The impact of farming on prehistoric culinary practices throughout Northern Europe.

To investigate changes in culinary practices associated with the arrival of farming, we analysed the organic residues of over 1,000 pottery vessels from hunter-gatherer-fisher and early agricultural sites across Northern Europe from the Lower Rhine Basin to the Northeastern Baltic. Here, pottery was widely used by hunter-gatherer-fishers prior to the introduction of domesticated animals and plants. Overall, there was surprising continuity in the way that hunter-gatherer-fishers and farmers used pottery. Both aquatic products and wild plants remained prevalent, a pattern repeated consistently across the study area. We argue that the rapid adaptation of farming communities to exploit coastal and lagoonal resources facilitated their northerly expansion, and in some cases, hunting, gathering, and fishing became the most dominant subsistence strategy. Nevertheless, dairy products frequently appear in pottery associated with the earliest farming groups often mixed with wild plants and fish. Interestingly, we also find compelling evidence of dairy products in hunter-gatherer-fisher Ertebølle pottery, which predates the arrival of domesticated animals. We propose that Ertebølle hunter-gatherer-fishers frequently acquired dairy products through exchange with adjacent farming communities prior to the transition. The continuity observed in pottery use across the transition to farming contrasts with the analysis of human remains which shows substantial demographic change through ancient DNA and, in some cases, a reduction in marine consumption through stable isotope analysis. We postulate that farmers acquired the knowledge and skills they needed to succeed from local hunter-gatherer-fishers but without substantial admixture.

Crops on the Rocks: Production, Processing, and Storage at the Early Medieval Site of Senhora Do Barrocal (Municipality of Sátão, Central Portugal).

Small rural places are largely absent from early medieval written sources, but they were profuse and relevant in regional settlements and economies. Only through archaeological and archaeobotanical investigation is it possible to unveil their structure and productive strategies; however, this kind of investigation is still uncommon in Iberia. Here, the assemblage of fruits/seeds, wood charcoal, and food remains from Senhora do Barrocal (SB) (Sátão, Portugal) will be presented and discussed in order to understand the crop production, processing, and storage. The site was destroyed by a fire somewhere between the 10th and the 11th centuries AD, which allowed the preservation of abundant plant remains in a storage area. Charcoal analyses suggest that the building was made with oak and chestnut timber. The massive fruits/seeds assemblage was dominated by cereals, mostly oat and rye, but also barley, millet, and naked wheat, some fully dehusked, others still hulled. Furthermore, evidence of food products has also been found, suggesting that the area was used for the storage of multiple foods and crops at different processing stages. SB is a good example of how communities adopted a diverse set of crops and multifaceted storage strategies to prevent food shortages and to endure in a harsh environment.

Neolithic farmers or Neolithic foragers? Organic residue analysis of early pottery from Rakushechny Yar on the Lower Don (Russia).

The emergence of pottery in Europe is associated with two distinct traditions: hunter-gatherers in the east of the continent during the early 6th millennium BC and early agricultural communities in the south-west in the late 7th millennium BC. Here we investigate the function of pottery from the site of Rakushechny Yar, located at the Southern fringe of Eastern Europe, in this putative contact zone between these two economic 'worlds'. To investigate, organic residue analysis was conducted on 120 samples from the Early Neolithic phase (ca. mid-6th millennium BC) along with microscopic and SEM analysis of associated foodcrusts. The results showed that the earliest phase of pottery use was predominantly used to process riverine resources. Many of the vessels have molecular and isotopic characteristics consistent with migratory fish, such as sturgeon, confirmed by the identification of sturgeon bony structures embedded in the charred surface deposits. There was no evidence of dairy products in any of the vessels, despite the fact these have been routinely identified in coeval sites to the south. Further analysis of some of the mammalian bones using ZooMS failed to demonstrate that domesticated animals were present in the Early Neolithic. Nevertheless, we argue that intensive exploitation of seasonally migratory fish, accompanied by large-scale pottery production, created storable surpluses that led to similar socio-economic outcomes as documented in early agricultural societies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12520-021-01412-2.

Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan.

The origins of bread have long been associated with the emergence of agriculture and cereal domestication during the Neolithic in southwest Asia. In this study we analyze a total of 24 charred food remains from Shubayqa 1, a Natufian hunter-gatherer site located in northeastern Jordan and dated to 14.6-11.6 ka cal BP. Our finds provide empirical data to demonstrate that the preparation and consumption of bread-like products predated the emergence of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. The interdisciplinary analyses indicate the use of some of the "founder crops" of southwest Asian agriculture (e.g., Triticum boeoticum, wild einkorn) and root foods (e.g., Bolboschoenus glaucus, club-rush tubers) to produce flat bread-like products. The available archaeobotanical evidence for the Natufian period indicates that cereal exploitation was not common during this time, and it is most likely that cereal-based meals like bread become staples only when agriculture was firmly established.

A methodological approach to the study of archaeological cereal meals: a case study at Çatalhöyük East (Turkey).

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.