Ethnogrinding Database: A tool to collect and connect worldwide information on ethnological and ethnoarchaeological hand-milling systems

Abstract

This study advances research carried out during the creation of a bibliographic database of ethnological information regarding hand milling systems in the framework of the ERC-Project PLANTCULT Identifying the Food Cultures of Ancient Europe: an interdisciplinary investigation of plant ingredients, culinary transformation and evolution through time led by S.M. Valamoti. The main aims of the database are to collect information linked to the processes of plant grinding with handmills, basically driven with a back and forth motion, in different parts of the world and to connect this information to specific archaeological, textual and experimental data, in particular that associated with food preparation. The database is structured in various sections (basically publications, plants and other foodstuffs, milling processes, products, querns and use and social context), in order to facilitate systematic extraction of all relevant information from a wide range of publications that discuss or report on grinding tools in regions and societies of the recent past. The base records a wide range of activities ranging from tool manufacture to end products that include procurement of raw materials, the preparation sequence of tools (including tool-kits), spatial associations, gender issues, plant ingredients and end products. All aspects recorded in the database are interconnected as are the numerous economic and social relationships of the milling process.

Early evidence of extra‐masticatory dental wear in a Neolithic community at Bestansur, Iraqi Kurdistan

“…Unfortunately, the effects of specific foods and inclusions from food processing are difficult to isolate archeologically without preservation of these materials. While there has been experimental and ethnological work on food processing tools and resulting inclusions, the mechanical and physiological effects of these materials on human dentition are not clear (Alonso et al, 2020 ; Valamoti et al, 2020 ). The effect of ground stone tools could be analysed through dental microwear analysis in future (Hernando et al, 2020 ).…”