Medieval Appetites: food plants in multicultural Iberia (500-1100 CE)

ongoing

The Islamic conquest of Iberia in the 8th century brought in profound changes in the political, social and economic realms that transformed the everyday life of local rural and urban communities. Technological innovations and the arrival of new crops impacted their agriculture, diet and culinary practices. Plants were present in almost all aspects of medieval people’s ordinary lives (food, crafts, medicines, etc.). However, they have been commonly sidelined in discussions of the past. Most of what we know about plants in this multicultural period in Iberia is based on a limited number of archaeobotanical studies and on written sources, which despite their undeniable value they often reflect issues related to the elites. By contrast, archaeology, and more specifically archaeobotany and their associated science-based techniques, are placed in an extraordinary position for approaching issues related to plant production, processing, preparation and consumption, and how these connect to broader societal changes. By integrating archaeobotany and written sources, as well as applying ground-breaking techniques (plant genomics and food remains analyses), MEDAPP aims to disentangle what range of plants were used in Medieval Iberia (6th-11th CE); where new species came from and when were they introduced, who brought them, and how people engaged with them through different practices. The project sets a new holistic agenda for understanding the impact of the new political, economic and social system on agriculture, eating habits and culinary practices of Iberian medieval communities. This project aims at providing a step-change in the way agriculture, plant production, preparation and consumption have been studied in Medieval Iberia. It represents a golden opportunity to fill the voids of texts, looking for clues in the archaeobotanical record; an occasion to approach, with a suite of scientific and innovative methods, the unspoken information contained in these silences.