Marijke van der Veen

When is food a luxury

This paper explores definitions of luxury foods and considers the role of luxuries in marking social distinction. It is proposed that luxury foods are those foods that offer a refinement in texture, taste, fat content or other quality (such as stimulant or inebriant) and offer distinction, because of either their quantity or quality. Ethnographic research has revealed that an emphasis on quantity of food and elaboration of common staples is found mostly in societies without strong social stratification, while an emphasis on quality and style is characteristic of societies with institutionalized forms of social ranking. In the former context the consumption of luxury foods is used primarily to create or enhance social bonds, in the latter to create or enhance exclusivity and distance. The archaeological recognition of luxury foods is reviewed to demonstrate how archaeology is well placed to add regional breadth and chronological depth to the study of the changing role and meaning of luxury foods.This paper explores definitions of luxury foods and considers the role of luxuries in marking social distinction. It is proposed that luxury foods are those foods that offer a refinement in texture, taste, fat content or other quality (such as stimulant or inebriant) and offer distinction, because of either their quantity or quality. Ethnographic research has revealed that an emphasis on quantity of food and elaboration of common staples is found mostly in societies without strong social stratification, while an emphasis on quality and style is characteristic of societies with institutionalized forms of social ranking. In the former context the consumption of luxury foods is used primarily to create or enhance social bonds, in the latter to create or enhance exclusivity and distance. The archaeological recognition of luxury foods is reviewed to demonstrate how archaeology is well placed to add regional breadth and chronological depth to the study of the changing role and meaning of luxury foods.

New Plant Foods in Roman Britain — Dispersal and Social Access

Abstract This paper presents the first detailed review of all archaeobotanical records from Roman Britain. It reveals that some 50 new plants food (mostly fruits, herbs and vegetables) were introduced into this country during the Roman period. These introductions represent a major diversification of the plant component of the British diet at this time, adding important nutrients, variety of flavours, ways of expressing cultural identity, as well as social status. The geographical, chronological and social dispersal of these foods is analysed and three dispersal patterns and at least four consumer groups are identified. Methodological issues are discussed and gaps in the data highlighted. The role of these foods in expressions of cultural identity is briefly discussed, as is the impact of their introduction on the productive capacity of the agricultural economy.

The UNESCO Libyan Valleys Survey 1980

Two seasons of work have now been conducted by British and French survey teams, in conjunction with members of the Libyan Antiquities Department, under the charge of Dr. Abdullah Shaiboub. The objectives of the survey are to locate, survey and analyse the extensive remains of the ancient agricultural settlements that can be found in the wadis of the hinterlands of Tripolitania and the Sirtica. Within the framework established by the Department in cooperation with Unesco lies the archaeological aim of recording the evidence for periods when extensive areas of the pre-desert were, for whatever reasons, cultivated in ways that are not similarly practised today. In the longer term the programme is designed to locate those areas where modern farming might be re-established. Archaeology is thus brought into line with the aims of the modern world. For the purposes of this report we intend to concentrate on the period which we call the Romano/Libyan in which the great majority of those farming settlements flourished. The prehistoric evidence is in any case mainly of the palaeolithic period, on which there is a separate section. The preferred zone of settlement in Tripolitania has traditionally been the well watered coastal plain and the adjacent limestone hills of the Tarhuna Gebel as far south as the town of Beni Ulid, for these regions have more than 200 mm of rain a year, regarded as the threshold for settled farming without irrigation. Prehistoric settlement concentrated here, and mixed farming has probably characterised this zone from the fourth millennium b.c. In the Roman period the coastal cities like Sabratha and Leptis Magna were supported by prosperous farms on the plain and in the Gebel. In the Islamic period, too, the same region was densely settled.

The economic value of chaff and straw in arid and temperate zones

Chaff and straw is extensively used as a source of fuel, building material and fodder in arid zones, but this by-product of the cereal harvest is generally under-represented in the archaeobotanical record from north-west Europe. While this is partially a result of differential preservation, the evidence from a number of North African sites suggests that dissimilarities between the two regions in the availability of firewood, grazing and building material play an important role too. Differences in the way wheat and barley were used may represent an additional factor. Three types of use are distinguished: casual ‘use’, intentional local use and use as a commercial commodity, and these can be linked to scales of production and organization in the agricultural system.

Agricultural innovation: invention and adoption or change and adaptation?

Abstract Agricultural innovations are primarily concerned with a need for increasing production (of food, fodder, secondary products) as well as enhancing quality (of produce, production process, growing conditions). This paper reviews current thinking on how improvements and innovations in agriculture arise, what forms they take and what agents are involved. Innovations typically affect one or more of the following areas: crops, animals, growing conditions, implements and management practices. While ‘macro-inventions’ (radical new ideas) do occur, many concern ‘micro-inventions’, that is changes or modifications to tools and practices made by skilled practitioners (farmers, craftspeople), rather than by inventors or entrepreneurs. Indeed, agricultural innovations frequently concern not so much the adoption of newly introduced technologies, but the adaptation of existing ones. The term ‘agricultural revolution’ tends to be used when a number of improvements in separate areas of the farming system co-occur as a complex, and, although these may be introduced gradually, once they reach a critical mass their impact on society may be of a magnitude deserving of the term ‘revolution’.Abstract Agricultural innovations are primarily concerned with a need for increasing production (of food, fodder, secondary products) as well as enhancing quality (of produce, production process, growing conditions). This paper reviews current thinking on how improvements and innovations in agriculture arise, what forms they take and what agents are involved. Innovations typically affect one or more of the following areas: crops, animals, growing conditions, implements and management practices. While ‘macro-inventions’ (radical new ideas) do occur, many concern ‘micro-inventions’, that is changes or modifications to tools and practices made by skilled practitioners (farmers, craftspeople), rather than by inventors or entrepreneurs. Indeed, agricultural innovations frequently concern not so much the adoption of newly introduced technologies, but the adaptation of existing ones. The term ‘agricultural revolution’ tends to be used when a number of improvements in separate areas of the farming system co-occur...

The Archaeobotany of Roman Britain: Current State and Identification of Research Priorities

This paper was published as Britannia, 2007, 38, pp. 181-210. It is also available from http://www.romansociety.org/webbrit07.htm#Archaeobotany. This paper appears in the LRA with the permission of the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.

Food as embodied material culture: diversity and change in plant food consumption in Roman Britain

This paper was published as Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2008, 21, pp. 83-109. It appears here with the permission of the publisher. It is available from http://www.journalofromanarch.com (email: jra@journalofromanarch.com). Copyright Journal of Roman Archaeology. Permission to reproduce any of this material in print or in digital form must be sought from the publisher.

Charred Grain Assemblages from Roman-Period Corn Driers in Britain.

This paper presents a review of the botanical evidence for the function of so-called ‘corn-driers’ from Roman-period Britain. The charred grain assemblages associated with corn-driers from twenty-one sites have been analysed. The results indicate that these kilns should be regarded as multi-functional structures; both the roasting of germinated grains for the production of malt and the parching/drying of grain in preparation for consumption and storage are functions implied by the botanical evidence. The need for further experimental research is identified.

Garamantian agriculture: the plant remains from Zinchecra, Fezzan

Excavations at Zinchecra, a hill fort settlement of the Garamantes in Fezzan, southern Libya, have recovered a rich assemblage of desiccated and carbonised plant remains. The archaeobotanical analysis of this assemblage has produced a unique insight into the state of agriculture in the Sahara during the first half of the first millennium BC. Three cereal crops and three fruit crops have been identified, as well as salad plants and aromatic herbs. The use of wild plant resources has also been attested. The assemblage is dated by eleven radiocarbon dates to 900–400 cal BC. A well-developed agricultural regime was present, despite the harsh climatic conditions.

The materiality of plants: plant–people entanglements

AbstractPlants in archaeology tend to be studied from an anthropocentric point of view, in which they are seen as passive objects (domestication, farming, deforestation, diet, trade, food and status). Here the concept of materiality is applied to view plant–people relationships from the plant’s point of view, that is, to afford plants agency. It is argued that this brings into clearer focus the complex entanglements or meshworks that are created, often unintentionally, when plants and people interact. Concepts such as materiality, relationality and entanglement help us not only to foreground the vital importance of plants in human (and animal) life, but to appreciate that these plants are best studied within the complex webs of relationships that exist between plants, animals, objects, environments and people.Abstract Plants in archaeology tend to be studied from an anthropocentric point of view, in which they are seen as passive objects (domestication, farming, deforestation, diet, trade, food and status). Here the concept of materiality is applied to view plant–people relationships from the plant’s point of view, that is, to afford plants agency. It is argued that this brings into clearer focus the complex entanglements or meshworks that are created, often unintentionally, when plants and people interact. Concepts such as materiality, relationality and entanglement help us not only to foreground the vital importance of plants in human (and animal) life, but to appreciate that these plants are best studied within the complex webs of relationships that exist between plants, animals, objects, environments and people.