Neolitisk Matkultur

Sammanfattning: During the first two decades of the 2000s, new perspectives on feasts and their social functions have been brought to the forefront by proponents of ethnoarchaeology. Concerns about diet, subsistence and reciprocity have been present in archaeology for a long time but recently the perspective has shifted somewhat, to include theories of the cultural symbolism and function of food and the importance of feasts as a force of social change in prehistoric societies. Theories about ritualized feasting have been used by archaeologists to interpret south-western Scanian sites from the TRB (funnel beaker culture). This thesis will discuss how general theories about feasting have been implemented to interpret these sites, and try to determine what type of finds from the south-western Scanian TRB that can be indicative of feasts. Interpretations of south-western Scanian TRB sites have been made by discussing and analyzing criteria set by ethnoarchaeologists. These criteria are not to be seen in a contextual vacuum, but have to be applied by technical and methodological analysis customized to the TRB-culture to be efficient in determining the extent of feasts in this particular prehistoric context.