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The currently popular approach to conceptualizing feasting practices in the archaeological record leaves little room for diversity in motivation or identity. At the moment, the only social actor given attention in the literature concerning feasting events is hypothesized to be a self-aggrandizing, elite-aspiring male. The narrow conception of who was responsible for feasts, and the reasons for holding them, shuts out the multitude of other standpoints and motivations which have the potential to broaden our understanding of these important social events. Through the intersection of the ancient Maya ritual ballgame, associated feasting, and gendered participation, I demonstrate the necessity of accounting for, and incorporating, a variety of perspectives and motivations when considering the feast as an important form of social interaction. / text

This dissertation explores the social and political strategies performed by an intermediate elite household, Sak Ch'en, in an effort to maintain their social status and power in the evolving landscape of La Milpa during the Late to Terminal Classic Transition (A.D. 800-850/900). Explicitly, this research investigates how Sak Ch'en preserved the continuity of social order by exercising their funds of power and by feasting, gifting, and storing socially charged goods. Excavations were conducted at one residential complex during the 2009-2012 field seasons at the site of La Milpa, Belize, to delineate the political, social, and economic dimensions of intermediate elite household life during large-scale structural changes of the polity. Analyses of recovered ceramic assemblages and additional artifacts demonstrate the presence of feasting, the storage of socially valuable goods, and the production of cloth items during the Late to Terminal Classic period. Feasting in Maya society was enacted as a social, political, and economic strategy, which enabled the ruling elite to attract political support and create exclusive alliances. It is my deduction that at Sak Ch'en, feasting operated as a forum to display household rank, validate status, and maintain power through food acquisition, production, consumption, and distribution. By hosting a feast, Sak Ch'en inhabitants solidified existing political and socioeconomic relationships and encouraged the development of new household associations. Analyses of spindle whorls at Sak Ch'en revealed the production of cloth goods for local consumption and possibly gift exchange. Gift-giving may have been employed at Sak Ch'en as a strategy that binded individuals or groups into reciprocal debt relationships. Further, the gifting of food during this unstable period publicly displayed access to, or possession of, surplus at Sak Ch'en, which strongly reiterated asymmetrical economic power relations between households. Lastly, the storage of goods reassured the replication of activities and rituals tied to ideological concepts of social order. These strategies were implemented at Sak Ch'en as reiterative mechanisms operating to guarantee the reproduction of household power and status. / text

Feasting and shared drinking are long suspected to have been practiced in Anatolian settlements during the Early Bronze Age (EBA). New drinking vessels of metal and ceramic seem meant for drinking together with others. Platters and bowls seem intended to display food and vessel handling. No study has examined these practices in detail. This is largely because of a lack of evidence for the production of special beverages, for instance wine, beer, or mead. The Early Bronze Age is a period of intensifying personal distinction. It is characterised by developments in metallurgy, craft production, long-distance exchange, and at some sites, monumental architecture. Yet how EBA Anatolian communities were organised is unclear. A lack of writing and a limited number of seals suggest that there was no central administration within settlements. This contrasts with contemporaneous sites in southeastern Turkey and in Mesopotamia, whose metallurgy, craft production, architecture, and other developments were overseen by temple and palace complexes. This thesis uses feasting and drinking as a way to examine the social complexity of EBA Anatolian sites. It compiles evidence for these activities in both north-central and western Anatolia. It analyses the incidence of different drinking and pouring shapes across sites, and qualitatively assesses vessel features and the contexts in which they are found. This thesis also evaluates the role of drinking and feasting within settlements. It assesses the settings where drinking and feasting was practiced, together with other indices from each site. Two theoretical models are used to evaluate these activities. One details how the use of objects facilitate social relationships. Another specifies how communities may be organised. Both models provide a wide spectrum for assessing the drinking, feasting, and organisational evidence from sites. These models allow for variation: in how drink and food are used to form social relationships, and also in social complexity. The approach is able to distinguish between different organisational and social strategies across sites and regions. This detail is key for beginning to understand Anatolia's unique development during the period.

This dissertation explores the changing role of material culture in the expression of identity, using the Philistine settlement at Tel Miqne-Ekron in the Iron I (12th-10th centuries BCE) as a test case. A diachronic analysis documenting strategies of maintenance and adaptation points to the transformation of materials from domestic tools to symbols of social status, which were used to define social boundaries and promote a distinct identity. This occurred in conjunction with the increasing strength of the Philistine presence in the southern Levant.My dissertation focuses on one excavation area, described as the 'elite' zone. I outlined two areas of investigation: the organization of space, and a spatial distribution of the artifact assemblage. Through this analysis, I reconstruct Buildings 351 and 350 as elite residences, and Buildings 353 and 354 as the loci of crafts activities. Furthermore, I suggest that activities associated with Buildings 351 and 350 included elite sponsored feasting, and argue that the interconnected construction of these buildings with Buildings 353 and 354 implies an integrated function.In the final part of my analysis, I interpret change over time by contextualizing the foreign, i.e. Philistine and local, i.e. Canaanite material culture assemblages as a means to investigate diachronic variation. My research demonstrates that the traditional focus on foreign origins has obscured our understanding of these objects by removing them from their local contexts. Developments included a shift in the role played by the Philistine pottery, from a domestic assemblage associated with an immigrant populations' adjustment of traditional methods of daily practices, to a fine-ware assemblage, where it was used to express a concept of elite identity. The model I propose views change as a reflexive process involving both group and individual interactions.

Feasting is one of the most ubiquitous communal activities in the history of humanity. Oftentimes, feasting is accompanied by a substantial amount of material culture that carries intimate details of the activities that took place at these events. In fact, the changes in the material culture of a feast can also inform us as to how society itself was transforming by becoming increasingly insular or shifting toward a more regional sense of identity. One of the established methods of analyzing a feast is through the examination of its ceramic assemblage. The Bronze Age site of Mochlos in East Crete has a well-stratified Early Minoan deposit which has provided me with an opportunity to interpret a number of social, political, and economic intricacies taking place in East Crete as Minoan society approached the palatial system that dominated the Middle and Late Minoan periods. In order to do this, I provide a background to my research, perform a ceramic study of the stratified deposit in question, interpret the results of the analysis, and include a cross-cultural investigation that serves to further enlighten the data from Mochlos. What is most important to take from this study is that Prepalatial society was not without complexity and structure, and, in reality, much of the complexity that we attribute to the palatial social system of the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE can be traced back to the second half of the 3rd millennium BCE.

The faunal remains of large game such as mule deer, pronghorn, and mountain sheep are abundant at Fremont sites, as are jackrabbits and cottontails. The proportions of these species in Fremont faunal assemblages fluctuate through time. Explanations for these variations range from resource depression to communal activities. This thesis provides the results of the faunal analysis from three previously unreported sites. Paragonah (42IN43), Summit (42IN40), and Parowan (42IN100) are large Fremont sites in the Parowan Valley located 20 miles north of Cedar City in Utah. The purpose of this thesis is to determine if the variations in the faunal assemblage provide evidence for resource depression or feasting. I identify patterns or variation among the assemblages and determine that there is no evidence for resource depression. Evidence for feasting is present, indicating at least two possible feasting events occurred at the Paragonah site.

No / Recent analysis of the ceramic assemblage from the Neolithic loch islet settlement of Eilean Dòmhnuill, North Uist, in the Western Isles of Scotland has highlighted the intense conservatism of the potting traditions over a period of more than 800 years. Hebridean Neolithic pottery exhibits clear relationships with pottery from Argyll, Arran, and Bute, as well as Orkney and the north-east mainland of Scotland. It appears to have developed a distinctive, often decoratively elaborate regional form very soon after its initial appearance, which subsequently appears to have undergone little or no significant change until the introduction of Grooved Ware in the early 3rd millennium BC. An association exists between large assemblages of elaborately decorated Hebridean pottery and a number of artificial islets in freshwater lochs, some very small and producing little or no evidence for domestic activities. This might be explained by the importance of commensality in mediating relations between small communities in the Western Isles at such sites following the introduction of agriculture in the 2nd quarter of the 4th millennium BC. The conservatism and stasis evident at Eilean Dòmhnuill, in the face of environmental decline, raises wider issues around the adaptive capabilities of the first farming communities prior to significant social changes in the earlier 3rd millennium BC. / University of Bradford

The aim of this thesis is to on one hand give a good overview of finds found in gotlandic stonefoundationhouses (kämpgravar) that were commonly built during the Iron Age and on the other hand investigate the possibility of separating some houses from others and trace social stratification and hierarchies based on the finds. The items of special interest for this goal were those that could be connected to wealth such as drinking objects, Roman objects and objects made of silver and gold. This investigation has shown that on Gotland it actually existed some, often enormous, houses that had a special tendency to hoard exotic valuables. The real standout houses on this subject are the one in Stavgard and the recently excavated building in Hellvi. A secondart goal was to investigate the possibility to date the buildings based on the finds, which was found to be very problematic. (Two years master’s thesis in Archaeology) / Det huvudsakliga målet med denna uppsats är dels att ge bra överblick över fynden som påträffats i de gotländska stengrundshusen (kämpgravar) som byggdes flitigt under järnåldern och att dels se om det är möjligt att separera vissa hus från andra och spåra social stratifikation och hierarkier baserat på fyndmaterialet. De föremål som var av speciellt intresse för detta mål är de som kan kopplas till rikedom såsom exempelvis exotiska dryckesföremål, romerska föremål och föremål av ädelmetall. Undersökningen har visat att det på Gotland faktiskt fanns en del, ofta enorma, hus som hade en speciell benägenhet att hamstra exotiska dyrgripar. De riktiga utstickarna på det här temat är huset känt som Stavgard och även den nyligen undersökta byggnaden i Hellvi. Båda hade rika mängder av dryckesobjekt såsom glaskärl och dryckeshorn och en del, för ön, unika romerska föremål. Ett sidomål var att även undersöka möjligheten att datera husen baserat på fynden, vilket visade sig vara högst problematiskt. (Master-uppsats i Arkeologi)

ABSTRACTThis thesis situates the Harry Potter books into the greater body of food studies and into the extant children's literary tradition through an examination of how food can be used to understand cultural identity. Food is a biological need, but because we have created social rules and rituals around food consumption and sharing, there is more to eating than simple nutritional value. The Harry Potter series is as much about overcoming childhood adversity, and good versus evil, as it is about magic, and food in the Harry Potter series is both abundant and relevant to the narrative, context, and themes of the books. Sweets such as candy, puddings, and cakes, help construct both wizard and Muggle identity in addition to serving as a bridge between readers and characters. How the characters use sweets to create and reinforce friendships or exclude those who do not belong is important, especially since children usually lack other cultural capital and, in their worlds, food is reward, treat, and punishment. Examples of this are shown in the scene where Harry first travels on the Hogwarts Express, in the ways the Dursleys deny Harry birthday celebrations, and in how holidays are celebrated by the witches and wizards in the series.The sharing of food in the novels builds tensions, creates bonds, and codes different characters as "acceptable" or "unacceptable" based on their willingness, or refusal, to share food. Teatime and feasting are examples of how food is shared by analogous and disparate groups of people in the series. Tea is served most often by those in subordinate positions of power, but is one way in which the characters can socialize and create community. Feasts at the beginning and end of the school term bookmark the year by immersing students and faculty into a shared world at first, and then by sending them back to their families, aware of their own triumphs and accomplishments. When feasts are used to unite outside groups, such as before the Triwizard Tournament, the ways that different foods are embraced or rejected serve to reinforce identity and inclusion.Using cultural studies methods in conjunction with food studies and Reader-Response critical theory, this thesis argues that food in the Harry Potter series represents the socially constructed identities of the characters within the texts, and also serves to bridge the gap between the readers and the characters.