Throughout the project we have studied plant food preparation from the Aegean to Central Europe through a wide range of archaeological remains that included archaeobotanical remains, processing tools, cooking pots and cooking installations. We have approached these archaeological remains using a combination of analytical techniques such as Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), organic residue analysis (ORA), GIS, tribology for usewear analysis, archaeobotany of plant micro and macro remains, including charcoal, phytolith and starch analysis. In addition to the archaeological lines of inquiry, PlantCult attempted for the first time the diachronic examination of plant foods, combining archaeological and textual evidence that offered complementary lines of evidence and unique insights of past choices of plant food ingredients and their change over time. More than 50 archaeological sites have been investigated with a special focus and emphasis on the archaeobotanical remains from nearly 50 sites from Greece, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Austria and Southern Germany as well as on the relevant technologies for their culinary transformation. The investigation of the plant food components and their culinary transformation spanned the the first seven millennia of farming communities in a large part of Europe.
A wide array of observations regarding overall plant food preferences and their change through time can be found in the PlantCult books that include an edited volume (Cooking with Plants in Ancient Europe and Beyond by Valamoti, Dimoula, Ntinou (eds) 2022, Sidestone Press), a food authored by the PI and project team members (Food Crops of Ancient Greece, Valamoti, Fyntikoglou, Symponis, 2022, University Studio Press) and a booked authored by the PI on Plant Foods of Greece: a Culinary Exploration of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages (2023, University of Alabama Press, Archaeology of Food Series). These books also offer insights to food preparation technologies such as grinding, pounding, cooking and baking. Issues related to the symbolic and ritual aspects of plant foods and their participation to processes of constructing culinary identities have also been explored by the project.
Regional overviews have been generated by PlantCult for grinding tools, cooking pots and installations, in most cases focusing primarily in Greece, with the available data organized in the PlantCult DataBases, openly accessible through this link:
https://plantcult.hist.auth.gr/(opens in new window)The PLANTCULT team has worked very hard to obtain, record, photograph and analyse hundreds of archaeological food specimens from Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age sites from the Aegean to Central Europe. Food remains that could correspond to breads, porridges, pre-cooked ground cereals, malt and ground malt, split and soaked pulse seeds, pressed grapes, dried fruit have been carefully analysed. Ancient texts have been investigated in order to learn how prehistoric plant foods were perceived and cooked in the historic periods 1st millennium B.C. We have also observed how traditional foods like bulgur, trahanas, Gruenkern, grape syrup and fava are produced in order to better understand ancient food preparations. Experimentaly generated grinding tools, pots and hearths led to the prearation of experimental beads and gruels. We have also generated ethnographic and experimental foods using Lathyrus sativus, einkorn wheat and acorns. All these have been charred in order to resemble archaeological food remains and they have been compared to the archaeological food remains. This has formed the basis to produce methodological tools of a wider applicability that enables the distinction of different plant food preparations. A key for distinguishing different types of cereal fragments has been compiled and another one for distinguisihing porridges, doughs and breads is under construction. All this PlantCult generated data is available through the PlantCult PAFdb, openly accessible from early 2024.
