The find is no longer “only” archaeological. Today science also intervenes in history, before, during and after the excavations; And so you can reconstruct aspects of material life of the past in an increasingly detailed way. So much so that you can discover, food tests in hand, even the culinary habits of many centuries ago, as the physical anthropologist Valeria Amoretti and the archaeobotanic Chiara Comegna tell, who work at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii (where Amoretti also directs the research laboratory applied). Tomorrow in L’Aquila, at the Festival of the Cities of the Middle Ages, the two scientists will hold a meeting on “Food and Science in Archeology” together with the Archeozoologist Chiara Corbino.
Let’s start with the bases. What is an archaeobotanic find?
Chiara Comegna: “It is the plant element, which belongs to people’s lives and which, referring to a site, becomes finding. It always has to do with material aspects such as nutrition, seeds or fruit for example, or buildings, such as wood, beams, windows, furniture and tells us about the relationship between man and the plant elements of his time”.
And it is preserved?
CC: “Here, for the Middle Ages it is the iconographic and literary sources that help us understand the data, but it is very rare to find archaeobotanical finds, which attest to the diffusion of foods, the introduction of new ingredients, the constancy of the recipes. It is different in Pompeii, which is a city blocked in a moment of active life: there are the pan on the fire, the septic pit, the food discarded on the street …
Valeria Amoretti: “The Middle Ages is instead a diachrony: it is judged in the making. Maybe we find ten seeds of the year one thousand, ten of 1100; here in Pompeii, a thousand of 79 AD. And then the Middle Ages reuses: materials, structures, churches”.
Have you discovered food continuity between antiquity and the Middle Ages?
CC: “First of all, the legumes, such as the beans. In Pompeii and in the Roman world they were widely used in nutrition, fertilizers and to flavor certain wines. And the presence of the beans is a constant also in the Middle Ages, so much so that they grow in size over the centuries, with the increase of needs. The recipe for legume soup is a red thread ranging from the preclaxic period to the Tuscan tradition of today”.
Some difference?
CC: “The chestnut. In Roman times it was used above all for wood and chestnuts were also ate; in the Middle Ages the intensive culture is started for the production of chestnuts, which then become the most precious brown, and flour for the loaves. They are the so -called tree pan, also called cakes, which we still find today in Basilicata, Puglia and Abruzzo, while the desserts chestnuts are everywhere in Italy “.
Is food always good?
Va: “In short … I take care of human remains and also of the pathologies that tell us, as a result of the consumption, or non -consumption, of some foods. The Middle Ages is the period of famines: there are diseases such as scurvy and anemia, which leave traces at the bone level. But there are also pathologies from too much food, such as those related to excessive consumption of goat or unplugated milk meat, Brucellosis, or Maltese fever “.
And can you see from the bones?
Va: “From bones and teeth. For example, Brucellosis leaves a precise mark on the vertebrae. Our body is wonderful: it reflects what we eat, even after centuries. And physical anthropology takes care of the skeletal part of the human being: it is halfway between archeology and biology and what remains of the human being, in 99 percent of cases, are bones”.
Or?
Va: “Or there are Pompeii with his casts of the victims of Vesuvius, or the mummies of ancient Egypt. I chose to make the physical anthropologist precisely to be closer to the human being, to our ancestors, studying their remains: this means, for me, the materiality of history”.
A different narrative of the story?
CC: “Our finds are not statues or frescoes …”
Va: “Ours is a battle to convince the world of archeology that our small finds are important: their knowledge value is immense, sometimes even higher than that of a statue”.
For example?
CC: “If I think of Pompeii, the amphorae are something systematic: there are the types to distinguish them and we have said everything. Instead, if we think of a fig or a bean, not only can we reconstruct the biological aspects, as Fico or Fava, but they also tell us how they grew up, if they have been cultivated, how and by whom and why they have been made to us … necessity “.
Where do you find these finds?
CC: “Carbonized, in the outbreaks. Or, as in these days, in the septic pits, in what has been digested: the vinaccioli, for example, small seeds that tell us where they come from – from wine or grapes – if they have been cultivated and how, if they are wild, if they have been eaten by chance or not … it is the history of everyday life”.
Va: “During the excavations of Royal V, in a tavern we found a human being who had a bed there, a small dog, food and then, analyzing the containers, remains of red wine with PECE, which was used to waterproof the containers themselves. We make the archeology of the little things, but it does not mean that the result is small: it opens the world of life. Our disciplines work together and return the life of the ancients.
Other particular finds?
CC: “On a site in Epiro, Greece, we analyzed the pollen found in a tower of the late Middle Ages and we reconstructed the landscape of the area: it was occupied by the shepherds of transhumance and the pollen told us the species of aromatic herbs that these shepherds gave to the goats in an anti -inflammatory function and to make the milk cagliaga first. They are the same that are used today, synthes. rosemary and mint “.
How much do diets change over the centuries?
Va: “Rome is a great empire and food supplies, especially wheat, come from the central system. When this collapses we see emerging differences at local level, linked to contingencies and geography”.
CC: “But there are red threads, like the soup. And, in the Middle Ages, a crucial factor is the church, which also controls vegetable gardens, pastures and crops of olive and chestnut, because the production of oil gives power: it is chrism, lighting, food resource”.
What are you working on now?
Va: “On the nutritional value of food and their origin: for example, the routes and trade of the dates. Here in Pompeii we have many archaeobotanical finds, which have been charred: we have the opportunity to reconstruct the entire nutrition of a city”.
The diet of
Pompeians?
Va: “Not only that. Pompeii is privileged and often works as a calibrator for other discoveries: thanks to these finds we can create a new methodology and new techniques, to offer tools to all archeology”.