The sociality of food in late Chalcolithic Anatolia: A view from material culture at the site of Arslantepe

Abstract - Food consumption patterns, in both ancient and modern cultures, are shaped by a variety of factors that include resource availability, social and biological status, political organisation, as well as ideology. The analysis of food consumption and preparation can give us insights into commensal groups and socio-economic relations within communities, and thus are essential for the recognition of inequalities. This article, together with the two following (Bartosiewicz et alii and Iacumin et alii), originates from a workshop aimed at investigating food practices and politics during the development of institutionalised hierarchies and inequality in Western Asia.1 We do this at the Anatolian site of Arslantepe, but the ideas that emerge can be relevant elsewhere. Through the analysis of material culture (present article), botanical and faunal remains, we investigate the extent to which, during the Late Chalcolithic period preceding early state formation (ca. 4700–3400 BCE), emerging elites at Arslantepe had differential access to food resources, both in terms of their own personal consumption and food practices, and in their capacity to control and distribute food products to the rest of the population. This first article is concerned with the characterisation of elite and non-elite households, and domestic vs. non-domestic buildings, in terms of food conservation, manipulation and consumption, through an analysis of material culture and its distribution. Its intent is to examine how food practices are embodied in material culture and what they tell us about social relations. It is argued that, whilst at a public level food consumption does appear to be a means of symbolically reiterating and legitimising inequality, within the private sphere elite and non-elite food behaviours show only very subtle distinctions, that might, notwithstanding, reveal different etiquettes of consumption. The article further goes on to suggest that in this early stage of institutionalised hierarchy, centralised or accumulated food resources are entirely reinvested by elites during feasts, as a form of power enhancement.