Guess who's coming to dinner? Cooking practices at Arslantepe from 4200 to 2000 BCE

Cooking practices are analysed throughout the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age occupation at the site of Arslantepe, in Eastern Anatolia (near the modern city of Malatya), by investigating 347 whole cooking pots and a series of in situ but fragmented ones. These are mostly in situ vessels found within domestic or public buildings and are thus considered to be primary indicators of the cooking practices of their inhabitants. Shape, dimensions, use wear traces, capacity and distribution are evaluated and compared; these suggest long lasting food related behaviours and practices of food manipulation that appear to characterise the subsequent cultures that develop at the site. These traditions survive to changes in the shapes and position of hearths on which cooking pots were sat, that stress a modification in the visibility and social involvement in domestic food preparation. Sets of cooking devices are evaluated and used to identify daily and ordinary food preparation, whilst the contextualisation of oversize and particular vessels testifies to their use in extra-ordinary preparations.