Research Articles
A Stored-Products Revolution in the 1st Millennium BC
Author:
Andrew Bevan
UCL Institute of Archaeology, London WC1H 0PY, GB
Abstract
Keeping plants and animals beyond their natural shelf life is a central human challenge, both as a matter of immediate survival and for the social and economic opportunities that stored foods offer. Understanding different food storage and preservation strategies in the past is key to a whole series of other research agendas, but remains challenging, not least because the evidence is patchy and hard to interpret. The paper below joins growing efforts to address this long-established challenge and surveys a host of changes in preservative treatments and food storage facilities across the Mediterranean and temperate Europe during the 1st millennium BC. While in most cases, the observed changes have a deeper prehistoric pedigree, nevertheless their mutually-reinforcing intensification at this time constitutes a real revolution, with far-reaching consequences.
How to Cite:
Bevan, A., 2020. A Stored-Products Revolution in the 1st Millennium BC. Archaeology International, 22(1), pp.127–144. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/ai-404