Date:
Wednesday, July 19, 2023, 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Location:
Albert Hall, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City
See you for the Binalot Talk on 19th July, 12:00pm. Michelle Eusebio of the UP Science and Society Program and Iza Campos of the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology will give a talk entitled 'An Unusual Ethnoarchaeology for Interpreting a Culinary Practice in Prehistoric Southern Vietnam'.
This session is onsite only.
Abstract
For scientific analyses on archaeological materials, such as organic residue analyses of pottery, the motivation to do ethnoarchaeology is to gather ethnographic materials with known biographical histories (for example, earthenware pots with known culinary histories) for comparative reference materials, alongside with experimental, biological, and geological materials. Most ethnoarchaeological studies on food and culinary practices are usually done in communities and households that still practice traditional ways of food preparation and consumption. This paper presents a rare practice of collecting ethnographic data from small contemporary restaurants in Vietnam serving cá kho tộ (braised caramelised fish stew) on open cooking earthenware pots to conduct organic residue analysis. The resulting comparison and detailed chemical analysis of food residues on a few pottery sherds recovered from archaeological sites in southern Vietnam provide insights on both ancient and present-day culinary practices in the region, fish subsistence, as well as in the study of unrestricted earthenware pots and pottery sherds with interior charred surface residues.
*First presented (online via Zoom) at 9th World Archaeological Congress in Prague, Czech Republic; July 3-8, 2022 in "Breaking Bread and Raising a Glass: Bridging Ethnoarchaeological and Archaeological Research on Food and Culinary Habits" session. Manuscript version is under review for the session's corresponding special issue in Ethnoarchaeology journal.
