cereal meals, based on scanning electronic microscopic analyses of microstructures of charred food fragments from Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Turkey). The remains of cereal foods as ‘bread-like’ or ‘porridge-like’ small charred lumps of various amalgamated plant materials are frequently recovered from Neolithic and later archaeological sites in southwest Asia and Europe. Cereal food remains have recently attracted interest because the identification of their plant contents, the forms of food that they represent and the methods used in their creation can provide unique information about ancient culinary traditions and routine food processing, preparation and cooking techniques. Here, we focus on three methodological aspects: (1) the analysis of their composition; (2) the analysis of their microstructure to determine preparation and cooking processes; (3) the comparison with experimental reference materials. Preliminary results are presented on the botanical composition and cooking processes represented by the charred cereal preparations found at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Turkey), for example cereals processed into bread, dough and/or porridge.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 415-432 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Vegetation History and Archaeobotany |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2017 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank the support of the Çatalhöyük Research Project team and its director Ian Hodder. This builds on archaeobotanical research at Çatalhöyük overseen by Amy Bogaard and Michael Charles (University of Oxford). This research is part of a doctoral research project supported by an AHRC studentship awarded to Lara Gonzalez Carretero. Site based archaeobotanical research and laboratory work by Dorian Q. Fuller, Michèle Wollstonecroft and Lara Gonzalez Carretero was also supported by the Comparative Pathways to Agriculture project, a European Research Council grant (ERC Award No. 323842). We would also like to thank the organisers and the Swiss National Foundation for the opportunity to participate in the International Exploratory Workshop “Groats, bulgur, flour and semolina: archaeobotanical identification of cereal meals” (Basel, 2nd and 3rd of July, 2015).
Funding Information:
We thank the support of the ?atalh?y?k Research Project team and its director Ian Hodder. This builds on archaeobotanical research at ?atalh?y?k overseen by Amy Bogaard and Michael Charles (University of Oxford). This research is part of a doctoral research project supported by an AHRC studentship awarded to Lara Gonzalez Carretero. Site based archaeobotanical research and laboratory work by Dorian Q. Fuller, Mich?le Wollstonecroft and Lara Gonzalez Carretero was also supported by the Comparative Pathways to Agriculture project, a European Research Council grant (ERC Award No. 323842). We would also like to thank the organisers and the Swiss National Foundation for the opportunity to participate in the International Exploratory Workshop ?Groats, bulgur, flour and semolina: archaeobotanical identification of cereal meals? (Basel, 2nd and 3rd of July, 2015).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, The Author(s).
Keywords
- Food remains
- Near East
- Neolithic
- Palaeoethnobotany
- Parenchyma