Suchergebnisse

In Early Medieval Northern Europe, food was more than mere sustenance. Rather, dietary choices were used to define and manipulate identity and shape power politics. Using the Norse Earldom of Orkney as a case study and commensality as an analytical framework, the authors explore how the archaeology of food, and in particular zooarchaeological evidence, can be used alongside near contemporary historical sources to better understand the political and social role of food, as well as the likely scale and impact of commensal activities on farming economies and environments in the Medieval North Atlantic. They argue that feasting and, by extension, the mechanisms by which preferentially consumed foodstuffs were grown, procured and processed, would have had a transformative impact on Norse society at diverse scales, from enabling individuals to participate in social negotiations to driving local and regional economies.

This research was partially funded by the European Social Fund and Scottish Funding Council as part of Developing Scotland's Workforce in the Scotland 2014–2020 European Structural and Investment Fund Programme. The contribution of staff from the University of the Highlands and Islands' Agronomy Institute and the James Hutton Institute to the field trial was supported by Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services (RESAS) funding from the Scottish Government. GPS geolocation was performed by archaeologists of the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology (ORCA). Stable isotope ratio measurements were performed at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), East Kilbride, and elemental composition analysis was performed at the Trace Element Speciation Laboratory, Aberdeen (TESLA). MB would like to thank IM's family for their help collecting and storing the decomposing seaweed. ; Peer reviewed ; Postprint ; Postprint