EAA 2023: Abstract

It is now known that the first pottery-making societies in the Levant used pottery to cook their food. Nevertheless, many questions remain unanswered about the cuisine of these Neolithic communities who lived during the late 7th/early 6th millennium cal. BC: What type(s) of food preparations were cooked in the ceramic vessels? Which cooking technique(s) were used? How was the food cooking organized inside the Neolithic villages? To answer these questions, we undertook the thorough analysis of 153 cooking pots coming from the major Early Pottery Neolithic sites of Sha’ar Hagolan and Muntaha located in the Upper Jordan Valley. Our multidisciplinary study method, developed at the interface between traceology, chemistry and botany, is based on the combined macro-, microscopic, molecular and isotopic characterization of the inner charred residues of Neolithic pots. The visual aspects of the food crusts and their distribution alongside the profile of the ceramic vessels suggest that all the pots were used to boil foodstuffs by being placed in the center of stone hearths. The integrated analysis of lipids, phytoliths and starches trapped in the inner charred residues of these ceramic vessels revealed that they had contained various food preparations based on animal and plant substances - including domestic plants such as wheat and barley and wild grasses and fruits such as acorns. The spatial distribution of the cooking pots inside the two Neolithic villages clearly show that the preparation of meals was mainly carried out at the household scale.

Pottery, Function, Food, Late Neolithic, 7th millennium, Near East

Oral presentation

  Abstract (PDF)

Julien VIEUGUE¹

Lindsay DUNCAN³
Arnaud MAZUY⁴
Monica RAMSEY²
Martine REGERT⁴