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Ceramics, seeds and culinary change in prehistoric India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2015

Dorian Q Fuller
Dorian Q Fuller*
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University College London, United Kingdom (Email: d.fuller@ucl.ac.uk).
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Abstract

Cuisine, argues the author, is like language – it can be adopted, adapted or modified through time. The evidence from actual words for food is also used, together with seed assemblages and types of pottery to chronicle changing food cultures in Neolithic and later India. While some new food ideas (like African millets) were incorporated into existing agricultural practice as substitute crops, others such as the horsegram and mungbean appear to have moved from south to north with their pots (and probably the appropriate recipes) as a social as well as a dietary innovation.

Keywords

NeolithicIndiapalaeobotanyagriculturefood cultureculinary practice
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 79 , Issue 306 , December 2005 , pp. 761 - 777
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2005

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