Details
Large-scale excavation and sampling of the well-preserved early Neolithic site of Vahingen an der Enz provided a unique opportunity to investigate a complete settlement of the later 6th millenium cal BC using archaeological methods. While previous work has established the typical rnage of crops and wild plants used by early Neolithic people, this monograph seeks to recast these elements as active social phenomena: food, materials and routines bound up with the identities of households, neighbourhoods, the local community and wider regional networks. Spatial distributions of charred remains across the settlement and through time reveal patterns of plant use that variously united the community through common practice and distinguished particular neighbourhoods. The archaeobotanical analysis also reveals how matters of 'ownership', inheritance and territoriality extended from settlement space into the wider cultivated landscape and beyond.