Comparing Craft and Culinary Practice in Africa: Themes and Perspectives

Gokee, Cameron; Logan, Amanda L.

doi:10.1007/s10437-014-9162-7

Cited by 47 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 105 publications

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“…This overlap of food preparation and craft‐production should not be surprising, as anthropological studies indicate these activities are often performed by the same agents in the same place (Gokee & Logan, ; Graff, ). In addition, ethnohistorical data on the Colonial Period Yucatec Maya indicate that feasting and craft‐production often co‐occurred (Tozzer, ; Wells, ).…”

Section: Results Of the Multiproxy Sampling Programmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancillary economic activities in a Classic Maya regal palace: A multiproxy approach

et al. 2019

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This paper presents the results of a multiproxy approach to the ancillary activities which supported the ancient Maya royal court of the center of La Corona (750-900 CE). This approach sampled both the plaster floors and their overlaying soil matrix from areas of the palace of La Corona, resulting in a data set comprised of inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry geochemical, soil-flotation derived microartifactual, and macrobotanical data. These data complemented the architectural and artifactual record, documenting elusive aspects of the economic, ancillary functions of the Northwest Group of the La Corona regal palace. Specifically, this approach revealed that distinct portions of this architectural group were regularly used for preparing foods and craft objects, carrying products and items, discarding ash, using and/or grinding cinnabar-based pigments, and illuminating nighttime activities. These results not only revealed activity areas in patios, but also provided evidence regarding the functions of adjacent buildings. This paper significantly contributes to our understanding of the pragmatic economic functions of ancient Maya royal courts. In addition, the presented data sets are methodologically valuable for students of archaeological activity areas.

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Section: Results Of the Multiproxy Sampling Programmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancillary economic activities in a Classic Maya regal palace: A multiproxy approach

et al. 2019

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“…Some archaeologists use Bourdieu's (1977) concept of habitus to explain why the act of cooking could be viewed as an unspoken cultural capital, as an aspect of structure to daily life, and a way to continuously reproduce social life (Ashley 2010;Atalay and Hastorf 2006;Gifford-Gonzalez 2008;Hastorf 2012a;Pezzarossi et al 2012;Sunseri 2015). Others are interested in using a relational approach to look for ways that people performed different but related productive tasks, such as cooking and ceramic production, how those tasks might have shared certain practices, and the social connections between those activities (Gokee and Logan 2014;Goldstein and Shimada 2010;Logan and Cruz 2014;Stahl 2014).…”

Section: Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are two different approaches to thinking about crafting and cooking. One approach is to look for socially embedded relationships between the job of making crafts and the job of cooking (Gokee and Logan 2014). Another approach is to look specifically at the tools involved in cooking and analyze them based on their use(s), whether or not they were valued, technological changes over time, and their material performance.…”

Section: Craft Production and Culinary Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, increasing numbers of archaeologists are studying cooking and food preparation as specific practices that reveal social information beyond subsistence, tool inventories, or activity areas. Over the past six years alone, four edited volumes using archaeological methods to investigate cooking in the past have been published (Graff and Rodríguez-Alegría 2012; Klarich 2010a; Mee and Renard 2007;Spataro and Villing 2015), and two special issues of journals explore food and its preparation from an archaeological perspective (Gokee and Logan 2014;Pollock 2012). Conference panels have been organized (Kooiman 2017;White and Ketchum 2014), and numerous articles that examine cooking and food preparation archaeologically and explore interpretations beyond traditional views are in press.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…; Rova 2014;Wilson and VanDerwarker 2015), including portable, decorated Hellenistic cooking stoves in Egypt, their local copies(Thomas 2014), and earth ovens with rock heating elements(Black and Thoms 2014). Others are looking at evidence for stones or clay balls used to cook food indirectly(Atalay 2005;McCoy 2011;Simms et al 2013;Thoms 2008) and grinding tools for food preparation(Biskowski and Watson 2013;Ebeling and Rowan 2004;Peyronel and Spreafico 2008).According toGokee and Logan (2014), it is impossible to separate food e.Proofing http://eproofing.springer.com/journals_v2/printpage.php?token=f...…”

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confidence: 99%

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Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation

Graff

2017

J Archaeol Res

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Foodways have been a component of archaeological research for decades. However, cooking and food preparation, as specific acts that could reveal social information about life beyond the kitchen, only became a focus of archaeological inquiry more recently. A review of the literature on cooking and food preparation reveals a shift from previous studies on subsistence strategies, consumption, and feasting. The new research is different because of the social questions that are asked, the change in focus to preparation and production rather than consumption, and the interest in highlighting marginalized people and their daily experiences. The theoretical perspectives the literature addresses revolve around practice, agency, and gender. As a result, this new focus of archaeological research on cooking and preparing food is grounded in anthropology.

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A question of rite—pearl millet consumption at Nok culture sites, Nigeria (second/first millennium BC)

Champion

Höhn

Neumann

et al. 2022

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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The Nok culture in central Nigeria, dated 1500–1 cal bc, is known for its famous terracotta sculptures. We here present a study on > 11,000 botanical macro-remains from 50 sites, including 343 samples from Nok contexts and 22 samples dating between cal ad 100 and 400, after the end of the Nok culture. With 9,220 remains, pearl millet (Cenchrus americanus (L.) Morrone, syn. Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R.Br.) is dominant in the Nok samples, followed by cowpea (Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.), Canarium schweinfurthii Engl., Nauclea latifolia Sm. (syn. Sarcocephalus latifolius (Sm.) E.A.Bruce), wild fruit trees and wild Poaceae. The pearl millet remains consist exclusively of charred caryopses; chaff remains are completely absent. Because we studied all size fractions, including the small 0.5 mm fractions usually containing the involucres, bristles and husks, the absence of pearl millet chaff is real, excluding a methodological explanation, and distinguishes Nok from contemporary other West African sites. We propose that most excavated Nok sites were consumer sites where clean grain was brought in from outside and consumed in a ritual context connected with feasting. This is in line with the archaeological evidence from the larger excavated sites with stone-pot arrangements that are interpreted as ritual places related to mortuary practices. In addition to the known southward branches of pearl millet diffusion from the Sahara we propose a new, hitherto unknown branch directly from the central Sahara to the central Nigerian savannas.

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Comparing Craft and Culinary Practice in Africa: Themes and Perspectives

Cited by 47 publications

References 105 publications

Ancillary economic activities in a Classic Maya regal palace: A multiproxy approach

Ancillary economic activities in a Classic Maya regal palace: A multiproxy approach

Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation

A question of rite—pearl millet consumption at Nok culture sites, Nigeria (second/first millennium BC)

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