This title published by Archaeopress Publishers of British Archaeological Reports Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED England bar@archaeopress.com www.archaeopress.com BAR S1662 (I) LRCW 2. Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean : Archaeology and archaeometry © the individual authors 2007 ISBN 978 1 4073 0098 6 (complete set of 2 volumes) ISBN 978 1 4073 0100 6 (this volume) ISBN 978 1 4073 0101 3 (volume II) Printed in England by Chalvington Digital Cover illustration: Eastern Mediterranean Cooking pot from Marseille, La Bourse excavations (1980). [After Coeur-Mezzoud, F., La vaisselle du sondage 10, in Fouilles à Marseille, Les mobiliers (Ier-VIIe s. ap. J.-C.) (eds. M. Bonifay, M.-B. Carre and Y. Rigoir), Etudes Massaliètes 5, 160, fig. 130, Paris] All BAR titles are available from: Hadrian Books Ltd 122 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7BP England bar@hadrianbooks.co.uk The current BAR catalogue with details of all titles in print, prices and means of payment is available free from Hadrian Books or may be downloaded from www.archaeopress.com

POTS AND BOUNDARIES. ON CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC AREAS BETWEEN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

PAUL ARTHUR

Università di Lecce, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Via D. Birago, 64, 73100 Lecce, Italy (paul.arthur@unile.it)

The present contribution does not claim to resolve problems in the recognition of the significance of late Roman and early Medieval cooking wares, but it hopes to draw attention to certain factors that may have some importance in their interpretation. In particular, it hopes to show that comparison between cooking ware types and forms and data accruing from the analysis of other classes of archaeological data (faunal, botanical, etc.), may indicate some fruitful lines of enquiry. In particular, distributions of cooking wares may shed light on cultural or economic areas that are apparently defined more by environmental factors (and culinary tradition) than by political or administrative boundaries.

KEYWORDS: LATE ROMAN AND EARLY MEDIEVAL COOKING WARES, CULTURAL OR ECONOMIC AREAS, ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS, ADMINISTRATIVE BOUNDARIES.

For quite some time now, research has shown that ceramics, long used as indicators for ancient commerce, either directly, through transport containers such as amphorae, or indirectly, through the distribution of pots that rode ‘piggy-back’ as secondary cargoes (e.g. Reynolds 1995), have much more information to offer. Particularly for late antiquity and early Byzantine times, studies of ceramic distributions by John Hayes, and later, particularly in Italy, by scholars such as Clementina Panella, Enrico Zanini and Lidia Paroli, have shown how certain vessels appear to be linked not only to Byzantine trade, but also to politics of supply. For instance, commercial amphorae and African Red Slip Ware, after the Lombard invasion of Italy, appear to represent directional trade that favoured Byzantine possessions in the peninsula, often to the exclusion of areas held by the Lombards (Zanini 1998, 320-332). In such cases, we appear to be witnessing the movement of products from specific production areas to specific consumption areas under some form of controlled directive. Other areas were excluded. A slightly different case, somewhat later chronologically than the time frame set by this conference, is made by the distribution of lead glazed chafing dishes that began in the eighth century (Fig. 1). Unlike the amphorae and fine table wares that I have just mentioned, chafing dishes were made over a wide area of the central and eastern Mediterranean and, instead of representing directional trade, appear to illustrate the distribution of a rather specific culinary custom. The particular function of chafing dishes in the early Middle Ages, though still not entirely clear, appears to be highly Byzantine in character. Indeed, their distribution is mainly limited to

areas of direct Byzantine political domination or to areas that can usually be identified as forming part of a larger Byzantine cultural commonwealth, with strong political and economic ties to Constantinople. Thus, independent city-states such as Rome, Naples and, later, Chersonesos in the Crimea, all used chafing dishes, which helps to distinguish them as being part of a larger Byzantine cultural koiné, even on a culinary level. What culinary practices supported and encouraged the use of chafing dishes is still somewhat of an enigma. Nonetheless, whilst the specific culinary practice involved was clearly the object of diffusion throughout much of the Byzantine world, we might presume, given the quantity of chafing dishes that are being found from Italy to central Asia Minor, that they served areas with rather similarly available food resources. The link between ceramic types and food resources and the areas and boundaries that they define is the theme that I will explore in this paper. Research by archaeozoologists such as Sébastien Lepetz and Tony King has shown that in Roman Imperial times the empire appears to have been divided into three principal faunal areas, dominated respectively by cattle, by pigs and by sheep and goats. If we examine their work drawn on a map (Fig. 2), we might identify northern Europe as being principally cattle-dominated, the northern Mediterranean, including Italy, as pig-dominated, and North Africa and the East as sheep/goat-dominated. This is, of course, very much a general scheme, with substantial variations between town and country, between differing local environments, and with changes in time, but may serve as a basis for further discussion.

LRCW 2. Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean: Archaeology and Archaeometry

15

These domesticated animals clearly contributed to the diet in the ancient Roman world with their meat, as well as with fats, milk and cheese. Other animals also supplemented the diet, including fish, though usually to a lesser extent than the principal domesticates. Alongside the faunal contribution, there were many comestible crops that served as significant food resources. Olives, providing oil, and hard wheat or triticum durum, which is less tolerant of cold conditions than bread wheat or triticum aestivum or compactum, dominated much of the Mediterranean (Spurr 1986, 15). In North Africa, today, triticum durum is used for couscous, whilst in Italy it is the wheat typical of pasta. The less drought-resistant bread wheat dominated the north, including northern Italy, instead. Unlike the Mediterranean, in the place of olive oil, northern Europe made a greater use of animal fats. Diet, in both northern and central Europe and the Mediterranean, was, of course, supplemented with other cereals (emmer, barley, millet and even oats), with a range of fruits and vegetables, and with various legumes. Though this picture of available culinary resources is simplistic almost to the extreme, and clearly an important study area, I believe it is inconceivable that they did not have a direct effect on the form and type of cooking vessels. If there were any substantial changes in the former, they should somehow be reflected in the latter. It is with this premise that I should like to further explore changing food resources and ceramics throughout the Mediterranean and Europe in the hope of discerning a pattern. We may start in Rome and Naples, central to the ancient Roman Empire, where I believe changes in both the faunal record and the ceramic record may be directly linked. For Roman Imperial times, archaeological contexts in the Urbs often show pig bones as representing the majority of faunal remains, sometimes reaching over 70%, in contrast to earlier times (Fig. 3), whilst in Naples they reach as high as 60%. One of the principal functions of the pig is considered to be that of producing “meat at the fastest rate possible” being a low-production-cost animal (Harris 1985; De Grossi Mazzorin 2001). One may conclude that the high presence of pig remains in both Rome and Naples is a reflection of the considerable demands of the substantial urban populations. Indeed, it would seem that pigs were specifically raised to satisfy the demand, as has been argued by scholars such as Graeme Barker, Samuel Barnish and David Whitehouse, on the basis of faunal and historical evidence (Whitehouse, Barker, Reece and Reese 1982, 81-91; Whitehouse 1983; Steele 1983; Barnish 1987). However, according to the faunal sequences available for both towns, the sheep/goat contribution to the diet became more important during the early Middle Ages. This seems to be particularly clear in Naples, where the

pig was surpassed by sheep/goat through the fifth and sixth centuries (Fig. 4). Sheep/goat provide a wider range of ‘products’ with respect to pig, including milk, cheese and wool. Their predominance between late antiquity and the early Middle Ages may indicate the return of much previously cultivated land to pasture, declining population levels and ruralisation of the urban societies and environment. Roughly contemporary changes appear to be discernible in the ceramic record during the period of transition from a pig dominated to a sheep/goat dominated diet in Rome and Naples. Archaeological contexts in both towns indicate a change in cooking vessels through the fifth and sixth centuries AD, with an increasing use of open as opposed to closed forms. These open forms are generally casseroles, by which I intend cooking vessels where the diameter of the mouth is generally larger than that of the height (Fig. 5). These may be juxtaposed to cooking pots, where the reverse is true, and which are often defined as closed cooking vessels (Fig. 6). Though rather infrequently, open forms can also include the almost flat cooking vessel, known in Italian as a tegame, deriving from the Greek téganon (on the ancient Greek cooking forms and their functions see Bats 1988). Some late antique casseroles may recall the ancient Greek lopas which, as Michel Bats has shown, seems to have been used particularly for fish, a delicate meat, to be cooked over a short period of time. Some late antique casseroles are quite likely to have been used for fish, though were, perhaps, not so exclusive in function as the Greek lopas appears to have been. Others, indeed, are more similar to the Moroccan-Tunisian tagine, and all appear to have been used with lids, many, indeed, bearing rims with specific lid-seatings As John Dore noted (1989, 88): “this explicit provision for lids is a fundamental cultural marker which differentiates Roman pottery assemblages of the Mediterranean seaboard from, in particular, those of Britain”. The change in cooking vessel types, from predominantly closed to predominantly open forms, is particularly evident in Naples through a particular abundance of lug-handled casseroles from around the mid fifth century. In the archaeological record these are not usually accompanied by lids, which may have been of wood. Such casseroles are rarer in Rome, where continuity with past traditions of ceramic forms seems somewhat stronger, though even the capital appears to witness a dominance of casseroles by the mid fifth century (see, for instance, Saguì and Coletti 2004, 263). The rather particular lug-handled casseroles (Fig. 7) first achieved archaeological fame through David Peacock’s identification of a substantial production of Roman imperial date on the island of Pantelleria (Peacock 1982). However, similar vessels were present in North Africa, and also made their appearance at Capua and at Ordona in the mid fifth century, as well as at Cosa, Ventimiglia,

P. Arthur

16

Toulon, in Sardinia, in Sicily, on Malta, and in Spain in Visigothic and later times (Capua: Arthur and King 1987; Ordona: Turchiano 2000, 368; Sardinia: Villedieu 1984; Spain: Guttiérez Lloret 1992, along with round-bodied cooking-pots). The Ligurian examples are rare and appear in an area dominated by round-bodied cooking pots (Varaldo 2004, 135-137). Though, in peninsular Italy, lug-handled casseroles generally disappear by the seventh century, the form, often hand-made, continues much later in other parts of the Mediterranean such as in Sicily, in Spain, in the Levant, and in North Africa. In parts of Sicily, though with a change in form, lug-handled casseroles continue into the thirteenth century (Ardizzone 2004, 380 and 382, fig. 4.3; also Arcifa 2004, 390-394). It is perhaps little coincidence that evidence for their continuity may be found in areas with dominant or, at least, substantial Arab populations, as in the Umayyad Levant. Indeed, casseroles, whether lug-handled or not, may be functional to, and thus represent, a particularly southern Mediterranean diet. Casseroles were common in North Africa through Roman Imperial times, as can be seen by African Red Slip forms Hayes 23 and 197, and by the numerous local and imported examples found in excavations at Carthage. These include the hand-made examples, many with lug-handles, and often coming from Pantelleria, already appearing before 425 at Carthage, and continuing well into the seventh century (Fulford and Peacock 1984, 156-189). Thus, it is noteworthy that the Carthage assemblage of cooking wares relies heavily on relatively open forms from quite early times (what I here term casseroles, but which include the bowls of Fulford and Peacock’s typology, as well as what in Italian are known as tegami). Conversely, globular cooking pots were a rare product of late antique North Africa which, as Michel Bonifay remarks (2004 239-242, culinaire type 32), was totally different to the more successful cooking forms in the area, the casseroles. Just as open cooking forms were dominant at Carthage through Roman Imperial times, so did sheep/goats predominate in the faunal assemblages. In one late Vandal/early Byzantine context analysed at Carthage, they made up 47% of the minimum number of individuals (MNI) against 29% of pig, and, according to the archaeozoologist Schwartz (1984, 246 and 250), the pattern may have been fairly constant from earlier times. In the Levant, rounded cooking pots as well as casseroles were present, to survive through later Roman into Umayyad times (Sodini and Villeneuve 1992, 203-204). However, it may be observed that late antique levels in the hippodrome at Caesarea Marittima appear to have yielded about twice as many casseroles as closed cooking pots (Riley 1975, 35). At what appears to be a pastoral nomad site at Rekhes Natha in Israel, almost all the cooking pots appear to have been open casserole forms, and were accompanied by lids (Saidel 2004). John Hayes

notes that a singular class of steep-sided casserole with a close-fitting lid, first found in Roman times, has been identified not only in Palestine, but also on Cyprus and in the Nile Delta region until the eighth century. He suggests that such vessels may have responded to Jewish concerns for purity, perhaps also influencing Christian practice (Hayes 1997, 474). Thus it may be seen how many ceramic assemblages in the late antique Mediterranean appear to be dominated by open cooking vessels. This pattern contrasts with the closed cooking pots or ollae, particularly characteristic of Northern and Central Europe. In this zone, however, closed cooking vessels with handles are concentrated to the east and south of the distribution, including the Aegean, whilst those to the west are generally without handles. Those to the east and south were also frequently round-bodied with convex bases. A preliminary distribution map of both open and closed cooking pot forms across the Mediterranean and Europe in late antiquity is revealing (Fig. 8). The map is purely indicative, as enormous quantities of excavated pottery have been published, though sometimes without sufficient quantification as to judge relative quantities of open and closed forms. In most cases, because of the lack of detailed quantitative data, the dots on the map represent predominance in the relative occurrence of one form or the other. Areas such as France or Britain are, instead, so swamped with publications, that the few signalled dots are intended to be representative of a far greater whole. From the map of late Roman cooking pot types, it is quite clear how closed globular cooking pots are generally a feature of the North, from Britain, across the Rhineland, to central Europe. Open cooking forms, when they are present in this area, appear to be a subsidiary type. In Scythia, for instance, open forms were always present in lesser quantities than closed cooking vessels. Together with what Andrei Opaiţ terms frying-pans, casseroles did, however, become frequent particularly in the 4th to the mid 5th centuries AD, when some were imported, perhaps from the Aegean area (Opaiţ 2004, 53-56 and 98). We may question if their increased popularity had been occasioned by the arrival of new foods and tastes with renewed militarisation of the area in late antiquity, though this is difficult to gauge at present with little faunal and palaeobotanical data available for Rumania? In Italy the pattern of cooking vessel types appears even more mixed though, to some extent, seems to reflect the north-south divide that has always conditioned the history of the peninsula. The fifth century Schola Praeconum deposit in Rome, excavated by David Whitehouse, has yielded a mix of both closed cooking pots and casseroles, though it is difficult to judge what was more frequent. Pork and beef dominated the associated faunal assemblage on meat ratios (Whitehouse et al. 1982).

Pots and Boundaries

17

Though the late Roman villa of San Giovanni di Ruoti, lies in central Lucania, right in the south of Italy, it was sited inland, in a strongly pig-dominated area. Perhaps it is no coincidence that this is one of the southern Italian sites where casseroles were found to be totally absent. In sum, it is starting to become clear that throughout the ancient world the distribution of open cooking pots or casseroles seems to fairly closely match the distribution of areas of sheep/goat dominated faunal assemblages (Fig. 9). It also matches surprisingly well the geographical area that stretches between the Sahara and the northern limit of the wild olive (olea europea) or oleaster (Zohary and Spiegel-Roy 1975). Thus, in this case, environmental factors, and consequently economic factors, appear to define boundaries between types of ceramic cooking vessels. Further economic and cultural factors could act upon such boundaries, to modify or reinforce them, as well as creating additional boundaries. When, in late antiquity, ovicaprine dominated assemblages appear in some areas of the northern Mediterranean, so, apparently, do some casserole forms. We have seen this perhaps most clearly in the archaeological evidence from Rome and Naples, where casserole forms become evermore common at around the same time as the faunal assemblages change from being pig-dominated to ovicaprine-dominated. It would almost seem as though sheep/goats and casseroles crossed over the Mediterranean from the Maghreb to parts of Italy together. From the fifth century the lug-handled casserole forms, in particular, become evermore common in areas such as sheep/goat dominated Sardinia or Ordona in northern Apulia, as well as in parts of Sicily and Spain. Do these changes perhaps reflect the movement of African/Near eastern cooking models to Italy and the creation of new cultural and economic boundaries? If so, why did this movement take place? Could it have been linked to the movement of peoples (refugees from Vandal Africa spring most immediately to mind) or, perhaps, changes in ecology with the decline of Roman urban culture models? We may also recall that in the first half of the sixth century, though after the changes began to take place, sites like San Giovanni di Ruoti, in the pig-rearing area of Lucania, were abandoned (cf. now Small 2005). The abandonment of large farming establishments in such areas, together with the gradual breakdown of long distance communications in Italy, are likely to have curtailed the supply of pigs and thus to have contributed to a change in diet from pork to mutton in the major consumption centres such as Rome and Naples. The changes in central and southern Italy do not appear to reflect conditioning by environmental or natural boundaries, as reconstructions suggest that this period of time witnessed a climatic deterioration that, if anything, should have had an inverse effect of gradually driving the

pig’s natural habitat southwards. Conversely, according to the work of Claude Raynaud presented at the Aix conference, open cooking forms in southern France appear to disappear during the course of the sixth century. Whilst this might represent environmental change, it may, more probably, reflect the southwards movement of northern cooking customs, together with changes in the composition of the local population following migrations. Where sheep/goat dominated assemblages do not appear in late antiquity or the early Middle Ages, such as in much of northern Italy, nor, apparently, do casseroles. Back in Naples, when pig-dominated assemblages appear once again during the course of the later seventh or eighth century, casseroles disappear in favour of more closed and generally rather small cooking vessels. Indeed, this may coincide with renewed urban growth and development and expansion in the market. What might all this mean in terms of actual cooking practice? My cooking consultants appear to confirm some of my thoughts about relationships between cooking vessel types, culinary practice and alimentary resources (Fig. 10). Casseroles or open cooking pots generally serve to cook food through water evaporation and braising, where the end result may be a relatively dry dish, to which various sauces may be added. This would be suitable in hot climates, where liquid or semi-liquid foods are to be avoided as they provoke thirst and sweating. Lug-handled casseroles of the type that we have seen at Pantelleria, Spain, Naples and elsewhere, find rather close parallels in early twentieth century casseroles produced at El Djem for couscous, which is based on durum wheat (Gatineau 1974). Closed cooking pots, instead, are intended primarily for greater heat and water retention, through stewing or boiling, generally leading to the production of semi-liquid foods. Such foods are characteristic of cooler northern climates, where they help to provide warmth. Requiring limited control, they can be kept on the boil for a long time, helping to break down fats and tenderise and render more digestible and palatable both meats and vegetables. Pork is ideally prepared in such vessels as it benefits from long cooking in water, which will tenderise it and kill tapeworms far more surely than roasting. The resulting liquid, with its nutritional and organolectic properties, is a food in itself. In the archaeological report of excavations at Trino-San Michele in the Piedmont area of Italy, one of the few that attempts to analyse the problem of the relationship between between pots and food, it is suggested that the basic food for a family was prepared in a metal cauldron, with its even heat distribution, and that the cooking pots served to cook or reheat portions of food, or perhaps supplementary foods (Negro Ponzi Mancini, 1996, 136). It is further shown that such pots at the site were typical through Roman and early medieval times, reaching over 50% of the entire ceramic assemblage. The Trino faunal assemblage shows a

P. Arthur

18

dominance of pigs, though, by meat weight, beef contributed almost twice as much to the diet. The contribution of sheep/goat was negligible (Ferro 1999 632-633). It is also noted that traditional medieval meals in the area consisted of soups and semi-liquid polenta based on cereals, with the adjunct of legumes, meats, spices and other condiments. Polenta, originally based on wheat and millet (now maize or corn), was, until recently, traditionally cooked in a copper cauldron. However, far more work has to be carried out on the functions of the various types of cooking pots. The Brezno experiment shows, for example, that three litre pots were most suited for cooking soups and porridges, and one litre pots for milk and for manipulation (Curta 2001, 286). “The experiment demonstrated that contents of all pots had to be mixed frequently as the cooking was mostly carried out at the hearth by the oven, so that only half of the pot was usually exposed to the fire” (Curta 2001, 289). Returning to metal vessels, they undoubtedly played an important part in cooking, though impossible to measure in quantitative terms. What appear to be ceramic frying pans, such as the well distributed examples from the Aegean, may have had metal prototypes and have been used in frying fish (Bettini and Pucci,1986). Frying was a means of conservation, later much used by the nomadic Arabs, which was ideal for fish that, unless otherwise salted or desiccated, would rapidly deteriorate. It is quite possible that the Aegean pans were used in frying fish, given the significant maritime contribution to the economy of the islands. Is their distribution coastal and might the distribution reflect Greek culinary tastes? How can they be related to the similar, though greater, distribution of the successful Aegean closed cooking pots Fulford and Peacock 1984, casserole 35, fabric 3.9? A final observation regards the very Italian distribution of clibani or portable bread ovens, that would appear to represent a baking custom that achieved little hold on other areas of the Mediterranean (Fig. 11). Why is this so? Are we dealing with a lack of data, or with a culturally-specific form of baking that found its boundaries with alternative culturally-specific forms? Outside of Italy, clibani appear sporadically, save for a number on sites down the Dalmatian coast and a concentration at Conimbriga in Portugal, though the distribution would change radically if we accept the debated function of the North African form Hayes 23 as a portable baking oven. The title of this paper on pots and boundaries may seem somewhat of a provocation. The boundaries that I have rather indirectly indicated are those that cannot to be seen on any ancient political or administrative map. Rather, they may reflect available food resources and environmentally and culturally defined eating habits. Boundaries, however, are often broken. Such would

appear to be the case when, in Antonine times, a group of North Africans may have arrived in Britain, to settle along the Antonine Wall and elsewhere, re-accompanying British troops that had served in the Mauretanian War of AD 146-9. With them they appear to have brought the know-how for the production of Mediterranean casseroles and other ceramic types (Swan 1999). A similar event seems to have occurred under the emperor Septimius Severus, who visited Britain in AD 208, bringing with him military contingents from Numidia. Pottery found in excavations of the York fortress, where Severus stayed with his family and troops, includes a number of local products that clearly reproduce North African models, particularly casseroles (Swan 1992; Swan 2002, 56 and 62). It is difficult to believe that the North African immigrants did not intend such ceramics for the preparation and cooking of their traditional foods. A step further would be to examine what was considered to be necessary in the serving and consumption of traditional foods. Indeed, if we are to examine coarse pottery as a food indicator, we cannot avoid the evidence from table wares. We must remember that table wares not only reflect the way that people ate, but that they are also indirectly linked to the food that was consumed. It has been observed, for instance, that the forms of African Red Slip ware, which has been the subject of numerous studies, changed through late imperial times, with smaller bowls and dishes gradually giving way to large platters. It has also been shown that when the class of pottery disappears from the general market during the course of the sixth century, it continued to be imported to a limited number of sites, apparently part of an ever more restricted network of privileged Byzantine possessions. Why did they continue to be used at these sites? Was it simply because they accompanied other commodities that were being imported from North Africa in a context of directional trade, or because the people at these sites were also attempting to maintain traditional eating habits? The extremely well-published Byzantine castrum of S. Antonino di Perti received African Red Slip Ware up until about the middle of the seventh century, alongside transport amphorae that included an enormous number of miniature spatheia, other North African vessels, and examples from Palestine, Gaza, Egypt and the Aegean (Mannoni and Murialdo 2001). Amongst the cooking wares, some casseroles were also imported. Curiously, the faunal assemblage was dominated by pig, unlike many other sheep/goat dominated assemblages from nearby sites. Perhaps, at S. Antonino di Perti we are witnessing evidence for an attempt to maintain a mix of traditional Roman-style eating habits in a die-hard Byzantine enclave within a Lombard domain. Of course, the picture of the distribution and use of culinary modes and ceramic types is far more complex than I have indicated here, and made even more difficult by the lack of publication of quantified remains of ceramics, animal bones and palaeobotanical data.

Pots and Boundaries

19

However, I think that it is time that pottery is no longer looked at solely in typological and compositional detail, but as part of a more holistic approach, to echo the words of Mike Fulford in his introduction to the Barcelona conference on late Roman coarse wares. I would have liked more time to collect and process further data. Indeed, I don’t pretend to have resolved any great questions with this paper, but I hope that it may, at least, have provided some ‘food’ for thought, at least as far as regards what I feel to be a fruitful approach to the study of ceramics. Perhaps the ideas will not be generally accepted but, if this is the case, they should be replaced with others, better and stronger, which should lead the way forward. Food and eating habits, almost like language, make-up a fundamental element in the definition of culture groups and in differentiating foreigners. As Fernand Braudel remarked (1975, 237), the Cardinal of Aragon in the sixteenth century felt it necessary to take both cook and supplies with him on a trip to the Netherlands. If food and eating habits can be identified and their stories told, we will be closer to understanding the rich and variegated pattern of European society.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper would not have been possible without the work and consultation of a number of friends. Marco Leo Imperiale helped me with the collation of basic data on ceramic distributions. Jacopo De Grossi Mazzorin and Girolamo Fiorentino advised me on archaeozoological and palaeobotanical data respectively. Tonio Piceci, Lecce’s first-class cook, taught me much about the relationships between cooking vessels and food. Brunella Bruno constantly provided me with food for thought (and for my palate), whilst Richard Reece, as always, has proved to be an excellent provocateur. I was able to profit from the comments of various participants at the splendid Aix conference. In particular, I should like to acknowledge Miguel Angel Cau Ontiveros, John Hayes, Janne Ikaheimo, Claude Raynaud, Vivien Swan, Kathleen Warner Slane, Joanita Vroom, David Williams, for their thoughts and suggestions. Last but not least, I should like to thank Michel Bonifay for having invited me to speak and for providing me with information from his own research.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

NB. A few of the texts cited in the bibliography have been used in the hunt for ceramics and the compilation of the maps, but are not explicitly referred to in the text.

Alarcão, J. de, 1975, Fouilles de Conimbriga V, La

céramique commune et régionale, Paris. Arcifa, L., 2004, Considerazioni preliminari su ceramiche

della prima età islamica in Sicilia. I rinvenimenti di Rocchicella presso Mineo (CT), in La Ceramica Altomedievale in Italia (ed. S. Patitucci Uggeri), 387-404, Firenze.

Ardizzone, F., 2004, La ceramica da fuoco altomedievale dalla Sicilia occidentale (secc. VIII-XI), in La Ceramica Altomedievale in Italia (ed. S. Patitucci Uggeri), All’Insegna del Giglio, 375-386, Firenze.

Arthur, P., 2002, Naples from Roman Town to City-State: an archaeological perspective, The British School at Rome monograph series no. 12, London.

Arthur, P. and King, A., 1987, Scavo in proprietà Carrillo, S.M.C.V., Contributo per una conoscenza di Capua tardo-antica, Archeologia Medievale XIV, 517-535.

Ballance, M., Boardman, J., Corbett, S., and Hood, S., 1989, Excavations in Chios 1952-1955, Byzantine Emporio, ABSA Supp. vol. 20, Oxford.

Barnish, S.J.B., 1987, Pigs, plebians and potentes: Rome’s economic hinterland, c. 350-600 A.D. Papers of the British School at Rome 55, 157-185.

Bats, M., 1988, Vaisselle et alimentation à Olbia de Provence (v. 350 – v. 50 av. JC.). Modèles culturels et catégories céramiques, Supplément à la Revue Archéologique de Narbonnaise 18, Paris.

Bettini, M., and Pucci, G., 1986, Del fritto e d'altro, Opus 5, 153-166.

Bonifay, M., 2004, Etudes sur la céramique romaine tardive d'Afrique, BAR Int. Ser. 1301, Oxford.

Braudel, F., 1975, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the age of Philip II, English ed., London.

Carsana, V., 1994, Ceramica da cucina tardo-antica e alto-medievale, in Il complesso archeologico di Carminiello ai Mannesi, Napoli (scavi 1983-1984) (ed. P. Arthur), 221-258, Galatina.

Cubberley, A.,1995, Bread-baking in Ancient Italy: clibanus and sub testa in the Roman World, in Food in Antiquity (eds. J. Wilkins, D. Harvey and M. Dobson), 55-68, Exeter.

Curta, F., 2001, The Making of the Slavs, History and archaeology of the Lower Danube Region c. 500-700, Cambridge.

De Grossi Mazzorin, J., 2001, Archaeozoology and habitation models: from a subsistence to a productive economy in Central Italy, in From Huts to Houses. Transformations of Ancient Societies (eds. J. Rasmus Brandt and L. Karlsson), 323-330, Stockholm.

Dore, J., 1989, The coarse pottery, in Excavations at Sabratha 1948-1951, II, the Finds Part I: amphorae, coarse pottery and building materials (eds. J. Dore and N. Keay), 87-248, London.

Dyson, S. L., 1976, Cosa: The utilitarian pottery, Memoirs of the Roman Academy in Rome XXXIII, Rome.

Ferro, A. M., 1999, La fauna, in San Michele di Trino (VC), Dal villaggio romano al castello medievale (ed. M. M. Negro Ponzi Mancini), 631-645, Firenze.

Fulford, M. G., and Peacock, D. P. S., 1984, Excavations at Carthage: The British Mission I.2, The Avenue du President Habib Bourguiba, Salammbo, The pottery and other ceramic objects from the site, Sheffield.

Gatineau, L., 1974, Les poteries decorées d'El Djem,

P. Arthur

20

Cahiers des Arts et Techniques d'Afrique du Nord, 115-127.

Gose, E., 1976, Gefässtypen der Römischen Keramik im Rheinland, Beihefte der Bonner Jahrbucher Band 1, Köln.

Gutiérrez Lloret, S., 1992, Production and trade of local and regional pottery in early medieval Spain (7th-9th centuries): the experience of the south-east of the Iberian peninsula, in Medieval Europe 1992, vol. 5, Exchange and Trade, 77-91, York.

Harris, M., 1985, The sacred cow and the abominable pig: Riddles of Food and Culture, New York.

Hayes J. W., 1997, Ceramics of the Byzantine period, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East 1 (ed. E.M. Meyers), 471-475, New York/Oxford.

King, A., 1999, Diet in the Roman world: a regional inter-site comparison of the mammal bones, Journal of Roman Archaeology 12, 168-202.

Lepetz, S., 1996, L’Animal dans la Société gallo-romaine de la France du Nord, in Revue Archéologique de Picardie numéro special 12, Amiens.

Mannoni, T. and Murialdo, G. (eds.), 2001, S. Antonino: un insediamento fortificato nella Liguria Bizantina, Collezione di monografie preistoriche ed archeologiche XII, 2 vols., Bordighera.

McCormick, M., 2001, The Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Commerce, c.300-c.900, Cambridge.

Negro Ponzi Mancini, M., 1996, Il contributo dell’analisi ‘impasto/forma’ allo studio della ceramica di uso comune tra tardo antico e medioevo, Trino S. Michele (VC), in Le ceramiche altomedievali (fine VI-X secolo) in Italia settentrionale: produzione e commerci (eds. G. P. Brogiolo and S. Gelichi), 129-142, Mantova.

Opaiţ, A., 2004, Local and Imported Ceramics in the Roman Province of Scythia (4th – 6th centuries AD), BAR Int. Ser. 1274, Oxford.

Peacock, D. P. S., 1982, Pottery in the Roman world, an ethnoarchaeological approach, London/New York.

Pergola, P., and Vizmara, C. (eds.), 1989, Castellu (Haute-Corse), Un établissement rural de l'Antiquité tardive. Fouilles récentes (1981-1985), Documents d’Archéologie Française 18, Paris.

Reynolds, P., 1995, Trade in the Western Mediterranean, AD 400-700: the ceramic evidence, BAR Int. Ser. 604, Oxford.

Riley, J. A., 1975, The Pottery From the First Session Of Excavation in the Cesarea Hippodrome, Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 218, 25-63.

Saguì, L., and Coletti, C. M, 2004, Contesti tardoantichi dall'area a S-E della Crypta Balbi, in Roma dall'antichità al medioevo II. Contesti tardoantichi e altomedievali (eds. L. Paroli and L. Venditelli), 242-277, Milano.

Saidel, B. A., 2004, Vessel Functions in Agricultural and Pastoral Societies of Byzantine and Early Islamic

Israel, Journal of Field Archaeology 29, nos. 3-4, 437-445.

Schwartz, J. H., 1984, The (primarily) mammalian fauna, in Excavations at Carthage: The British Mission I.1, The Avenue du President Habib Bourguiba, Salammbo (eds. H.R. Hurst and S.P. Roskams). 229-250, Sheffield.

Small, A. M., 2005, Le analisi al radiocarbonio e la fine della villa di S. Giovanni di Ruoti, in Paesaggi e insediamenti rurali in Italia meridionale fra tardoantico e altomedioevo (eds. G. Volpe and M. Turchiano), 127-131, Bari.

Sodini, J.-P., and Villeneuve, E., 1992, Le passage de la céramique Byzantine à la céramique omeyyade en Syrie du Nord, en Palestine et en Transjordanie, in La Syrie de Byzance à l’Islam VIIe-VIIIe siècles (P. Canivet and J.-P. Rey-Coquais), 195-218, Damascus.

Spurr, M. S., 1986, Arable cultivation in Roman Italy: c.200 B.C.-c.A.D. 100, London.

Steele, D. G., 1983, The analysis of animal remains from two late Roman Middens at San Giovanni di Ruoti, in Lo scavo di S. Giovanni di Ruoti ed il periodo tardoantico in Basilicata (eds. M. Gualtieri, M. Salvatore and A. Small), 75-84, Bari.

Swan, V. G., 1992, Legio VI and its Men: African Legionaries in Britain, Journal of Roman Pottery Studies 5, 1-33.

Swan, V. G., 1999, The Twentieth Legion and the history of the Antonine Wall reconsidered, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 129, 399-480.

Swan, V. G., 2002, The Roman pottery of Yorkshire in its wider historical context, in Aspects of industry in Roman Yorkshire and the North (P. Wilson and J. Price), 35-79, Oxford.

Turchiano, M., 2000, La cisterna e il suo contesto, Materiali tardoantichi dalla domus B, in Ordona X (ed. G. Volpe), 343-386, Bari.

Varaldo, C., 2004, La ceramica altomedievale in Liguria (VIII-X secolo), in La Ceramica Altomedievale in Italia (ed. S. Patitucci Uggeri), 119-148, Florence.

Villedieu, F., 1984, Turris Libisonis, Fouille d'un site romain tardif à Porto Torres, Sardaigne, BAR Int. Ser. 224, Oxford.

Whitehouse, D. B., 1983, Ruoti, pottery and pigs, in Lo scavo di S. Giovanni di Ruoti ed il periodo tardoantico in Basilicata (eds. M. Gualtieri, M. Salvatore and A. Small), 107-109, Bari.

Whitehouse, D., Barker, G., Reece, R., and Reese, D., 1982, The Schola Praeconum, I, The Coins, Pottery, Lamps and Fauna, Papers of the British School at Rome L, 53-101.

Zanini, E., 1998, Le Italie bizantine, Territorio, insediamenti ed economia nella provincia bizantina d’Italia (VI-VIII secolo), Bari.

Zohary, D., and Spiegel-Roy, P., 1975, Beginnings of fruit growing in the Old World, Science 187, 319-327.

Pots and Boundaries

21

P. Arthur

22

Pots and Boundaries

23

P. Arthur

24

Pots and Boundaries

25

P. Arthur

26

Pots and Boundaries

27

28