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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » Durrington Walls » CULINARY HABITS OF THE STONEHENGE BUILDERS |
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moss 2897 posts |
Oct 15, 2015, 11:46
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spencer wrote: I agree with you totally about the other foodstuffs - you mentioned sorrel, which I will be posting about in another context. Richard Mabey's now venerable but still excellent Food for Free, and also another excellent book that I've mentioned here before, Medicinal Plants in Folk Tradition - An Ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland, by Allen and Hatfield, are both based on ancient knowledge and usage. These two books also compliment each other, as some foodstuffs available to our forebears also have medicinal properties.. what was commonly consumed could be multifuntional. Both have excellent bibliographies for those who wish to study further. Look forward to the post, Tiompan is of course right, there would probably have been cereals as well to some extent. Then of course did they dry food, did they collect pignuts/earthnuts with the help of their pigs? Flavouring; wild mints, thymes and ransomes in season and of course salt....
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spencer 3071 posts |
Oct 15, 2015, 14:05
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YES!!! I'm sure they appreciated flavourings just as much as we do today. I was tempted to joke that there should be a primetime Beeb series called Neolithic Masterchef, but, in all seriousness there IS a need for a programme, fronted by, say, Alice Roberts, about the huge variety of foodstuffs available to our forebears, who were undoubtedly guided by animal observation. It would open eyes. Long live dock pudding!
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tjj 3606 posts |
Edited Oct 15, 2015, 17:16
Oct 15, 2015, 16:42
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spencer wrote: YES!!! I'm sure they appreciated flavourings just as much as we do today. I was tempted to joke that there should be a primetime Beeb series called Neolithic Masterchef, but, in all seriousness there IS a need for a programme, fronted by, say, Alice Roberts, about the huge variety of foodstuffs available to our forebears, who were undoubtedly guided by animal observation. It would open eyes. Long live dock pudding! I seem to recall something like that has already been done under the heading of survival. The word 'Masterchef' would put me right off. Edited
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spencer 3071 posts |
Oct 15, 2015, 17:21
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Yes, I know that my first post on this topic was about the occupants of Durrington Walls eating Durritos, but, levity aside, I think that the ancient occupants of these islands understanding of their botany and its practical application in the form of medicinal and culinary practice - the two are interlinked - is an underappreciated area of study. I suggested Dr Alice as she has a grounding in human biology as well as archaeology and is 'good tv', imho.
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Oct 15, 2015, 18:33
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moss wrote: spencer wrote: I agree with you totally about the other foodstuffs - you mentioned sorrel, which I will be posting about in another context. Richard Mabey's now venerable but still excellent Food for Free, and also another excellent book that I've mentioned here before, Medicinal Plants in Folk Tradition - An Ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland, by Allen and Hatfield, are both based on ancient knowledge and usage. These two books also compliment each other, as some foodstuffs available to our forebears also have medicinal properties.. what was commonly consumed could be multifuntional. Both have excellent bibliographies for those who wish to study further. Look forward to the post, Tiompan is of course right, there would probably have been cereals as well to some extent. Then of course did they dry food, did they collect pignuts/earthnuts with the help of their pigs? Flavouring; wild mints, thymes and ransomes in season and of course salt.... Moss ,what was interesting is that there was no evidence for cereals and their production at DW ,that's what the reviews missed out on and picked the wrong horse by suggesting there was no veg . The move away from cereals and their production is evident in other areas in the period and some see this as a move away from farming after the earlier introduction . Still got my first edition of the Mabey book , at much the same time there was also "the clandestine farm" ,which fitted into much the same feel .
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tjj 3606 posts |
Oct 15, 2015, 19:58
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tiompan wrote: .... what was interesting is that there was no evidence for cereals and their production at DW ,that's what the reviews missed out on and picked the wrong horse by suggesting there was no veg . The move away from cereals and their production is evident in other areas in the period and some see this as a move away from farming after the earlier introduction . Does the absence of grain indicate a move away from farming? If Durrington Walls was indeed a settlement for the builders of Stonehenge, would they involve themselves in farming? Probably not, they would be too knackered. If Durrington Walls had another purpose - such as a seasonal festive gathering, again grain based food probably wouldn't be on the menu.
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Oct 15, 2015, 20:19
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tjj wrote: tiompan wrote: .... what was interesting is that there was no evidence for cereals and their production at DW ,that's what the reviews missed out on and picked the wrong horse by suggesting there was no veg . The move away from cereals and their production is evident in other areas in the period and some see this as a move away from farming after the earlier introduction . Does the absence of grain indicate a move away from farming? If Durrington Walls was indeed a settlement for the builders of Stonehenge, would they involve themselves in farming? Probably not, they would be too knackered. If Durrington Walls had another purpose - such as a seasonal festive gathering, again grain based food probably wouldn't be on the menu. The absence of evidence for cereals and their production ,querns etc.at DW is not a sign of a move away from from farming in the period , but it is further evidence for that shift which has been noted in the past decade . The most obvious paper in relation to the period and area is "Did Neolithic farming fail? The case for a Bronze Age agricultural revolution in the British Isles. "by Stevens and Fuller 2012 . Where they produce eveidence for that shift ,citing the lack of evidence for dental caries for that period ,which would be expected for a processed cereal diet and is common later when that diet was certainly found .Evidence for cereal cultivation, including querns and ard marks are rare for the period ,granaries, storage pits and, for many regions, field systems are unknown before the Middle Bronze Age ,isotope evidence indicates that Neolithic diets were higher in animal protein than later periods . The charred evidence is not there and there seems to be greater reliance and return to wild food like hazlenuts .Cereals were introduced and produced earlier but there appears to have been a point when they were not grown ,the authors ,along with other continental authors ,who have noted similar changes ,cite climate change as a possible reason . I mentioned this a couple of tiimes here but don't know how to find the the originals .
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Oct 17, 2015, 20:01
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tiompan wrote: moss wrote: spencer wrote: I agree with you totally about the other foodstuffs - you mentioned sorrel, which I will be posting about in another context. Richard Mabey's now venerable but still excellent Food for Free, and also another excellent book that I've mentioned here before, Medicinal Plants in Folk Tradition - An Ethnobotany of Britain and Ireland, by Allen and Hatfield, are both based on ancient knowledge and usage. These two books also compliment each other, as some foodstuffs available to our forebears also have medicinal properties.. what was commonly consumed could be multifuntional. Both have excellent bibliographies for those who wish to study further. Look forward to the post, Tiompan is of course right, there would probably have been cereals as well to some extent. Then of course did they dry food, did they collect pignuts/earthnuts with the help of their pigs? Flavouring; wild mints, thymes and ransomes in season and of course salt.... Moss ,what was interesting is that there was no evidence for cereals and their production at DW ,that's what the reviews missed out on and picked the wrong horse by suggesting there was no veg . The move away from cereals and their production is evident in other areas in the period and some see this as a move away from farming after the earlier introduction . Still got my first edition of the Mabey book , at much the same time there was also "the clandestine farm" ,which fitted into much the same feel . In todays review section . http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/16/how-plants-think-the-cabaret-of-plants-richard-mabey
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moss 2897 posts |
Oct 18, 2015, 08:55
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tiompan wrote: In todays review section . http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/16/how-plants-think-the-cabaret-of-plants-richard-mabey That looks like a book worth collecting, Mabey is a good writer, as was his friend Roger Deakin, and there is even a photo of a bilberry plant carved on a bone from 1500 BC. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/16/how-plants-think-the-cabaret-of-plants-richard-mabey#img-2 We found on the banks of the Roman Practice forts at Cawthorn lined with bilberry bushes just a few weeks ago......
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tiompan 5758 posts |
Oct 18, 2015, 10:37
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moss wrote: tiompan wrote: In todays review section . http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/16/how-plants-think-the-cabaret-of-plants-richard-mabey That looks like a book worth collecting, Mabey is a good writer, as was his friend Roger Deakin, and there is even a photo of a bilberry plant carved on a bone from 1500 BC. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/16/how-plants-think-the-cabaret-of-plants-richard-mabey#img-2 We found on the banks of the Roman Practice forts at Cawthorn lined with bilberry bushes just a few weeks ago...... The Cabaret will make up for the loss of brush with nature column in the Beeb wildlife mag . What is interesting about the few examples of possible Paleolithic depictions of plants is that they tend to be on bone .
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