The development path leading to agriculture and animal husbandry started independently in several parts of the world. For us was most important the process that started some 13 thousand years ago in the Near East – in an area that was home to a variety of easily cultivated plants and animals suitable for domestication. If organized hunting in the distant past, was the first collective enterprise in which humans engaged, it was the introduction of agriculture that most dramatically changed the...

It all started with wheat and barley. It was a process of intensification used to extract resources from the environment. The novelty developed in the near east spread through a combination of migration and diffusion to Europe. Shortly after 9000 BP wheat, sheep, goat, pigs, barley, lentils became the resource base in southeastern Europe. In the following millennium, cattle was added and the innovation spread across the Mediterranean. The bases for European subsistence were to some degree dictated by climate and...

Sheep and goats were the first animals to be domesticated and formed together with pigs and later cattle the bases of the Neolithic pastoralist economy. Traditionally in the Mediterranean, the private households would have kept a small number of animals, perhaps not more than 50. Before the Classical period in Greece, they mostly did not manage large herds of livestock to create a saleable surplus and specialized pastoralism with its necessity to seasonally move animals between pastures in different climate zones....

During the Early Bronze Age, we have witnessed in the Mediterranean a marked population increase that leads to the development of extensive settlements although the pattern of small hamlets and farmsteads still prevailed. One of the important factors in this process was the change in agriculture production that followed the adoption of wine and olive cultivation. These were commodity-oriented activities that furthered exchange and redistribution – products were more suitable for redistribution than for a household economy. Olives demand capital investment...

The impact of agriculture has been profound on humanity, most clearly in terms of population. This is because breeding plants and animals have significantly increased the availability of human consumable calories per square kilometre. One way to think about it is that we replaced things that were not consumable by humans with things that were. Through techniques like irrigation, we were also able to make things grow where they might not have before. Having a large population nearby made it worthwhile...

Generally speaking, ancient civilizations gradually developed a more sophisticated economy following the creation of an agricultural surplus, population movement and urban growth, territorial expansion, technology innovation, taxation, the spread of coinage, and not insignificantly, the need to feed the great city centres and supply its huge armies wherever they might be on the campaign. The ancient economy displayed features of both underdevelopment and high achievement since it exhibited and an over-dependence on agriculture displayed a slow diffusion of technology and a...

One of the major technological inventions in antiquity, most probable derived from boat building technologies, was the discovery, that the wood can be bowed and bent if it is heated. In barrel, production bowed planks of arched wood were made into staves then assembled and encircled using bands of iron. We should not forget that the development of ironworking technologies produced tools necessary for the working of hardwood such as oak. Previously there were loosely slatted buckets, but this difficult art...

At the core of the concept, which was used in the last century to describe numerous two-handled ceramic vessels, are still Greek and Roman amphorae. They are pottery containers used for the non-local transport of agricultural products and their remains are scattered across all archaeological sites around the Mediterranean. Being the subject of intensive research, they provide to the archaeologist’s crucial information about the inter-regional and long-distance movements of agricultural products within the economic networks. Not only their shape, but also...

Archaeology is about facts – it focuses on the interpretations of material remains of ancient societies. However, sometimes these remains, especially those produced from organic materials; simply do not survive through the millennia. Moreover, wineskins were such items. Known from numerous depictions of life and religion in the ancient world, we can never find them in museums. Well, we can find their modern reconstructions. We can be pretty sure that they are the oldest form of transport containers for liquids –...

Meals in the Mediterranean revolved in the last 10 millennia around the common staples of cereals, vegetables, fruit and olive oil – with an occasional bit of fish and meat for those who could afford it. The Greek and Phoenicians spread their food production and cuisine with their colonization and the Romans just further developed this process. Olive oil and wine became the major exports transported from the Mediterranean into Central Europe. Especially Roman cooks developed new technologies for the preservation...

Pottery’s introduction allowed more variety of shapes and types of storage and food production in a kitchen, from double-walled cooling jugs for water to tripod pots for stews and pointed amphorae for wine. Especially the development of new technologies of pottery production and decoration as well as the use of metal vessels had a major impact on the presentation, serving and consumption of food. Food was much more than just a source of nourishment and subsistence. Its richness coloured culture, history,...

Perhaps the humblest part of the archaeological remains from a site’s collection of artefacts are the cooking vessels, but they were also some of the most important. The purpose of these vessels was to cook and consume a meal, a meal that had no small amount of religious and convivial importance in ancient societies. These pots do not tell us only about our feasters, their very shapes give us information about the local production and pottery trade. These simple cooking vessels...

Ever since pottery was discovered, bowls were used to present and consume food. And since did not eat only with their mouths – the open form of the bowl enabled them to see exactly what was inside the container and it enabled the smells to fully develop and diffuse. Eating was not only a process of satisfying the basic needs to survive – it was pleasure and amusement, a social event of crucial importance for the creation of social relations between...

The ceramic Roman mortarium is thick and heavy and has a broad rim to enable the cook to put some energy into grinding and bruising without fear of breakage. A section of the rim has been adapted to form a flat spout to enable the prepared herbs or spices to be poured out of the mortarium into another smaller container or jar. The mortarium was hand thrown, wide and deep enough for herbs and spices to be mixed energetically without spilling...

Traditionally in ancient societies, a woman, sometimes an older relative or matriarch has been the cook. A woman's domain, the kitchen was also the focal point for transmission of culture and teaching younger family members and apprentices. Even the use of kitchen servants in wealthy households was tied to the housewife or housekeeper. Often the main point of connection between master and servant was between the mistress of the house and the head cook. The kitchen became a meeting place between...