Expert: Ralph Salier - 12/4/2007

Question
Hi Ralph,
I'm student in chemistry, and I'm doing a project for English currently, and with my team, we've decided to study past civilizations and their food diet.
I have some questions, what sort of analysis can we use to determine the food diets of lost civilizations ?
Do you know a specific example or a specific study that has been done that could match to our subject ?
And do you know some scientists or chemists that we can contact to get further information ?

Thank you in advance for your attention.


Answer
Hi Simon,

Yes, a great deal of work has been done in the area of ancient food science.  Today we  can recover the remains of many of the animals (bones) and understand the protien intake based on animal foods.  We also know about much of the vegitable type foods as well based on recovered remains such as burned or preserved seeds, pollen, dried remains found in sealed ceramic vessels and so on.  We know for instance the Greeks and Romans were very fond of wine especially from the middle east and Cypress. This can be determined from the remains of the wine found in Amphora found in ancient ship wrecks.  As an archaeologist, every site I have work on has done both faunal and floral analysis to help gain a  better understanding of the life ways of the people we are excavating.  We do on occasion bring in botanical or faunal experts to help us with this kind of work.  On occasion you can find an expert in the field of paleobotany or paleofaunal remains. Dr. Ashe was at one time the expert used by Northwester's Koster Site dig. I'm not sure if he is still around or not.  But you can also contact the American Association of Anthropologists organization and seek out a member who fits your needs thru their web site.