The nature of the feast: commensality and the politics of consumption in Viking Age and Early Medieval Northern Europe

Abstract

The nature of the feast: commensality and the politics of consumption in Viking Age and Early Medieval Northern Europe 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, we 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. We 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.

Crossing the Maelstrom: New Departures in Viking Archaeology

“…In a similar way, geoarchaeology may refocus attention to hitherto neglected activities (Macphail et al 2013;Milek 2012;Milek and Roberts 2013) and site history (Cannell et al 2016;Devos et al 2013;Macphail and Linderholm 2016;Wouters et al 2016). Zooarchaeology equally has the potential to explore practices such as communal feasting (Mainland and Batey 2018;Zori et al 2013).…”