Theme Organiser: Dr Alexandra Fletcher
Location: Stevenson Lecture Theatre, Clore Centre, The British Museum.
The archaeological record is created by acts of consumption and disposal; from everyday activities relating to subsistence, to less frequent events such as mortuary rites. This theme invited papers to discuss the archaeology of production, procurement, movement, usage and disposal relating to everyday and exotic items from the past. Papers include the discussion of site formation processes, the organisation of space relating to zones of activity and burial of the dead.
Please note that this is not a final time-table and may be subject to some change.If you wish to make any corrections, please use this form: CORRECTIONS FORM
As stated in your acceptance email, papers should be no more than 20 minutes long
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09.30 › Introduction | 09:20 › Ben-Shlomo | 09:20 › Polcaro | ||
| 09:55 › Grossman | 09:55 › Collard | 09:55 › Rassmann | ||
| 10:20 › Weber | 10:20 › Nadali | 10:20 › Kadowaki | ||
| 10:45 › keynote | 10:45 › COFFEE | 10:45 › COFFEE | ||
| 11:15 › COFFEE | 11:15 › D'Anna | 11:15 › Baldi | 11:15 › Balossi Restelli | |
| 11:45 › Ozdogan | 11:40 › Azzara | 11:40 › Del Bravo | 11:40 › McCarthy | |
| 12:05 › Paulette | 12:05 › D'Andrea | 12:05 › Peyronel | ||
| 12:30 › Romano | 12:30 › Naeh | 12:30 › Tal | ||
| 12:55 › LUNCH | 12:55 › LUNCH | 12:55 › LUNCH | ||
| 13:15 › LUNCH | 14:00 › Pace | 14:00 › D'Agostino | ||
| 14:30 › Belcher | 14:30 › Nashoni | 14:30 › Dodd | ||
| 14:55 › Bachhuber | 14:55 › Del Cerro | 14:55 › Manuelli | ||
| 15:20 › Sparks | 15:20 › Doumet-Serhal | |||
| 15:45 › COFFEE | 15:45 › COFFEE | 15:45 › COFFEE | ||
| 16:15 › Smith | 16:15 › Magness | 16:15 › Bergoffen | ||
| 16:40 › Glatz | 16:40 › Cipin | 16:40 › Hunt | ||
| 17:05 › Danti | 17:05 › Rowan | 17:05 › Steiner | ||
| 17:30 › Kreppner | 17:30 › Cohen |
Consumption & Disposal Abstracts
Plenary Session: Consumption & Disposal Keynote Lecture
The Archaeology of Consumption and Disposal: A Survey of Changing Trends
Professor Mehmet Ozdogan, Prehistorya Anabilim Dali, Edebiyat Fakültesi, Istanbul Unviersitesi)
The theme "consumption and disposal in archaeology" covers almost everything that we are concern with, ranging from typology, technology, procurement and management of raw materials to ways of living, social structure, settlement organization, site formation process to excavation strategies and analytical methods. Even if the theme at first glance sounds unassumingly obvious, considering the revolutionary changes that took place during the last decades in our methods and approaches, it is evident that the decision to take consumption and disposal in archaeology as one of the central themes of this meeting has been very timely and appropriate. Thus, the central theme of the symposium actually is the historic survey of Near Eastern archaeology, looking into the changes in prevailing trends and methods.
Firstly, our way of looking to the past has gone through successive stages, from singular objects to assemblages or to nonselective collecting strategies, from typological and stylistic definitions to contextual analysis; likewise the questions that we are asking in understanding the past have been revolutionized, issues related to the mode of living, social memories or the interaction between natural and cultural environments are issues that were of no concern in the earlier years of research. Probably more significant is the fact that now we are equipped with sophisticated and advanced tools for documentation and analysis, making it possible to develop an insight on issues that would be even impossible to envisage previously. While big picks and trowels were the main tools for excavating in earlier years, we then lived through a period considering the use of brushes and sieves as an improvement in excavation techniques; soon after, still in our life span, these were further elaborated by water sieving, flotation, collecting carbon, botanical, faunal samples, soil analysis etc. Now the pace of change is per year. The exciting achievements in fields such as biogenetics, micromorphology, isotope, residue or phytolith analysis the unthinkable is becoming true and the excavations sites are being transferred into research labs. It is evident that multidisciplinary approaches has and still is broadening the perspective of archaeology and providing new means to look into the various details of past cultures. These, without any doubt, are the positive achievements.
However, it is also evident that further we refine our methods of recovery, less we can excavate. In another way of looking, more we learn about details, less we know of the general picture. Even if new analytic methods the diversity of issues we can discern is multiplying, our vision is becoming narrower, occasionally being tangled up with the details that we have created. Thus, now we are faced with a new controversy as to knowing more of details and less of the basics. Devising a compromise on this line is difficult and I have no realistic answer to resolve. In stead, the paper will cover array of issues noting certain biases and controversies related to this subject by noting specific cases from the excavations in the Near East.
The Organization of Food Processing at HD-6 (Sultanate of Oman).
Miss Valentina Maria Azzarà (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/UMR 7041, Maison de l'Archéologie et de l'Ethnologie),
The main focus of the paper is on food procurement methods and their role in determining specific settlement areas. The analysis relies primarily on field data from the Early Bronze Age settlement of HD-6 (3100-2700 BCE), located in the coastal Sharquyya, the easternmost area of the Sultanate of Oman. Related archaeological and ethnographic information supplement these data sets. First, the paper presents four areas with each one a large oven and number of associated fireplaces, and examines the technical characteristics of the structures. The successive part of the study concerns the stratigraphical and topological relations among the structures, and enlightens the organisation of the areas connected to food-processing and discard. The most part of fireplaces excavated on site were located in the oven areas. Nevertheless, analysis shows that hearths were not systematically accessories to main structures. Most likely, fireplaces were in oven areas as separate elements of different food-processing sequences, so to guarantee assortment in cooking choices. It's possible that hearths represent the ordinary option for food preparation, while clay ovens can be considered as collective structures and were periodically used for large amounts of food, as suggested by the mode of discarding noticed in all the deposits surrounding these large structures. The results of the analysis suggest that man-made structures and areas connected to food procurement reflect relationships and behaviour associated with the social organization of the household. Homesteads at HD-6 are similar to each other and probably independent about the main essential activities; basic food-processing can be considered as one of those activities. Nevertheless, we can identify a form of interdependence between different groups, marked by the presence of shared areas and collective structures.
Considering Divergent Regimes of Metal Value in the Early Bronze Age of Western Asia
Dr Christoph Bachhuber British Institute at Ankara
By ca. 2500 BC Sumerian temple bureaucracies in Iraq adopted the weight of silver (e.g. a shekel) as the primary medium against which to measure the value of materials. This was implemented through centrally imposed reforms that included the recognition of a metrological system. The weight of silver would have been a meaningless unit of value if silver was not desired and circulated. This system of finance depended upon reserves of metal and its potential to be liquidated. Metal had begun to circulate in standardized proto-currency forms (ingots, joinable rings) contemporary with the innovation of metrology. The standardization of value also requires instruments to measure value; these instruments are pan balance weights observed in a vast corpus from contemporary contexts across Western Asia.
A multi-regional system of finance emerged that was underpinned by specific institutional facts related to the valuation of metal. The value of metal was nevertheless upheld through socially contingent and diverse perceptions and uses of metal. Value could be upheld by restricting access to it, and by displaying it as wealth on elite bodies and in elite contexts like mortuary rituals or other kinds of ‘sacrificial’ depositional contexts. Incredible volumes of metal were effectively removed from circulation and ritually destroyed in depositional contexts from this period, precisely when it had become the medium with which to measure value. In this paper I explore the interaction between these divergent regimes of value through a few extravagant contexts of metal deposition in EBA Western Asia.
Consuming Halaf Body Imagery: Constructed Commodifications of Halaf Figurines
Prof Ellen Belcher John Jay College – City University of New York
During the Halaf cultural horizon, in sixth millennium Northern Mesopotamia, a developed imagery of the body was primarily represented by figurines but also by pottery and glyptic motifs. Considered as a whole, the Halaf is perhaps the first Near Eastern consumer culture of an integrated iconography of embodiment. This compelling imagery is also woven into interpretations constructed by modern consumers. As a result the Halaf body has become a commodity of mother goddess and prehistoric matriarchy communities as well as pre-historians, art historians and figurine scholars, sometimes with overlapping results. This paper will present a long-range view of the collective consumption of Halaf body imagery. Focusing particularly on the lifecycle of Halaf figurines, this paper will consider the conceptualization, production, use, re-use and disposal of figurines and other anthropomorphic imagery within Halaf communities. Continuing the biography of these objects into the present-day, I will also consider modern consumers of Halaf bodies through their excavation, analysis, interpretation, publication and exhibition.
Feasting, Storage and Burials at Chalcolithic Tel Tsaf
Dr David Ben-Shlomo Hebrew University/Institute of Archaeology
Tel Tsaf is located in the central Jordan Valley and was occupied only during the Middle Chalcolithic period and a date of 5,200–4,600 cal BC. Large-scale excavations conducted by Y. of the Hebrew University exposed a composite array of courtyard buildings combining rectilinear rooms, rounded rooms, 19 rounded silos, around 16 earth ovens and four burials. This evidence indicates both a large-scale storage of grain not witnessed before in this period in the Near East, as well as direct evidence for continuous feasting. Feasting has attracted much attention in the archaeological research of the Near East and elsewhere. Recent evidence of feasting includes occurrences in the Near East at both prehistoric and Bronze and Iron Age sites, reflecting the diversity of types and functions of feasts, and suggesting its importance in prehistoric and proto-historic societies. The evidence for feasting at Tel Tsaf includes numerous large-scale cooking facilities (earth ovens) and concentrations of faunal remains, as well as special disposal locations indicating a large scale consumption of pig meat. It is suggested that feasting at Tel Tsaf was provisioned from the private household wealth of affluent families which may reflect the emergence of social stratification in middle Chalcolithic society. The many silos for grain storage in the same buildings can also be understood against the background of the rise in social complexity during the Chalcolithic. These silos could have contained significantly more grain than may have been used by the residents of the houses they are located in.
Symbolic Consumption: Imported Vessels in Mortuary Rites
Dr Celia Bergoffen F.I.T. (Fashion Institute of Technology)
The consumption of imported Cypriot pottery in the towns along the Levantine coast peaked during the 14th century B.C.E. Very common were small containers, especially in Base Ring ware, that contained oils or soluble drugs. These were found primarily in burials. Using an access database that we created containing the material from the hundreds of mostly single burials in the Tell el Ajjul cemeteries, P. Holdorf, information specialist of the Khirbet Iskander excavations and I studied the typological distribution of the pottery. We did not find anything so systematic as "funerary kits", nor any correlation between the distribution of imports and the types or quantities of local pottery. Nor was there a consistent correlation with the presumed wealth or poverty of the deceased based on his/her funerary assemblage. In any case, the value of objects must have changed once they were taken out of circulation, set aside for burial rituals, and then deposited in tombs. Since the imported juglets occurred predominantly in funerary contexts, they may not have remained long in circulation -- perhaps just long enough to use up the contents. Evidence for stoppers is rare, and the vast majority of the juglets appear to have been buried empty, although in Egypt, there are a few Base Ring I juglets with traces of clay stoppers. The vessels were sealed with Egyptian cloth and had evidently been refilled locally. R. Merrillees explained the re-use of these juglets, some of which apparently contained opium, in terms of sympathetic magic by which the container had acquired the beneficial properties of its original contents. The deposition of juglets in funerary contexts then, whether full, empty or refilled, is a symbolic consumption that runs parallel to that of the living, and has a different system of values.
Clay Ossuaries and Social Organisation of the Chalcolithic Ghassul-Beersheva Culture in the Southern Levant (4500-3500 BCE)
Mr Ian CipinInstitute of Archaeology, UCL
The Chalcolithic period in the Southern Levant at around 4500-3500 BCE saw people moving away from their traditional territories of the Neolithic into previously the sparsely occupied areas into more the more marginal semi-arid zones. They practiced mixed farming and developed their own culture that we refer to today as The Ghassul-Beersheva Culture. Along with this culture came new and fascinating burial customs that had never been seen before and were never seen again. Little attempt has been made in the past to study these burial customs from a more approach. By looking at them in a more contextual light rather than form a simply functionalist approach we can try and get at some of the motives behind their actions. What we see is a society that is coming to terms with its ability to control nature and resources where their burial practices are as much about making statements of life as they are about death.
Weaponry and Warrior Burials: patterns of disposal and social change in the southern Levant
Dr. Susan Cohen Montana State University
Burial, at its most basic level, simply represents one method utilized by the living to dispose of deceased humans. This disposal is of course influenced by the values and ideals held by a society and the resultant interment and the objects that often accompany it are therefore reflective of those views. The "warrior burial" tradition in the early second millennium in the southern Levant provides a corpus of material relating not only to the disposal of a particular group of humans, but also the specific objects associated with them: the weaponry. The metal weapons that identify this category of burials, and their placement with the deceased – their disposal, may be analyzed on multiple levels, such as the intrinsic economic value of the metals themselves, the value of the labor and technological skill required to produce the weapons, the value placed on their acquisition, and the value of the social status and/or niche in society they provided for their owners. The phenomenon of a single burial with associated weaponry is most common in Palestine during the Intermediate Bronze Age through Middle Bronze Age I, and slowly declines during the later phase of the Middle Bronze Age. Paradoxically, therefore, the disposal of valuable metals with a deceased individual occurs most frequently during a period in which there is the least evidence for conspicuous wealth in Canaanite society, while the practice declines and ultimately disappears when Middle Bronze Age culture reaches the zenith of its development. This shift in mortuary practice implies both a change in views regarding treatment of this specific category of the dead and their metal weapons, and hence the "value" that may have been ascribed to them, and reflects the changes in Canaanite society that accompany the development of urban culture in the Middle Bronze Age.
Dead Drunk: Psychoactive Consumption in Late Bronze Age Cypriote Mortuary Ritual
Mr David Collard University of Nottingham
The widespread occurrence of pottery vessels designed for the consumption of liquids in tombs throughout the east Mediterranean Bronze Age suggests that liquid consumption was frequently a component of mortuary ritual during this period. In addition, recent organic residue analysis of such vessels suggests that alcohol and other psychoactives, such as opium, were commonly the substances consumed. This paper takes an anthropological approach to evidence for the consumption of wine and opium from Late Cypriote tombs to attempt to explain why such substances may have been consumed during mortuary ritual. In particular, this paper considers whether it is possible to approach an understanding of the way in which the alterations of consciousness induced by such substances may have been interpreted by those experiencing them within such a ritualised context.
Kilns and ovens from the 2nd millennium B.C. settlement of Tell Barri (Syria)
Dr Anacleto D`Agostino University of Florence
Firing facilities for the production of pots and daily use items have been exposed at Tell Barri within the levels dating to the 2nd millennium B.C. The excavations carried out in Area G and recently in Area P, on the Northern slope of the mound, have exposed some parts of the ancient settlement characterised by the presence of updraft and downdraft kilns in a stratigraphic sequence and in a relatively good state of preservation. The analysis of these firing installations and their finding contexts (organisation of the surrounding space and associated pottery assemblages) will be the starting point of this paper. This data is compared with those from other Near Eastern sites, located mainly on the Upper Mesopotamia and Syria, in order to illuminate regional links, patterns of distribution of different types and diachronical differentiation. The focus of the paper is to investigate some issues related to the different types of kilns and frame them in a wide regional and cultural context. Geographical and chronological distribution patterns of pots and kilns raise new questions concerning the technological and cultural change that happened in particular during the second half of the 2nd millennium B.C. In conclusion, remarks on the continuity and changes in the typology of the kilns throughout Middle and Late Bronze Age will be proposed, and the relation between technology of the pottery production and cultural environment producing them will be underlined and interpreted.
Trickle Painted Ware: social self-representation and exchange during Early Bronze IV in Palestine and Transjordan
Dr. Marta D'Andrea Rome "La Sapienza" University
Trickle Painted Ware, commonly considered a decorative style in use on Simple Ware during Early Bronze IV (2300-2000 BC) in Palestine and Transjordan, may be instead regarded as a highly distinguished specialized painted pottery production, as the association of wares, typological limited range of vessels, fine manufacture and decoration show. The frequent occurrence in funerary equipments furthermore strenghtens the hypothesis that Trickle Painted Ware vessels should be regarded as luxury items or prestige goods to be displayed at least in burial contexts. Moreover, the possibility to restrict its production area to north-central Jordan allows to trace the circulation of these vessels also outside it and to infer more meaningful exchange networks.
Food Preparation, Storage and Consumption in an Early Centralised Society: Ceramics from Public and Private Contexts at Arslantepe VI A (3300-3000 BC).
Mrs Maria Bianca D'Anna Freie Universitaet, Berlin
In general, pottery reflects food production and consumption, activities deeply linked to economical, cultural and social structures of human communities. During the Late Uruk period, centralisation and redistribution of foodstuffs, goods and labour were well established and constituted the economic skeleton of Mesopotamian early complex societies. However, recent studies have drawn the attention to the independency of households and their role in the production of primary goods. Furthermore, thanks to the progress of researches in Syria and Turkey, the so-called Late Uruk world in Northern Greater Mesopotamia appears more articulated. In this paper, formal and functional analyses of vessels found in situ in the main Arslantepe VI A buildings will be presented. Public contexts will be compared to domestic areas with the aim of discussing the production and circulation of food in an early centralised society. In fact, Arslantepe VI A represents a stimulating case because of the strong evidence of marked economic centralisation, the significant amount of the materials found in context, the large exposed area, the presence of functionally distinguished architectures and the original character of the political development in the site at the end of the 4th millennium BC.
The Disposal of a Community: The Annihilation of Early Iron Age Hasanlu Tepe, Iran
Prof. Michael Danti Boston University
The destruction of Hasanlu Tepe, Iran at around 800 BC in a violent military attack created an almost unique archaeological deposit – numerous monumental buildings and their contents were burned and a large part of the population was brutally murdered. Excavators found the remains of over 240 citizens and soldiers in the well-preserved burned citadel and thousands of in situ objects. This paper presents an overview of the patterns of consumption and disposal evidenced in this frozen moment in time. Hasanlu IVb (1000–800 BC) provides a rare window through which to view life in western Iran in the early Iron Age and a poignant reminder of the realities of warfare in the period, known mainly from Assyrian representational art. In effect, Hasanlu IVb represents the consumption and disposal of an entire settlement and its occupants.
Production Processes During The Formative Ninevite 5
The Upper Tigridian Region's Processing Sites
Dr Francesco Del Bravo Freie University of Berlin
This future paper will focus on the types of production executed at variety of Upper Tigridian sites during the beginning of the Ninevite 5 period (IV - III millennium B.C.). The analysis is based on the major sites of the region in which could be isolated some sectors of the mounds dedited to production of alimentar surplus and to manufacture of pottery and foods. In particular will be analyzed the connections, over a regional scale, of the circulation of products, and how these particular sites interact between them, going to create an over-regional centralized production and processing. Specifically is important the role of those sites which for their dimensions can be considered as Processing sites at all, and don't present particular sectors of the mounds dedited to production but are in theirself all involved in this type of activities. Is from this analysis that the network of productivity can bring light on one of the more obscure aspects of the Ninevite 5 period: the type of society and economic organization. The second aim is the architectural review of all this sectors in light to gain a general idea of some standard typologies of construction, during the beginning of the III millennium B.C., connected to these specialized aspects of the Ninevite 5 society, and if they can be inferred from the available data.
More of the Same? Ceramic Continuity and Political Change during the Second Millennium BCE
Dr Lynn Swartz Dodd University of Southern California
The Mara², Amuq, and Sakçagözü valley surveys on the east side of the Amanus mountains provide important data sets relevant to interpretations of settlement strategies, craft practices, and regional administration during the second millennium BC. This paper details the long-lived local ceramic assemblage of the early and mid-second millennium as revealed in stratified contexts at Tell al-Judaidah, originally excavated by the Oriental Institute in the 1930s, and at Alalakh, excavated by Woolley during the same period. These standardised forms and fabrics are interpreted in the context of labour traditions that persist through episodes of political change. These settlement data are compared with late second millennium ceramic data derived from the Mara² survey undertaken during the 1990s. Raw material resource exploitation and curation continue for several centuries, even as the Hittites come to control the region.
Sidon: feasting and ritual activities
Dr Claude Doumet-Serhal The British Museum
The British Museum has been excavating in Sidon (College site) for the last ten years uncovering in the process a stratigraphical sequence and a continuity of occupation ranging from the third to the First Millennium BC and one which has proven to be quite exceptional. It is now certain that various buildings uncovered on site as well as the ninety-two burials exposed to date all relate to feasting and ritual activities. Third Millennium evidence of settlement in Sidon shows the rise of a social elite witnessed by a major transformation in household architectural organization. More than 165 kg of barley was found in the store room of a building of which only eight rooms have been excavated to date. There is reason to believe that this building was used for a much wider purpose than a common third millennium abode. The site changed its function at the beginning of the second Millennium BC whereby it was covered by a thick layer of sand. In this sand as well as in the five deposit layers on top of it ninety-two burials were uncovered to date. It is now clear that installations found around the graves consisting of stone and mud brick walls chalk-line pits tannours mortars and pestles are all part of a ceremony conducted at the grave site. Running consistently throughout the five Middle Bronze Age levels on top of the sand is the suggestion of an evolution in the ritual activities which culminated in the enlargement of a building (temple) the measurements of which reach at this stage of the excavation 48 m long. The temple was used in the Hyksos period as the setting for communal ritual activities. The Late Bronze Age witnessed feasting activities involving drinking and banqueting that took place in two buildings. The unique concentration of Mycenaean ritual vessels (more than seventy-six rhyta to date) for feasting and libation rituals was exclusively acquired during this period by an elite living on College site.
Local Pottery Production in the Iron Age: a Cilician Case-Study – A Technical and Comparative Re-evaluation of the Cilician Black-on-Red Painted Ware Tradition of Tarsus-Gözlükule
Miss Sevinc Duvarci Institute of Archaeology, University College London
Black-on-Red ware of the Iron Age has a distinctive character; red lustrous background with black paint decoration which is unearthened from Cyprus, Anatolia, and the coastal Levant. In this paper, based on Black-on-Red pottery from Tarsus-Gozlukule, I will explore the commercial and cultural relations between Anatolia, Cyprus and coastal Levant in the beginning of the Iron Age. I intend to approach the debate of the origin problem of this ware from an Anatolian perspective, and try to investigate the nature of the Cilican Black-on-Red ware tradition both stylistically and scientifically. My starting point, Tarsus-Gözlükule is occupied from the Neolithic period onwards. As other places in the Mediterranean region, Tarsus was marked with destruction at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The site, however, was one of the few centers that continued without a hiatus to the Iron Age after the destruction levels. Even though the archaeological evidence signals continuity, the historical sources stop with the end of the Late Bronze Age. Thus the change in the local material culture is crucial to understand post-Bronze Age developments of the settlement. The subtle amount of the Black-on-Red ware in Tarsus consists of open vessels, unlike the Cypriote assemblage. I will discuss the various forms, their possible functions, use and disposal of the Black-on-red ware in Tarsus-Gozlukule. The production of this specific pottery found in Iron Age kilns is also investigated with the petrographic and SEM analysis. Thus the analysis of the ware both stylistically and scientifically will aid to distinguish it from the other Eastern Mediterranean contemporaries and at the same time show the parallels and possible relations with the Eastern Mediterranean societies, and helps to understand the culture which produced and used it.
Facing the gods – Head-shaped cult vessels and the dynamics of inter-cultural interaction and appropriation in the 2nd Millennium BC Near East and East Mediterranean
Dr Claudia Glatz (Lecturer in Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Glasgow and Honorary Research Assistant, Institute of Archaeology, UCL.)
Shifting political ties, conflicts and economic relations structured the networks of interaction in which the different societies and culture spheres of the Near East and East Mediterranean encountered each other. In addition to the conduct of international relations, the consumption of external relationships through the material media of diplomacy, war and trade fueled internal social discourses of prestige, power and identity. In this paper I will explore the inter-cultural transfer, adoption and appropriation of cult objects and practices between Anatolia, the Levant and the Aegean. Using head-shaped rhyta and their contexts of consumption as a case study, I will trace the directions of cultural flows and investigate the interplay between foreign cult objects and concepts, their re-contextualisation, and the transformation of local practices.
Carcasses, Cooking, and Consumption: Foodways at Late Chalcolithic Hamoukar
Ms Kathryn Grossman (University of Chicago)
Foodways – the socially and culturally constituted practices of producing and consuming food – have long been a topic of interest to archaeologists. The everyday practices of procurement, storage, preparation, consumption, and disposal of food are important components of the interlocking networks of economic and political action within a community. As such, foodways provide an arena for the redefinition of identities and social roles, for the transformation of economic power into political influence, and for the creation and maintenance of institutionalized inequality. The Late Chalcolithic occupation at Hamoukar, in northeastern Syria, presents an excellent opportunity to study the social impact of foodways at an early urban site in northern Mesopotamia. When the site was destroyed by fire during the late fourth millennium BC, the occupants fled, leaving their goods and garbage behind in a series of well-preserved buildings. Recent excavations within these Late Chalcolithic buildings recovered intact floor assemblages that included many kinds of evidence for food management and consumption, including animal bones, ceramic vessels, and administrative devices for the control of access to stored goods. Excavations in exterior spaces also produced interesting data regarding food preparation and disposal, including numerous ovens and a dumping ground for animal carcasses. This paper will present the preliminary results of zooarchaeological study of this material. The faunal remains will be integrated with other classes of evidence to produce a multi-dimensional analysis of foodways and their role in social and political life at the site.
Assyrian Palace Ware: Production and Meaning in Iron Age Levant
Mrs Alice Hunt (UCL Institute of Archaeology)
Artefacts are composed both physically and semiotically. Layers of functional, symbolic and social meaning are interwoven into the material construction of an artefact, to communicate and reinforce ideologies and establish and maintain relationships. It is difficult to recover the semiotic significance of an artefact through archaeology because it is not always possible to know which aspects of an artefact were emically significant. Furthermore, as meaning is socially driven, the semantics of an object change with social context. This means that an object acquired from another culture may carry a different meaning in its new context. Both production and use add meaning to an artefact: after technologically requisite behaviours are excluded socially meaningful choices remain.
Assyrian "palace ware", a thin-walled fine ware, is believed to imitate metal vessels used in the Neo-Assyrian court. Previous studies of this ware have tended to focus on issues of provenance and date. This paper will address the semiotics of Assyrian “palace ware” through a comprehensive analysis of its production and use throughout the Neo-Assyrian empire. The techniques required to manufacture “palace ware” forms are not exclusive; most skilled potters in the Levant would have been technically able to reproduce them. However comparison of “palace ware” chaîne opératoire in the central polity and more peripheral regions, as well as study of how these vessels were being used, suggests several significant difference which might indicate differing social or cultural contexts. Finally, the agency by which social meaning and ideology are transmitted or transformed will be discussed.
Consumption and Discard of Obsidian Chipped-Stones at Neolithic Settlements of Seker al-Aheimar, Northeastern Syria
Dr Seiji Kadowaki and Prof. Yoshihiro Nishiaki (University of Tokyo)
The long-distance distribution of obsidian is among well-known phenomena that characterize the socioeconomic networks in the Neolithic period in western Asia. In most Neolithic communities, obsidian was procured as one of non-local raw materials, and several technological studies of obsidian chipped-stones indicate that obsidian was traded in various forms, such as core blanks, tool blanks, and finished tools. In contrast, this study focuses on the later stages of chaîne opératoire, examining how imported obsidian was consumed and discarded in the settlement. For this purpose, the paper presents a series of technological and spatial analyses of obsidian chipped-stones recovered in the Neolithic settlements at Tell Seker al-Aheimar. The site is located in northeast Syria, a few hundred kilometres away from the nearest obsidian sources. However, obsidian continued to be imported to the settlement throughout its long occupational sequence from the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the early Pottery Neolithic period. The technological examination of obsidian chipped-stones from the site suggests that the consumption of obsidian generally involves two different processes. The first is the use of imported tools or the modification of imported blades into retouched pieces, while the other is the production of bladelets from prismatic cores with pressure-flaking technique. The bladelets were then used with or without retouch. On the other hand, how were these production and use of obsidian tools practiced in the community? To approach this question, the paper examines the spatial distribution of obsidian chipped-stones and the formation processes of obsidian refuse at various locations in the settlement. Through these analyses, the paper discusses the use of space and the social contexts for the consumption and disposal of obsidian chipped-stones. The paper also discusses whether the differences in the procurement of lithic raw materials influence their subsequent consumption and discard behaviours.
Site formation processes in the Lower Town II of Dur-Katlimmu. The case of the Red House.
Dr Florian Janoscha Kreppner Freie Universität Berlin
The complete ground plan of the so-called Red House has been excavated at Tall Sheikh Hamad/Dur-Katlimmu on the Habur River in North-Eastern Syria. The Red House covers an area of appr. 5400 square meters (ca 6458 square yards) and is composed of three wings with 90 rooms. Cuneiform tablets date the period in which the Red House was in use to the reign of the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II after the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The main phase ended abruptly by a blaze and by violent destruction. What happened afterwards? The paper will discuss the variety of site formation processes within one single building which generated the archaeological record. Some rooms were disused others were reused on the original floors later after the destruction. Squatter-occupation on higher levels is attested in the ruins of the former Red House. The deposits of use and decay as well as the stratigraphical sequences show that site formation proceeded separately in every single room.
Only Storage jars? The big jars at al Thuqeibah, Sharjah, (UEA): an interpretation according to the excavation data and the environment nature
Prof. Dr. Carmen del Cerro Linares Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
In most Iron Age villages of Oman we document a large number of Storage Jars, which are consistently interpreted like reserve of grain. Rows of jars embedded in some rooms show us a grain storage. But the big jars may have other functions as well, that usually we don't suggest. The record of big jars at Thuqeibah is limited. The location of the big jars at the site, the proved way of life, the environment conditions and the ethnographic observation, let us enrich the interpretation of these big jars and suggest others uses according with the human groups needs
Conspicuous Consumption: Luxury Cuisines and Display Dining in the Ancient Near East and Early Islamic World
Prof. Jodi Magness University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Over twenty-five years ago, Andrew Watson documented evidence of an agricultural revolution that accompanied the Muslim conquests, in which a broad spectrum of new crops was introduced throughout the Muslim world using innovative irrigation and cultivation technologies. The newly introduced crops impacted not only the types of foods that were consumed but also the manner in which food was prepared and served. The changes in diet and dining habits were accompanied by a transformation of Near Eastern ceramic repertoires over the course of the seventh to ninth centuries C.E. These changes are but one aspect of a reorientation away from the Roman heritage of the Mediterranean world, with the transfer of the Abbasid capital to Baghdad leading to an increased interest in the cultures and culinary traditions of Persia and India. The wealthier classes were the primary participants and agents of change in the early Islamic dietary revolution, indulging in a wide variety of luxury cuisines and the display dining that showcased their consumption. David Waines has noted that some elements of early Islamic diet and dining practices are revivals or continuations of ancient Near Eastern culinary traditions. This paper attempts to identify these elements by focusing on pottery types in order to determine whether there are indeed similarities in the types of foods consumed and the manner in which foods were cooked and served in the ancient Near East and early Islamic world.
Iron Age ceramic movements and usages at Arslantepe.
Local traditions and foreign influences in the pottery production from the new excavations on the Neo-Hittite levels
Mr Federico Manuelli Università degli Studi di Trieste, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità
The excavations on the Iron Age levels have been resumed in Arslantepe from 2007. In the northern slope of the mound a large area related to the use of public structures, connected with the famous “Lion’s Gate”, was investigated. A first analysis on pottery production coming from these levels was also started during the 2008 excavation season. The analyzed assemblages were characterized by a considerable amount of ceramics linked with regions far from the Upper Euphrates Valley. Nonetheless, connections with the typical Early/Middle Iron Age local production are still recognizable. The aim of this study is to identify the importance of these influences on the site, comparing uses and movements of everyday-local and exotic-foreign productions.
Figuring out Figurines: a sealed zoomorphic clay figurine from 3rd millennium Tell Leilan
Dr Andrew McCarthy (University of Edinburgh)
In the absence of unequivocal evidence of the uses of model animals, humans, vehicles and structures, these enigmatic objects have usually been either offhandedly referred to as toys or dismissed as wholly unknowable. Alternatively, the few attempts to make sense of clay models and figurines in a social or ritual sense have probably pushed the evidence too far and made too many assumptions. Hypotheses that these ubiquitous objects might have had some functional use beyond just amusement or more vaguely for 'ritual' activities have unfortunately had little by way of substantiation. Excavations at the Tell Leilan Acropolis have revealed a large 3rd millennium palatial complex with a clear focus on bureaucratic activities. In addition to a heavy concentration of administrative artefacts there was also a preponderance of animal figurines found in this precinct. Among the figurines and models from this area was an unusual animal figurine that had been impressed several times with a high status cylinder seal, hinting that these objects could have been linked in some way to palatial control of resources. While this interpretation does not in itself explain all aspects of all figurines, it provides real evidence and a clear context to support an association with administration.
Things also die. Considerations on the meaning and function of funerary furnishings in Mesopotamia and Syria
Dr Davide Nadali (Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane - Firenze)
The study presents some examples of funerary furnishings from Mesopotamia and Syria and aims at explaining the manufacture of funerary goods, the function they have in the depositional rite and the action they cover once the tomb has been closed. Recent studies have reasonably argued that funerary offerings and goods in the tombs have first been used and involved in the ritual of burying. Since objects themselves have then been buried, they no longer accomplish their function in both the real life and the deposition. Indeed, other objects die together with the dead: however, the representations they bear act as performative images that give both the dead and the objects themselves "life". Finally, goods enlisted in written sources and funerary goods from archaeological excavations will be compared. Objects that had been manufactured for the netherworld came again to life thanks to archaeology.
Just a Sip and a Bite: The Miniature Pottery Vessels of the Middle Bronze Age Temple at Nahariya, Israel
Mrs Liat Naeh (The Hebrew University of Jersualem)
The Middle Bronze Age temple situated on the shore of Nahariya was excavated by Dr. Emanuel Ben-Dor in 1947 and again in 1954-1955 by Prof. Moshe Dothan. The cultic significance of the site was immediately recognized due to an astonishing amount of miniature pottery vessels, a discovery that is still considered to be a landmark in Israeli Archaeology. Today the finds from what is now known as the ""Canaanite Temple of Nahariya"" are finally being prepared for final publication by Dr. Sharon Zuckerman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the present author. The miniature pottery vessels form about 25% of the entire assemblage saved by the excavators: this includes an impressive repertoire of the site's signature Seven Cupped Bowls, as well as hundreds of various miniature bowls, cups and juglets. Many of them are duplicates of common sized Middle Bronze Age vessels: symbolically and economically they represent the "real thing". By creating a lexicon of the miniature pottery vessels of the area I aim to establish their chronology and regionalism for the first time, and to recognize patterns of trade or pilgrimage centering in Nahariya. Initial tests acknowledge that some of the vessels were imported to Nahariya; however, these objects were not necessarily well-made imports to be displayed. Mostly they were made of coarse ware and were undecorated, implying minimal efforts in their creation process. The vessels were found in an accumulation of offerings over a long duration of time, mainly on a "Bamah" (a high place), but also scattered around the premises, suggesting several interpretations to their function. Whether the vessels themselves were votive offerings or merely containers of perishable goods is yet to be determined. By exploring the miniature pottery vessels of Nahariya I hope to shed light on the phenomena of miniature pottery in the Levant.
Organization of Space in an MBIIc Sacred Precinct- New Evidence from Tell Haror
Mrs Pirhiya Nahshoni (Ben Gurion University, Israel)
Temples and the sacred precincts serve as the setting for ritual practice and ceremonial feasting. Anthropologic research has demonstrated that ritual feasting can be traced in the archaeological record due to the qualitative and quantitative nature of the finds. Another most important issue is their spatial distribution which is the result of different ritual activities taking place in the various parts of the precinct.
This paper deals with the space organization of the sacred precinct at Tel Haror, Israel. The pottery finds together with the faunal remains from the sacred precinct at Tel Haror constitute most of the material evidence of ritual activity and feasting. The pottery finds have been subject to a comprehensive typological and statistic study during the last two years.
The results of this research will enable the reconstruction of various specialized activity zones indicating patterns of ritual practice and feasting in the precinct.
Consuming Transitions: What can a foodways approach tell us about the 3rd-2nd millennium transition in the Levant?
Ms Leann Pace (University of Chicago)
Although the end of the 3rd millennium in the Levant is no longer considered a "Dark Age," the variation in material culture between regions and the changing settlement pattern make it difficult to gain a straightforward understanding of the forces at play in the region. What is the larger story that this evidence tells? Is regional variation in subsistence strategy, settlement pattern, and material culture so strong that there is not one but many stories to tell? Although I cannot yet answer these questions, I can offer another lens through which we might evaluate the existing evidence, moving us closer to a clearer understanding of life in the Levant in the EB IV. Following on the path set by Dr. Bunimovitz and Dr. Greenberg, this approach deals with consumption in the most literal and basic sense: eating and drinking. My presentation will be based upon a study of ceramic evidence excavated from sites that have played pivotal roles in the ongoing debate over the causes and magnitude of the 3rd-millennium urban collapse in the Levant. Although botanical and faunal evidence will be taken into account, ceramics evidence is privileged in this study because the constructed nature of ceramic evidence offers the potential for data to be collected about the production of the vessel, its use life (or lives), and its disposal––all factors which could aid in the development of a more nuanced understanding of cuisine and consumption practices. In this presentation, special emphasis will be given to findings that strongly correlate with or against popular theories about the causes and effects of late-3rd millennium settlement pattern change.
Grain Storage in Mesopotamia: Agricultural Techniques and Political Economy during the Third Millennium BC
Mr Tate Paulette (University of Chicago)
During the third millennium BC, the Mesopotamian political landscape was in flux, and the emerging institutional powers were eager to harness and control the flourishing agricultural economy. As local palaces and temples acquired land and dependents, they were increasingly able to manage many aspects of the agricultural production process. They also took steps to centralize the collection, storage, and distribution of agricultural goods. Within the elaborate systems of taxation, tribute, wage-labor, and rationing that emerged, large-scale, centrally managed grain storage facilities played a crucial role. The physical remains of these storage facilities have been uncovered at archaeological sites across northern and southern Mesopotamia, and written references to storage structures appear often in the cuneiform record. Despite some notable recent exceptions, however, the facilities, techniques, and knowledge that supported the storage economy in Mesopotamia have largely been glossed over as unspecified components of the redistributive economy more generally. In this presentation, I will be highlighting some preliminary results of a broader project that is drawing together a wide range of archaeological and written evidence for grain storage in northern and southern Mesopotamia during the third millennium BC. This project aims to distinguish among the different systems of centralized storage, to chart their development over time, and to identify some of the basic parameters that governed their operation. At the same time, it is an investigation of the ways in which these centralized systems articulated with, came into conflict with, or were bypassed and subverted by the practices of households and communities that were only nominally or partially subsumed within the institutional sphere.
Resources Exploitation and Handicraft Activities at Tell Mardikh-Ebla (Syria) during the Early and Middle Bronze Ages
Dr Luca Peyronel (University IULM - Milan - Istituto di Arti, Culture e Letterature Comparate)
The paper deals with a preliminary analysis of the wide range of raw materials exploited at Ebla during the Early and Middle Bronze periods, combining data from:
- worked stone and metal objects
- pottery and clay objects
- unworked materials
- tools and implements
- working areas
Disposal of food funerary offering and reconstruction of funerary banquet rituals in Middle Bronze Age Syria
Dr Andrea Polcaro (Università degli Studi di Perugia)
The theme of ritual banquet for the dead is common in the MB Syrian art, and this practice is also attested from textual and archaeological evidence since the Early Bronze Period. This paper points to reconstruct the rituals performed in front of and inside the tombs, involving disposal and consuming food. This research starts from past and recent discoveries at Ebla/Tell Mardikh that will be compared with data from other indicative Syrian sites. The aim is to understand the evolution of the banquet from the Early to the Middle Bronze Period, analyzing how this important moment of funerary rituals changed and evolved inside the Amorite elite classes. The attestation of banquets in simple tombs of common people, as well as in tombs of dignitaries and high rank people, will be analyzed: the aim is to understand also the different points of view between different social classes in funerary rituals. The funerary banquet could represent the acceptation of dead in the ancestors' community, central point in the ideology of death.
In with the Old, Out with the New - Ground Stone Tool Consumption and Disposal in the Southern Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic A
Dr Philipp Rassmann (University of Washington)
Though it is customary to view the presence of ground stone tool breakage as being predicated by disposal and a production strategy dependent on the consumption of fresh raw material for new tools, this paper reconsiders this interpretation and demonstrates that breakage does not render tools unserviceable and necessitate the use of new material to produce replacements. The application of a new method of data collection for use wear examination reveals that many damaged southern Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic A ground stone tools had been or were in the process of being modified or completely reshaped to produce repurposed or entirely new tool forms. The patterning and placement of tool modification traces on, for example, pestles and querns, suggest that the production of new tools from old ones was a deliberate and formal component of tool production rather than an ad-hoc or opportunistic approach. In fact, a number of tool specimens may have been intentionally broken to facilitate tool rejuvenation. Through careful recording and analysis of surface modification, the consumption of raw material through repeated episodes of tool shaping, use, reshaping and re-use may be re-evaluated thereby challenging prevailing interpretations of tool disposal.
The Use of Domestic Space in the Malatya Plain (Turkey) in the Ubaid and Post-Ubaid periods
Dr Francesca Balossi Restelli (Università Sapienza di Roma)
This paper will compare the organisation and character of domestic activities from the Ubaid site of Deðirmentepe and the Post-Ubaid occupation at Arslantepe. Activities will be reconstructed on the basis of architectural features, a functional evaluation of in situ material culture, botanical and faunal samples, and the presence of intra-site burials. Particular attention within the material culture shall be given to pottery, grinding stones, and administrative material. Published materials from Deðirmentepe will be re-analysed in this perspective, whilst unpublished data will be used for Arslantepe. The distribution of material culture and an analysis of the organisation of space will suggest places, modes, times and actors of the different identified activities. In light of this analysis, elements of continuity and change will be evaluated within the regional developments from Ubaid to Late Chalcolithic in the Malatya Plain.
Banqueting in a Temple
Dr Licia Romano (University of Rome "Sapienza")
This paper will focus on remains and traces of banquets found inside the ED Mesopotamian sacred buildings. The study will discuss the evidences for the celebration of festivals that included the consumption of a collective meal as main, or at least important, moment. The implications of eating collectively and the consequent reflex on the society will be investigated as well.
Mortuary Space and Craft Disposal in the Chalcolithic PerIod (c. 4500-3600 BC) of the Southern Levant
Dr Yorke Rowan (University of Chicago, Oriental Institute)
The notable increase of finely crafted items in the small scale prehistoric societies of the southern Levant during the late fifth to early fourth millennia BC (Chalcolithic Period) over the preceding Late Neolithic period is apparent. Some crafts required particular skills (carving, smelting) and non-local materials (e.g., ivory, gold, copper, basalt) which were not commonly available to the local people of the southern Levant. The production of these artifacts is often viewed through abstractions intended to recognize patterns of institutionalized inequality, but little effort has been expended to systematically understand the consumption and deposition of the exotic artifacts. In this paper, we examine the organization of space and deposition of exotic goods for the dead, particularly those spaces and artifacts associated with secondary interments deposited in subterranean contexts, one of the major new practices of the Chalcolithic period (c. 4500-3600 BC). Although not standardized, spatial patterns and artifact types can be detected when compiled methodically.
Coba Bowls Production, Use and Discard: A View from Tell Feres Al-Sharqi
Mr Johnny Samuele Baldi (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/UMR 7041, Maison de l'Archéologie et de l'Ethnologie)
The aim of this paper is to investigate the production, consumption and discard of Coba bowls through the archaeological evidence in Northern Mesopotamia during the post-Ubaid (LC1-early LC2) period and through new data from excavations at Tell Feres al-Sharqi (Hassakeh Province, Syria). The huge amount of this coarse ceramic material in post-Ubaid levels marks the emergence of mass production processes of a quite standardized ceramic item, that was locally produced but very largely used as well. In Tell Feres, ceramic materials and excavations in Levels 9-10 allow a technical and spatial analysis of the archaeological context. The observation of fabrics composition, shaping methods, dimensions, capacity and primary function of these bowls and the study of their collocation in space can connect the analysis of early mass production and disposal processes with some interpretative hypotheses on the purpose and meaning of Coba bowls during the second half of the fifth millennium B.C. As part of this little attempt of archaeology of production and disposal processes of a bowl, the comparative approach with other north-Mesopotamian sites shows two main types of Coba bowls in the geographical band between Anatolia and Northern Mesopotamia (with round base and profile in the Amuq plain and Cilicia, "V" shaped and with flat base in the Keban and the Khabur areas and the Iraqi Jazira). These two very distinctive forms and techniques have rare common elements (like the scraping technique), but they indicate a general cultural trend, that goes beyond ceramic provinces and offers an idea of important consequences in social organization of Late Chalcolithic communities.
Layered Images and the Contributions of Recycling to Histories of Art
Prof Joanna Smith (Princeton University)
Part of the cycle of production, distribution, and consumption of material culture includes recycling. Often recycled objects retain details of the form, design, and even purpose of the originals. What I have termed "layered images" specifically refer to those image surfaces that were changed by craftspeople through reuse, recarving, and adaptation. The layers in many image-bearing objects can be understood by analogy with the layers or strata of archaeological deposits that provide us with information about object creation, use, and discard. Layered images that are particularly significant for uncovering the transformation of figural forms in art historical research are small objects (ca. 2-4 cm) called seals. This paper offers examples of layered images in Middle to Late Bronze Age stone cylinder seals from Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Cyprus. These examples demonstrate that recarved seals were considered to be more authentic and were valued more highly in official contexts than were seals carved afresh or without the traces of an earlier carving. Furthermore, there is a sharp difference between seals recarved in royal vs. mercantile contexts. The removal, addition, and modification of figural forms and compositions on seals in different contexts of consumption, whether for their use as amulets or as sealing tools, is revealing about how these small objects were influential in the exchange of artistic ideas among people at different points in time and in different parts of the ancient Near East.
Transforming Canaan: The Material Culture of Contact
Dr Rachael Sparks (Institute of Archaeology, University College London)
The material culture of the MB Levant undergoes a number of transformations, not the least of which involves the introduction of new forms of cultural expression. Many of these had their origin in Egyptian culture, encouraged by contacts made through trade and other means, including Canaanite settlement in the eastern Delta. This paper will explore the influence Egyptian culture had on that of the southern Levant, and how these influences were selectively adopted and adapted by consumers. It will focus particularly on whether the ways in which certain object types common to both cultures are interpreted and utilised in a culturally specific fashion, including scarabs and cosmetic vessels, and how this process changes over the course of the Bronze Age. This will lead to a better understanding of how object choice may be used to construct and mediate group identity.
The production and exchange of pottery in Central Jordan
Dr Margreet L. Steiner (Independent researcher)
Studies of the pottery of the ancient Near East tend to concentrate on devising a pottery typology mainly for dating purposes or on the technological aspects of the production process. Analyses of the organization of the production process and the distribution mechanisms of the produced vessels are much less in vogue. And yet, precisely these latter aspects are directly shaped by the economic and socio-political conditions in which both the potters and their clients lived and worked. The Iron Age pottery excavated at Khirbat al-Mudayna in Central Jordan may be used as a test case to study the regional pottery production as well as the mechanisms that underlie the observed distribution patterns. It seems that pottery that is locally made and found in great quantities at a site may yet have very different mechanisms of production and procurement. The location of the site in a border region may be an important factor behind its 'eclectic' pottery repertoire.
On Consumption and Disposal Variability in Late Byzantine/Early Islamic Palestine
Dr Oren Tal and Mr Itamar Taxel (Tel Aviv University, Department of Archaeology)
The behavioral study of consumption and disposal in late antique and early Islamic Palestine has never been put to practice in a satisfactory manner. This paper will present three case-studies on consumption and disposal as evidencing shift in settlement activities and behavioral patterns. Thus we will survey a Late Byzantine domestic deposit from a water-well in Iamnia (Yavneh-Yam); a Late Byzantine domestic deposit from a dump in Sozousa (Apollonia-Arsuf); and an Early Islamic (Abbasid) domestic deposit from an industrial installation which was related to flax-production in Ramla. Our understanding of the disposal processes that took place in these sites (based on their stratigraphy) will be studied against the inter-site and regional social and political implications. In addition to providing a survey of material culture of transitional Late Byzantine/Early Islamic levels in Palestine the behavioral concept of "abandonment" via "refuses" will be offered.
Asserting Identity in the Communal: means of social distinction in formal feasting at early-mid-4th millenium, BC, Tell Brak, northern Syria.
Dr Jill A. Weber (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, USA)
At the site of Tell Brak during the early- to mid- 4th millennium BC settlement was expanding and reorganizing, schemes of reckoning and accounting were becoming more complex, and warfare may have been endemic. A succession of niched and decorated public and domestic spaces were built near the northern entrance to the city and the whole complex featured a formal courtyard with large-scale ovens. In situ animal-bone remains excavated from this courtyard revealed a series of distinct communal meals prepared in the communal ovens. These remains revealed hierarchy in animal taxa and cuts of meat, and showed evidence for experimentation in cuisine.
Communal meals serve to bring a community together by emphasizing and celebrating common social bonds. At the same time, such meals reinforce prevailing patterns of hierarchy and relationships of dominance. Feasts and banquets may be devices through which status is articulated, displayed and promulgated. I suggest that these feasts display variations that were used by innovative individuals to assert individuality within the traditional realm of the shared meal.