Introduction: Social dimensions of food

In: Ivanova, Maria ; Athanassov, Bogdan ; Petrova, Vanya ; Takor, Desislava ; Stockhammer, Philipp W. (Hrsgg.): Social dimensions of food in the prehistoric Balkans. Oxford, Philadelphia 2018, VII-XVII

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Abstract

Ever since the definition of the Neolithic Revolution by Vere Gordon Childe, archaeologists have been aware of the crucial importance of food for the understanding of prehistoric developments. Numerous studies have classified and described cooking ware, hearths and ovens, have studied food residues and more recently also stable isotopes in skeletal material. However, we have not yet succeeded in integrating traditional, functional perspectives on nutrition and semiotic approaches (e.g. dietary practices as an identity marker) with current research in the fields of Food Studies and Material Culture Studies. This introduction sets out the frame for the subsequent discussions in this volume and summarizes the articles in which leading specialists in archaeobotany, economic zooarchaeology and palaeoanthropology discuss practices of food production and consumption in their social dimensions from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age in the Balkans.