Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant: Food and Ethnicity in the South Levantine Iron Age II (10th - 7th centuries BCE): A microscopic perspective

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. Michael O. Sugerman, Mary Larkum will test the hypothesis that the study of archaeological food remains is a useful method to investigate ancient ethnic groups. The presence or absence of specific food remains, such as pig bones, has been used as an indicator of ethnic boundaries in the archaeological record of Israel, Palestine and Jordan, a region also called the southern Levant. Larkum will research two different sources of data on dietary practices: (1) faunal remains (animal bones) using macroscopic skeletal analysis and (2) food residues extracted from cooking pottery using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and gas chromatography-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS). The bones and pottery were excavated at sites dating to the Iron Age II Period (1000 - 586 BCE) in the southern Levant. These sites were situated in regional kingdoms known historically as Ammon, Aram, Edom, Israel, Judah, Moab and Philistia. In the food residue portion of this project Larkum focuses on animal products cooked in unglazed cooking pottery, a common Iron Age food preparation method, and specifically examines cooking pottery excavated from domestic floors for information about the non-ritual use of animal products in Iron Age homes. She also inventories the range of animals represented in each site's faunal assemblage for comparison with residue data. The study of cooking residues complements the dietary information obtained from faunal remains, and adds a deeper analysis of social practice to interpretations of ancient ethnicity. This research has the potential to broadly impact how archaeologists and historians think about ancient south Levantine peoples and the archaeological methods used to interpret ancient identity. Larkum will comment on the use of food remains as ethnic markers, contribute to debates on ancient food use, and provide new information about south Levantine cooking and the use of cooking vessels during the Iron Age. The combined use of organic residue and faunal analyses is a new approach to the study of ancient ethnicity, one that offers an opportunity to employ tried and tested analytical methods in an innovative way. This project will make an intellectual contribution to three bodies of anthropological literature: the archaeology of ethnicity, the archaeology of the Levant, and the anthropology of food and nutrition. Comparing cooking and faunal data will examine the process of cooking as a culturally significant behavior, placing the discussion of regional food use into a larger context of food and culture in anthropology. Results of this research will be submitted for publication to peer-reviewed journals and edited excavation volumes, and presented at national anthropological conferences. An Internet database of reference sample GC/MS spectra will be made available for on-line use to benefit the scientific community. The Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant will provide Mary Larkum with valuable graduate student training in the analysis of chemical residues and archaeological fauna.