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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2021

Identifying Past social Organization through Foodways – the importance of a multi-proxy approach

Aline Thomas
Christina Cheung
Polina Syrikova
  • Fonction : Auteur
Mona Le Luyer
Estelle Herrscher

Résumé

In complex societies, power and resources inequalities are often expressed in the ways people lived (i.e., the food they ate), and the ways the dead were buried. Thus, archaeologists have long recognized that palaeodietary and mortuary practices are powerful gateways to understand past social divisions and organisations. This study focuses on examining the social organizations of Cerny communities in the Paris Basin region. The Cerny culture is well known for constructing some of the earliest monumental cemeteries in western Europe during the middle Neolithic period (c. 4700 – 3500 BC). These cemeteries are highly organized and stratified, where only selected individuals were buried within/associated with the monuments, in very specific manners. Despite the highly stratified funerary arrangements, a recent stable isotopic study has revealed that there was little intra-group variability among the Cerny communities. This is in stark contrast to the contemporaneous non-Cerny groups in the region, where mortuary patterns were highly homogeneous, but individuals showed strong intra-group isotopic variations. Initially, it was assumed that Cerny social stratifications were more “symbolic” in nature – expressed strongly post-mortem, but in life, individuals received similar sustenance across the community. However, new micro- and macro- dental wear analyses reveal that intra-group dietary variabilities indeed existed among the Cerny groups. While stable isotope analysis evaluates the total consumption of macronutrients (especially protein), dental wear analysis mostly concerns the texture of the food consumed. Our result has shown that among the Cerny communities, social stratifications were expressed not in terms of nutritional intake, but the format of the food being consumed. In addition, this multi-proxy approach has highlighted some problems with the current approach in palaeodietary reconstruction, which focused primarily on macronutrients intake and pay little attention to other factors such as food processing methods.
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Dates et versions

hal-03923376 , version 1 (04-01-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03923376 , version 1

Citer

Aline Thomas, Christina Cheung, Polina Syrikova, Mona Le Luyer, Estelle Herrscher. Identifying Past social Organization through Foodways – the importance of a multi-proxy approach. European Association of Archaeologists (EAA), Sep 2021, Kiel (online), France. ⟨hal-03923376⟩
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