Session: #221

Content:

In this session we want to discuss different aspects of food and diets and encourage contributors to address scientific questions dealing with foodways in prehistoric Anatolia and southeastern Europe, as well as their transmissions westwards. We choose these regions because of their geographic, cultural and economic roles as active zones of transmission between the Southwestern Asia and central Europe. We choose food as an indicator of interconnections or barriers as it constitutes one of the most important drivers in the emergence of cultural, social and economic identities and is at the same time formed, and transformed by them. Therefore, we intend to analyze both aspects of environmental agency of these regions on the formation of culinary traditions, as also local characteristics of prehistoric diets and their further complete or partial transmission or non-transmission throughout Europe. The session will use “foodways” and “foodscapes” as analytical concepts for discussion, including all activities, norms, and symbols enclosing the production, processing, cooking, serving, and consumption of food. The topics should be focused on the emergence of farmer-herder foodways and the process of Neolithisation; the formation of foodscapes, local cuisines and the emergence of traditions both in Anatolia and in Europe; on the identification of adoption or non-adoption, of possible routes of westward transmission, circulation of food and movement of ideas. We encourage contributors to present new research results and discuss novel ways for the identification of foodways with the methods of archaeological science. Theoretical approaches on the agency of food is also welcome.

Session: #221

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