Lentjes & Zeiler edited by Groot, barely surviving or more than enough? How people produced or acquired their food in the past is one of the main questions in archaeology. Everyone needs food to survive, so the ways in which people managed to acquire it forms the very basis of human existence. Farming barely surviving or more than enough? was key to the rise of human sedentarism. Once farming moved beyond subsistence, and regularly produced a surplus, it supported the development of specialisation, speeded up the development of socio-economic as well as social complexity, the rise of towns and the development of city states. In short, studying food production is of critical importance in understanding how societies developed. Environmental archaeology often studies the direct remains of food or food processing, and is therefore well-suited to address this topic. What is more, a barely surviving or wealth of new data has become available in this field of research in recent years. This allows synthesising research with a regional and diachronic approach. more than enough? Indeed, most of the papers in this volume offer studies on subsistence and surplus production with a wide geographical perspective. The research areas The environmental archaeology of subsistence, vary considerably, ranging from the American Mid-South to Turkey. The range specialisation and surplus food production in time periods is just as wide, from c. 7000 BC to the 16th century AD. Topics covered include foraging strategies, the combination of domestic and wild edited by food resources in the Neolithic, water supply, crop specialisation, the effect Maaike Groot, Daphne Lentjes and Jørn Zeiler of the Roman occupation on animal husbandry, town-country relationships and the monastic economy. With this collection of papers and the theoretical framework presented in the introductory chapter, we wish to demonstrate that the topic of subsistence and surplus production remains of interest, and promises to generate more exciting research in the future. Sidestone ISBNSidestone 978-90-8890-199-7 Press ISBN: 978-90-8890-199-7 9 789088 901997 This is an Open Access publication. Visit our website for more OA publication, to read any of our books for free online, or to buy them in print or PDF. www.sidestone.com Check out some of our latest publications: barely surviving or more than enough? Sidestone Press barely surviving or more than enough? The environmental archaeology of subsistence, specialisation and surplus food production edited by Maaike Groot, Daphne Lentjes and Jørn Zeiler © 2013 Individual authors Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden www.sidestone.com ISBN 978-90-8890-192-8 Photographs cover: bottom: © Meirion | Dreamstime.com top: © Andrey Pavlov | Dreamstime.com Lay-out & cover design: Sidestone Press Contents Studying subsistence and surplus production 7 Maaike Groot and Daphne Lentjes The role of gathering in Middle Archaic social complexity in the 29 Mid-South: a diachronic perspective Stephen B. Carmody and Kandace D. Hollenbach Rethinking Neolithic subsistence at the gateway to Europe with new 59 archaeozoological evidence from Istanbul Canan Çakırlar Agricultural production between the 6th and the 3rd millennium cal 81 BC in the central part of the Valencia region (Spain) Guillem Pérez Jordà and Leonor Peña-Chocarro From subsistence to market exchange: the development of an 101 agricultural economy in 1st-millennium-BC Southeast Italy Daphne Lentjes Three systems of agrarian exploitation in the Valencian region of 131 Spain (400-300 BC) Mª Pilar Iborra Eres and Guillem Pérez Jordà The well in the settlement: a water source for humans and livestock, 151 studied through insect remains from Southeast Sweden Magnus Hellqvist The Late Iron Age-Roman transformation from subsistence to 175 surplus production in animal husbandry in the Central and Western parts of the Netherlands Joyce van Dijk and Maaike Groot Tracing changes in animal husbandry in Mallorca (Balearic Islands, 201 Western Mediterranean) from the Iron Age to the Roman Period Alejandro Valenzuela, Josep Antoni Alcover, Miguel Ángel Cau Food production and exchanges in the Roman civitas Tungrorum 225 Fabienne Pigière and Annick Lepot Entrepreneurs and traditional farmers: the effects of an emerging 247 market in Middle Saxon England Matilda Holmes Scant evidence of great surplus: research at the rural Cistercian 279 monastery of Holme Cultram, Northwest England Don O’Meara Studying subsistence and surplus production Maaike Groot1,2 and Daphne Lentjes1 1. Department of Archaeology Faculty of Arts VU University Amsterdam De Boelelaan 1105 1081HV Amsterdam The Netherlands [email protected] [email protected] 2. Integrative Prähistorische und Naturwissenschaftliche Archäologie University of Basel Spalenring 145 CH-4055 Basel Switzerland Introduction Everyone needs food to survive. How people produced or acquired their food in the past is one of the main questions in archaeology.1 Since environmental archaeology focuses to a large extent on food remains and means of production, this research field of archaeology provides the best chances to find out how food production was organised in the past. In studying food production, one major theme is the topic of subsistence and surplus production. Did people only produce food to fulfil their own needs, or did they produce more than they needed for survival – a food surplus? And if surplus food was produced, was this then part of a survival strategy (risk avoidance in case of failed crops or disease affecting livestock; e.g. Halstead and O’Shea 1989), or was it produced for an external market (e.g. Stallibrass and Thomas 2008)? The autumn meeting of the Association for Environmental Archaeology, which took place at the VU University in Amsterdam on 21 and 22 October 2011, focused on the theme of subsistence and surplus production. The present volume was born out of the discussions that were held during this conference. Some of the contributions were presented here in some form, while others were added later. introduction 7 One could ask what justifies the publication of another volume on subsistence and surplus production. After all, the subject matter is not new and numerous publications have been dedicated to it in the past, many of which will be discussed in this introduction. The main reason for tackling this topic once again is the wealth of new data that has been collected over the last few years. After a long phase of data collecting and (isolated) case studies it is now time for synthesising research with a regional and diachronic approach. Indeed, most of the papers in this volume offer a regional perspective, bringing together data from many different sites collected by different researchers. Studying abiotic landscape factors as well as plant and animal remains can show the potential of the landscape and the use that was made of it. The landscape with its relief, soil types, soil fertility and water levels forms the framework for the possibilities for food production. Plant remains can tell us what plant foods were consumed, how they were processed, and whether this food was of local origin or imported. Animal remains provide information on the livestock that was kept, the meat that was consumed and whether animal products were supplied from elsewhere. These environmental data placed in their archaeological context make it possible to reconstruct food production and -procurement in the past. Subsistence and surplus production are important research topics because they can give us insight into how people organised the management of natural resources, what they had to invest in terms of time and labour and how they survived in times when there was a shortage of food and water. What is more, surplus production was not only a necessary adaptation in order to cope with hard times, it was also one of the requirements for complex societies to develop (see for example Renfrew (1972) and Barrett and Halstead (2004) for the association of surplus production with agricultural specialisation, exchange of agricultural produce and the emergence of complex societies in the Mediterranean). At the same time, the terms subsistence and surplus production are easily used, but what do they actually say about the societies involved? How easy is it to determine whether a society did or did not produce more food than necessary to survive? Which tools and what methods can we use to analyse surplus production in different kinds of societies? In this volume we look for answers to these questions. While we are fortunate in having received papers from various countries and time periods, there is a strong European bias to the volume. In this introduction, our own research interests and background also become apparent. As a consequence, the research questions, literature and case studies that are used to illustrate the discussion are clearly biased to Northwestern Europe and the Mediterranean in the first millennia BC and AD. The following text is by no means meant to provide an exhaustive overview of all the references to food production in the past. Rather, we wish to discuss methods suitable for studying the topic, discuss three research themes that we feel cover the subjects of the papers in this volume, and highlight some interesting examples. 8 barely surviving or more than enough? Subsistence in hunter-gatherer and farming societies A first question that comes to mind when studying so-called subsistence societies is whether they really exist, in the sense of societies providing for their own needs and nothing more. Subsistence is first of all about survival through the gathering or production of food. The volume edited by Halstead and O’Shea (1989) is vital for understanding subsistence and surplus in self-sufficient societies. In the introduction to the volume, Halstead and O’Shea discuss variability in food availability and strategies developed to cope with this. The amount of food available to both hunter-gatherers and farmers varies due to factors such as seasonal availability, temperature, rainfall, pests and disease.