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Prehistoric diet and nutrition: Some food

for thought
a
R. W. Dennell
a
Department of Prehistory and Archaeology , University of Sheffield
Published online: 15 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: R. W. Dennell (1979) Prehistoric diet and nutrition: Some food for thought, World
Archaeology, 11:2, 121-135, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.1979.9979756

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 Prehistoric diet and nutrition:
some food for thought
R. W. Dennell
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The last decade or so has witnessed several important developments in the study of
prehistoric subsistence and diet. Increasing interest has been shown in these topics, and
the retrieval of faunal and botanical data has become a major objective of many
excavation programmes. Many of the more serious lacunae in our knowledge of pre-
historic plant and animal husbandry are gradually being filled. These efforts have been
considerably encouraged and facilitated by the development of large-scale sieving and
flotation techniques that have also improved the quality as well as quantity of data on
prehistoric diet. C 14 and other dating methods have largely freed prehistorians of the
need to obtain typological sequences from excavations and enabled them to devote more
attention to the social and economic activities of the inhabitants. Finally, the 'New
Archaeology', however poorly defined, has encouraged the forming and testing of models
in an explicit manner. Overall, there is a general acceptance that a mere catalogue of the
spatial and temporal distribution of ancient food-stuffs is no longer adequate for current
research needs. Sufficient numbers of studies have accumulated to show that the
subsistence strategies of some prehistoric communities can be modelled with at least as
much certainty as their cultural affinities. Many of these studies feature quantitative
estimates derived from dietary data on the proportion of calories or protein that a food
resource contributed to the total annual diet and the probable level of the population
inhabiting a settlement (e.g. Sturdy 1975; Bailey 1978).
This progress might encourage the expectation that more complex issues can now or
soon be studied, notably the nutritional levels of prehistoric communities and the
efficiency of their subsistence strategies in terms of the energy expended to obtain food.
However, the admittedly important developments in economic prehistory over the last
ten years should not induce a sense of false optimism. In some respects, progress in
our understanding of prehistoric diet has been more apparent than real. Most studies
of this topic are still pursued within an inter-disciplinary framework established long
ago, and few researchers have shown much inclination to venture beyond their familiar
academic territories. This fact, perhaps more than any other, has impeded the study
of prehistoric diet as a problem that demands the active co-operation of archaeologists,
archaeo-botanists and -zoologists, palaeoenvironmental specialists, palaeopathologists
as well as anthropologists and nutritionists. We should perhaps follow Pirie's lead

World Archaeology Volume II Number 2 Food and nutrition

© R.K.P. 1979 0043-8243/1102-0121 $1.50/1
 122 R. W. Dennell

(1969: 196) and propose a new discipline of archaeo-trophology that encompasses all
those concerned with ancient diet and nutrition. Significant progress in this field is
unlikely to come about solely through a proliferation of sieves and flotation units, or
of faunal, botanical and other specialist reports. Invaluable though these are, it is far
more vital to decide which research goals are feasible and worthwhile, and to develop
appropriate research strategies. In the course of this paper, it will be argued that
archaeological data are generally more suitable for modelling the production of food
than its consumption and nutritional value. At the same time, prehistorians should
display a greater awareness of the complexity of dietary and nutritional issues than has
often been the case.
A convenient starting point is to define the three most basic topics on which dietary
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information is based, namely subsistence, diet and nutrition.

x Preliminary considerations
Subsistence can be defined as the procurement of those materials that are necessary for
the physiological well-being of a community. On this definition, archaeological studies
of subsistence should include both commodities (e.g. food and fuel) and facilities
(i.e. the technologies needed to obtain them). There has been a recent tendency among
archaeologists to define subsistence as virtually synonymous with food production.
This practice is regrettable, since it often excludes inedible commodities such as fuel,
leather or skins as well as the technology of a community.
Diet is easily defined as simply what is eaten, but is difficult to study. A complete
account of a community's annual diet should answer five basic questions: (i) what
foods are eaten? (ii) how much of each is eaten? (iii) what is the value of each food in
terms of energy-production (fat, protein and carbohydrate) and of maintaining and
regulating the body (minerals and vitamins)? (iv) how is the diet of an individual
affected by his/her age, sex and status? and (v) how does it vary in composition and
quantity throughout the year?
Nutrition is a measure of the ability of a diet to maintain and repair the body in its
physical and social environment. It is usually discussed in terms of its negative state,
malnutrition. This can be identified in various ways. One is to balance the energy
obtained from food against that needed by the body in its environment. Another is to
look for physiological indicators of malnutrition on an individual or a community level.
Beri-beri, ricketts and scurvy are obvious examples of malnutrition caused by vitamin
deficiencies; high rates of infant mortality and low life expectancies are often associated
with inadequate diets.
Since comparative data on modern dietary needs, nutritive values of foods and rates
of energy expenditure are crucial to studies of prehistoric diet and nutrition, we should
examine some problems encountered in the investigation of these topics in recent and
contemporary society.
 Prehistoric diet and nutrition: some food for thought 123

2 The study of contemporary diet and nutrition

The plethora of statistical data on contemporary diet and nutrition 'have such an air
of authority and of precision that the uninitiate may well be tempted to draw conclusions
from them that would in fact be far too firm' (Farmer 1969: 75). Indeed, these figures
often conceal considerable debate over what is, and what should be, eaten. Estimates
of prevailing dietary levels are a case in point. National averages of per capita daily
consumption are usually reached by dividing the amount of available food by the
national population, but are tenuous for a number of reasons. Communities often
under-declare their level of food-production to avoid taxation or to obtain development
grants; some categories of food, such as home-grown produce, may be important but
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omitted; storage and transportation losses are usually unknown; and the effects of
processing activities such as milling, carcass-dressing and cooking are usually poorly
understood. Population estimates are also subject to numerous errors that are often
related to census methods and prevailing laws of taxation, land tenure and marriage
(Farmer 1969: 75).
Data obtained from dietary surveys tend to be more accurate. For example, the
average daily diet of the working-class in the UK between 1889 and 1903 was estimated
as 2,983 cals per person from estimates of national food production; however, the
results of dietary surveys of individual families lowered this amount by 30 per cent to
only 2,099 cals per person per day (Oddy 1976: 224). The latter estimate appears more
reasonable in the light of the evidence for widespread malnutrition among the working
classes that came to light after the British Army had had to reject 40-60 per cent of all
recruits for the Boer War (Drummond and Wilbraham 1958: 404). Dietary surveys are
also more informative than a national average of food-intake since they can take fuller
account of dietary variations between individuals of different age, sex, religious and
income groups, or between those living in different regions or on different subsistence
bases. Clark and Haswell (1970: 8) provide one example that shows the importance of
knowing the amount of intra-group variation in daily diet as well as the average: in
one Indian village the average daily diet provided 1,953 cals per person, but varied
from 1,580 to 2,720 cals, depending upon the caste of the individual. The range of
variation is presumably higher if, as happens elsewhere, men eat more than women and
children.
Information from dietary surveys, however, has two major limitations. First, it has
rarely been obtained from the type of societies of particular interest to European
prehistorians, notably hunter-gatherers, subsistence cultivators and pastoralists, especi-
ally in regions comparable to Europe. Secondly, different survey techniques often tend
to give different results, and at present 'There is no generally accepted way of measuring
the dietary intake of free-living individuals' (Marr 1971: 106). For obvious reasons, it
is rarely possible — especially among poor communities - to obtain duplicate sets of all
meals and snacks eaten by all members of the sample group. Survey methods based on
estimates of the weights and contents of meals are often inaccurate, as are those that
depend upon participants recalling their diet over a period of days or weeks. What
people say they eat, or what they cook in the presence of an unfamiliar observer, need
not be the same as what they habitually consume. Finally, it is often uncertain whether
 124 &• W. Dennett

the diet of those who participate in dietary surveys is the same as those who do not.
(See Jeliffe 1966 and Marr 1971 for discussions of different survey techniques.)
Controversy over what people eat pales into insignificance when set against disagree-
ments over what people need to eat. As in dietary surveys, differential methods often
end in different results. Dietary needs can be coarsely assessed by noting the differences
in what is eaten between the obviously malnourished and the well-fed; this technique
resulted in many state-funded improvements to the diet of British school-children
(Drummond and Wilbraham 1958: 447). Alternatively, dietary needs can be calculated
by monitoring the energy outputs of people doing different tasks and then estimating
the amount of protein and other dietary constituents needed to match their calorific
expenditure. A third approach, widely used in studies of vitamin and mineral require-
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ments, is to observe or induce differing degrees of dietary deprivation under controlled

conditions: the minimum physiological requirement can then be calculated as the
amount needed to prevent malnutrition.
As tables 1 and 2 show, estimates of human dietary needs have been extensively
revised and are still under debate. It is by no means clear, for example, whether some or

TABLE I
Some recent estimates of human dietary requirements
Sex Age Weight Calories Protein Calcium Source
{kg-)
Male 18-35 7° 2,900 70 o-8 Food & Nutrition Board, USA 1963
>2O — 3.000 87 o-8 British Medical Association 1950
adult 55 2,800 55 i-o Indian Medical Council i960
Female 18-35 58 2,100 58 o-8 Food & Nutrition Board, USA 1963
„ >2O — 2,500 73 o-8 British Medical Association 1950
adult 45 2,300 45 I'O Indian Medical Council i960
Source: Davidson and Passmore 1966: 240-2.

TABLE 2
Changes in recommended protein intake in gm.lpersonfday, i88i-igj3
Source Protein
{gm. per kg. body weight) {gm. per 65 kg. adult)

Voit 1881 1-82 118

Technical Commission of Health,
League of Nations 1936 I'O 65
FAO 1957 o-35 2
3
FAO/WHO 1964 I-OI 66
FAO/WHO 1973 0-57* 37

* Calculated as 37 gm. per day of milk/egg protein equivalent; or 62 gm./day of low quality
protein.
Data from FAO/WHO 1973: 17.
 Prehistoric diet and nutrition: some food for thought 125

all fats are harmless, beneficial or harmful (Vergroessen and Gotenbos 1975; Yudkin
1976); current recommended intakes of protein vary from 43 to 91 gm., and of calcium,
from 0*3 to o-8 gm. per person per day (Carpenter 1969: 65). Vitamin requirements
are also unclear: for example, the recommended amount of vitamin C is only 20 mg.
per person per day in the UK, but five times that amount in the USSR (Marks 1968: 29).
So far as vitamins D, K, M and Bi2 are concerned, the minimum daily requirements are
unknown (Marks 1968: 56, 68, n o , 115). This degree of uncertainty has important
consequences. As Pirie (1969: 29) states 'An expert committee, by changing its standards
for the desirable calorie or protein intake, can move a vast number of people around
among the categories "hungry", "malnourished" and "properly nourished".'
One reason for such confusion is that the adequacy of a diet has to be judged in
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terms of its context. Body weight, age, sex and work-load are four variables that strongly
affect the efficacy of a diet (FA0/WH0 1973). To put the point simply, little old ladies
who do no work need far less to eat than large, hard-working young men. Thus a diet
providing c. 2,100 cals per day may be sufficient for the average IKung bushmen who
weighs less than 50 kg. and spends only four hours a day collecting food (Lee 1968:
37-9), but would be grossly inadequate for someone weighing 70 kg. and tree-felling
for eight hours each day. Table 3 summarizes some data on the calorific needs of

TABLE 3
Some estimates of human calorific needs

Sex Weight Age Light Moderately Very Exceptionally

(kg.) work active active active

Male 50 20-39 2,100 2,300 2,700 3,ioo

65 2,7O0 3,000 3,5OO 4,000
80 3.360 3,680 4,320 4,960
65 50-59 2,700
Female 40 20-39 1,440 1,600 1,880 2,200
55 >> 2,000 2,200 2,600 3,000
70 2,520 2,800 3,290 3,850
55 50-59 1,980

Data from FAO/WHO 1973.

different types of people; further information is provided by Clark and Haswell (1970:
11-13). One study of African male labourers indicated energy-outputs of 213 cals/hr
for carrying a 20 kg. log, 274 for hoeing, 372 for bush-clearing and 504 for tree-felling.
Another study, again of African labourers, showed that each needed 2,820 cals/day for
a four-hour working day, but 3,402 cals/day if the working-day lasted eight hours.
It is debatable whether climate modifies human dietary requirements. Some FAO
publications suggested that people in cold regions need more than those in hot climates:
a five per cent increase in calorific requirements was suggested for every io°C drop in
mean annual temperature. This view overlooked the fact that people tend to adapt
 126 R. W. Dennett

their life-style, clothing and work-routine to cope with extremes of heat and cold.
Although people living in cold climates may have to work harder for their subsistence
than those in hot regions, there is little evidence that they need to eat more simply
because it is cold (FAO/WHO 1973: 27).
- The problem that different people need different amounts of food is usually overcome
in studies of contemporary diet in one of two ways. The first is to ignore variations
in dietary needs altogether by assuming a 'reference' man and woman, each healthy,
20-39 years old, working moderately hard for eight hours a day and weighing 65 and
55 kg. respectively (FAO/WHO 1973: 12). The second and more realistic approach
has become recent FAO practice, and avoids an all-embracing definition of human
calorific and protein needs. Instead, a diet is judged as sufficient if it provides I-2-I*5 of
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the calories expended by the base metabolic rate (BMR); this amount obviously varies
according to the individual and his/her needs (FAO/WHO 1977: 50). It should be
stressed, however, that estimates of the BMR may well change as they are at present
'based in the main on laboratory measurements of a sample of 2,200 persons over a
period of 15 years' (FAO/WHO 1977: 50).
It is hardly surprising that there are wide discrepancies among the estimates of
human calorific needs used by prehistorians. As table 4 shows, suggested calorific

TABLE 4

Some estimates of human calorific needs used in prehistoric studies

Source Society and area Cals/personjday

Bailey 1978 hunter gatherers in early holocene Denmark 2,000

Klein 1969 hunter-gatherers in late glacial Ukraine 2,280
Dennell 1978 farmers in Bulgaria, c. 5000 b.c. 2,500
Shawcross 1967 hunter-gatherers in New Zealand, < 1000 b.p. 2,700
Kozlowski 1974 hunter-gatherers in late glacial Poland 7,000
Wheat 1973 hunter-gatherers in early holocene N. America io,ooo;.#
* Based on estimate of 10 lb. (4-5 kg.) of bison meat/person/day: 1 kg. beef == 2,180 cals.

requirements range from 2,000 to 10,000 per person per day. We should note one reason
for these discrepancies: the low estimates (2,000—3,000 cals/person/day) are cited from
physiological data on energy outputs and dietary deprivation, whereas the highest
estimate is based on observed eating habits. It is debatable which type of estimate
should be chosen. Those preferring a low estimate might argue that our prehistoric
ancestors are unlikely to have had the same opportunities as many of those in developed
countries today for over-eating. On the other hand, gluttony could be one of the oldest
human failings, and prehistoric peoples may have needed more than us to compensate
for their possibly more strenuous and uncomfortable existence. As these issues are
not easily resolved, prehistorians should perhaps justify a particular choice of daily
calorific requirements more explicitly than has often been the case.
Analyses of what people used to eat are also complicated by two further factors. One
 Prehistoric diet and nutrition: some food for thought 127

is that a diet cannot be judged as 'balanced' unless the total components of the diet
and the lifestyle of the consumer are also known. There is, for example, little point
in recommending Eskimo to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables, although such advice
would be useful to many British households (Carpenter 1969: 62). The second factor
is the effect of cultural practices of cooking and eating. The nutritive value of foodstuffs
is normally calculated from the averaged calorimeter readings of a small number of
samples that are usually uncooked (Davidson and Passmore 1966: 245). These readings,
particularly of fats, are often higher than those obtained from domestic cooking (Marr
1971: 126). Most vegetables also lose most of their vitamin C and thiamine during
cooking as these are both water-soluble and heat-sensitive (Min. of Ag., Fish and Food
1976: 73). Furthermore, people have widely divergent opinions as to what is edible, and
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how much food wastage is tolerable. Consequently, the notion of the 'edible kilogram'
embodied in most tables of food values, is a flexible concept. Few people would eat
with equal relish the eyes, brain, tongue, stomach lining, heart and testicles of a sheep,
for example.
Finally, but by no means least, it is difficult to separate the effects of malnutrition
from other factors, notably disease and poverty. As Jelliffe (1966: 106) states, 'Human
malnutrition is always an ecological problem in that it is the end result of multiple
over-lapping and interacting factors in the community's physical, biological and cultural
environment.' For example, malnutrition can result in disease, but disease can also
cause malnutrition by reducing peoples' desire to eat and their ability to obtain or
digest food. The mortality figures of England and Wales in 1867 provide a convenient
example of Jelliffe's point. In that year (Banks 1969: 56) the death rate (22 per 1,000)
was the lowest for five years. 55,000 died from pulmonary tuberculosis, 40,000 from
bronchitis, 33,000 from whooping cough, measles and diphtheria, 20,000 from intestinal
diseases, 17,000 from typhus, 2,500 from small-pox and 1,000 from cholera. 3,600
mothers died in child-birth and 1,500 babies died through want of breast-milk. Although
few people are recorded as having died of malnutrition, the inadequacies of working-class
diet were probably important in lowering resistance to illness. However, poor sanitation
and housing, and lack of medicine were also important factors. Similar mortality figures
prevail today in many LDC's (Least Developed Countries) and are increasingly
attributed to a nexus of factors comprising environmental stress: a low and often
monotonous diet, poor sanitation, housing and medical facilities (Schaeffer 1974;
FAO/WHO 1976: 10). A curious consequence of this highly sensible approach is that
malnutrition can sometimes be remedied as easily by improvements in sanitation or
housing as by increments in the diet.

3 Diet, nutrition and the prehistorian

In view of the very major problems encountered in the study of contemporary diet
and nutrition, prehistorians would seem unwise to assume too readily that archaeological
data would allow detailed modelling of these topics in antiquity. This somewhat
pessimistic assertion is strengthened by a brief review of the types of material at the
disposal of the archaeologist.
 128 R. W. Dennett

(i) Skeletal material

This is perhaps the most useful in providing evidence for ancient malnutrition. Some-
times, as in the case of ricketts, the evidence for malnutrition is unambiguous (Brothwell
1969: 532). Usually, however, skeletal diseases are less easily laid at the door of
malnutrition, although some, such as leprosy, TB, dental caries and osteosarcomae,
may have occurred most among the least well-fed and -housed members of a community
(Brothwell 1969; Wells 1964). One interesting new line of enquiry that well deserves
further exploration is the identification of types of plant foods from the isotopic analyses
of prehistoric hair and bone (Burleigh and Brothwell 1978). If this type of work could
be extended to Old World prehistoric animal and human populations, valuable
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information could accrue on the importance and types of plant food in the overall diet.
Demographic data are less abundant than might be expected in view of the large
number of cemetery excavations over the last century. It seems ridiculous that the fibula
used to fasten a shroud-cloth has often attracted more attention than the corpse.
Cemetery data should provide our clearest evidence on the age/sex structure of com-
munities, and possibly on the association of disease/malnutrition with different age/
sex/status groups. Such data are easily available with existing excavation techniques
and should form an essential part of studies on prehistoric subsistence. Even so, two
limitations to this type of evidence should be recognized. First, it is unlikely that all
members of a community had equal chance of burial in a cemetery. Consequently,
the average age at death should not be mistaken for the average life expectancy at
birth. Secondly, as mentioned in the previous section, it is difficult to determine that
mortality patterns are directly related to malnutrition.

{it) Dietary data

An enormous amount of data has accumulated in the last few years on prehistoric plant
and animal husbandry. What does such information tell us about ancient food con-
sumption and nutrition? It will aid discussion to emphasize that the minimum require-
ments for an adequate account of a prehistoric diet are data on the range of resources
used by a community, the relative importance of each plant and animal resource, and
their absolute importance in the total diet.

(a) The range of resources Although data on the range of potential resources available
to a prehistoric community have improved considerably as a result of new sieving and
flotation devices, it is doubtful whether we have improved our ability to identify the
actual range of resources eaten by a group. Frequently, decisions as to whether a
potential archaeological resource was actually eaten, or was used for some other purpose
(e.g. its skin or bone), or was present by accident (e.g. as a weed or pest) depends
largely upon our ethnocentric views of what is or is not edible. For example, Bay-
Petersen (1978: 118) regarded most of the carnivores and rodents in Danish mesolithic
faunal assemblages as inedible, with the exception of the bear and beaver. Yet on a priori
grounds there is no reason to regard fox, wolf or lynx as any more inedible than locusts
and maggots, both of which are delicacies in some regions (Pyke 1968: 41), or than
 Prehistoric diet and nutrition: some food for thought 129

cow and pig which are both avoided as foods by a substantial part of the world's
population today. So too with plants: many of these regarded as inedible by most
West Europeans have been used as foods in Europe in the recent past (Hedrick 1972).
It is consequently difficult to decide, solely in terms of its abundance, whether a plant
species represented in archaeological samples was merely a common weed or a minor
food resource (Dennell 1976).
We should also note our lack of progress in being able to detect several kinds of foods
that may have been of major importance in the past. The role of plant foods in the
Pleistocene is one obvious example; others are leaf and root crops, and sweeteners such
as honey. The absence of milk products from the archaeological record is perhaps one
of the most serious gaps in our knowledge of many prehistoric agricultural and pastoral
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societies. In this context, an early paper by Griiss (1933), who claimed evidence for
Iron Age milk residues, might repay further study.

(b) The relative importance of each plant or animal resource Through what has amounted
to a minor revolution in excavation techniques, the composition of faunal and botanical
samples can now closely approximate that in deposits before excavation. Sieving has
ensured that young and small animals need not be under-represented in faunal assemb-
lages, and archaeo-botanists are no longer largely reliant upon chance finds of grain
caches.
However, these developments have engendered further problems, some of which are
very serious and often invalidate previous work. In the case of settlement sites, lateral
variation in sample composition is one of the most formidable problems since it affects
both botanical and faunal data (Dennell 1972; Meadow 1975) and jeopardizes attempts
to quantify the importance of a resource represented in a sample derived from only
one small area of a site. Differential preservation is another factor that seriously biases
our data on prehistoric food residues. Some animal species, such as fish, are less likely
to be preserved than others (Bailey 1978: 48); some parts of skeletons are more prone to
destruction than others (Brain 1969), or may be discarded outside a settlement (Klein
1978); bone can be removed from sites, made into artefacts and so on. Although some
of these problems have been recognized for a long time (e.g. Lubbock 1869: 227-9),
their importance has increased as a result of the revived interest in prehistoric diet and
faunal data. Problems surrounding the preservation of archaeo-botanical data are less
extensively explored but seem equally serious (Dennell 1972, 1978).
These problems of differential preservation greatly frustrate attempts to quantify the
relative value of a prehistoric plant or animal resource. In this context, it is interesting
that ordinal ranking (1st, 2nd, 3rd) has recently been suggested as a more suitable
method of evaluating the importance of both prehistoric plant and animal resources
(Dennell 1976; Grayson, in press) than nominal estimates (e.g. 20 per cent, 35 per cent).
If this suggestion is adopted, it may serve archaeo-biological data better than many of
the present spuriously precise estimates, but the quantitative modelling of prehistoric
diet will become even more elusive.

(c) The value of a plant or animal resource in the total diet Although the problems of
evaluating the relative value of a prehistoric plant or animal resource are likely to
 130 R. W. Dennell

demand attention for some time to come, they are negligible compared with the problem
of assigning an absolute value to a prehistoric food resource. For this reason, most
quantitative models of the diet of prehistoric groups have assumed that plant foods
were unimportant. While this approach may be justified in studies of, for example,
late glacial northern Europe (Sturdy 1975), it seems less valid in other circumstances,
as Clarke (1976) and Flannery (1975) have pointed out in their criticisms of some recent
papers on early holocene Europe and the Near East.
With the possible exception of isotopic analyses of bone (see above), there seems
little possibility that prehistorians will be able to assess the overall composition of a
prehistoric diet by direct sources of evidence. The usefulness of analysing coprolites
and stomach contents is unfortunately off-set by their rareness — particularly in Old
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World contexts — and by the differential preservation of digested material (Calder 1977).
Because they are derived from individuals on a day-to-day basis, it is often difficult to
relate their information content to the annual diet of a community. It would obviously
be rash to generalize about the diet of Danish iron age societies from the last meal
of Tollund Man (Helbaek 1950), especially as he was strangled only a few hours
later.
The inadequacies of faunal and botanical data have prompted attempts to model
prehistoric diet from ecological sources. Some, such as Jochim's (1976), derive estimates
on resource abundance, availability and distribution almost entirely from contemporary
studies and, although stimulating, can be criticized on the grounds that they often
ignore local topographic factors and social food customs such as taboos, and are rarely
tested. They are also at present limited in their applicability to 'simple' situations such
as hunter-gatherer populations. Site catchment analysis (Vita-Finzi and Higgs 1970) is
simpler, more easily applied to agricultural sites and takes fuller account of local
topography. Its faults perhaps lie more with its adherents than its principles: environ-
mental change is often ignored, and it has sometimes been regarded more as a cook-book
recipe for instant palaeoeconomic modelling than as a preliminary approach to a difficult
problem.

(tit) Settlement data and population estimates

Since per capita food consumption is largely a function of the number of people who
eat what is produced, it is appropriate to consider the precision of population estimates
obtained from settlement data. (We must obviously ignore population figures derived
from ecological models, since these are usually reached by assuming that the inhabitants
had an adequate diet in the first place.) Estimates based on the numbers of houses in
use at any one time are simple in principle but usually difficult to substantiate from
excavation reports. Controversies over the size of the neolithic community at Karanovo,
Bulgaria, and of linear pottery settlements in Central Europe are representative of the
limitations of this approach (see Milisaukis 1978: 94-104). Calculations of group size
from the area of floor or settlement size are as problematic. For example, Naroll's
(1962) neat formula that one person occupied an average of 10 m.2 is only partially
confirmed by his data, and has been shown to be inapplicable to hunter-gatherer camps
(Weissner 1974). Further research is needed to clarify these problems; meanwhile, it
 Prehistoric diet and nutrition: some food for thought 131

seems unlikely that the size of prehistoric communities can be calculated from settlement
data with sufficient precision to be used in evaluations of prehistoric food consumption.

4 Directions for future research

What then can prehistorians hope to learn about prehistoric nutrition and patterns of
food consumption from archaeological data? At present, the answer must be, not a great
deal. Nutrition is too complex a topic to be investigated archaeologically, and there seems
little hope of learning whether prehistoric communities were over-, under- or merely
adequately-fed, or how the age, sex and status of individuals affected their diet. Too
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many key variables in nutritional assessments are unknown and possibly unknowable
archaeologically. The position is summarized in fig. 1: those variables underlined are
potentially accessible to some degree from archaeological data.

Diet (what is eaten?)

i— calories
meat resources \ relative value absolute value of each
- carbohydrate
seed/qrain crops of each to total diet
fat
secondary produce protein
leaf/root crops minerals
vitamins
Physiological context (who eats what?)
Social context
population — sjze_
(how is diet eaten?)
— age/sex structure
— body weight food - preferences
-work-load -sharing
-health -cooking
- wastage
Figure 1. Summary of the main variables in a study of prehistoric nutrition.
Those underlined by can be investigated with existing techniques
more easily than those marked by .

The limitations of archaeo-dietary data are clearly indicated by the study of the
neolithic settlement of Chevdar in Bulgaria (Dennell 1978). This example is convenient
for several reasons. A concerted effort was made to retrieve botanical and faunal data
with notation and sieving equipment; as a tell, the site is similar to many others in SE.
Europe and the Near East, and the main components of its subsistence (cereals and
caprovines) are common over a wider area. Chevdar is also a small and isolated site,
and is thus easier to model than a larger settlement in a more densely occupied region.
The main purpose of this study was to show the relationships between the inhabitants,
their livestock and crops, as well as the probable level of, and constraints upon, food
production. This was done by attempting to integrate on-site data on the crops, animal
resources and settlement with off-site information on the agricultural potential of the
area. The botanical evidence suggested some kind of crop rotation of cereals and legumes,
 132 R. W.Dennell

and faunal data indicated that the most commonly killed animals were caprovines. The
main constraints upon agricultural productivity are likely to have been first, the small
area of arable land around Chevdar, and secondly, the availability of winter feed for
livestock. The writer suggested first the likely level of crop productivity from the
amount of arable land near the settlement and estimated crop yields from historical
sources. The numbers of animals that could have been overwintered on different
amounts of arable produce were then calculated from modern agricultural data. The
next stage was to suggest the numbers of these animals culled each year, and to relate
this estimate to the proportions that each represented in the faunal assemblage. By
this means, it was possible to suggest the likely level of food-production and the numbers
of inhabitants that could have been supported on a daily average diet of 2,500 cals per
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person.
Although this study is one of the few that has attempted - even tentatively - to quantify
the food production of an early farming community, its conclusions have little bearing
upon the patterns of food-consumption and nutritional status of the inhabitants. This is
because there is no independent means of knowing whether the population was more or
less than the suggested estimate of 100, whether each member needed more or less than
2,500 cals per day, or had equal access to food. The intake of vitamins, minerals and
milk products is also unknown, as is the amount of food wasted in storage and processing,
and the effects of culinary techniques upon the nutritional value of foods. These factors,
even if minor when taken singly, could have combined to reduce the community from
a level of adequate nutrition to one of mal- or even under-nourishment.
It seems inevitable that prehistorians will have to continue to make assumptions
about the nutritional needs and levels of prehistoric communities. Perhaps the least
unreasonable is that prehistoric subsistence strategies that resulted in sustained chronic
malnutrition would probably have been replaced by more effective systems of food
production and were therefore the exception rather than the rule. This view need not
contradict evidence from many cemeteries (e.g. Pavuk 1972) that prehistoric life may
often have been 'poor, nasty, brutish and short'.
The situation is not one of total gloom, however. Although prehistorians cannot hope
to obtain a detailed account of ancient food consumption and nutrition, they are uniquely
well-placed to study the broader aspects of food production over long periods. The
types of animal resources, the commodities obtained from them, the age/sex group
most often culled and the way they were managed are all useful topics that can be
investigated from archaeological data. Much has still to be learnt about the types and
importance of prehistoric food plants, the ways they were utilized and the development
of prehistoric crop systems. More general issues that await intensive exploration are the
relationships between subsistence patterns and the size and distribution of settlements,
the effect of subsistence strategies upon the landscape, and the interactions between
the plant and animal husbandry of settlements. These kinds of investigations could
throw an indirect light upon prehistoric diet and nutrition. Even if the nutritional
value of a prehistoric diet cannot be precisely ascertained, it may be possible to evaluate
its general composition, the likelihood that a community would experience periodic
shortages or failures in food supply, and the main constraints upon food production
and attempts to increase it.
 Prehistoric diet and nutrition: some food for thought 133

Conclusions
Prehistoric food residues can be used to investigate both the consumption and production
of food. For several reasons, the former topic is unlikely to prove as profitable as the
latter. Archaeo-dietary data can indicate only some of the foods eaten by a community,
notably the types of meat, grain and seed crops, fruits and nuts. The role of edible
secondary produce from animals and leaf and root crops is depressingly elusive in the
archaeological record. Although the relative value of each plant or animal resource can
be evaluated, if only in a qualitative manner, the problem of ascribing an absolute value
to a prehistoric food resource in the total annual diet will remain substantial for some
time to come. Meanwhile, there seems little possibility of investigating variations in
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diet throughout the year or between different members of a community. Skeletal data,
our most direct source of evidence on prehistoric environmental health, are liable to
be ambiguous in distinguishing malnutrition from other causes of mortality. Even if
the problems of modelling prehistoric subsistence systems in an integrated instead of
piecemeal fashion are considerable, they nevertheless seem more easily resolved than
those faced in studying prehistoric nutrition.
8.iv.1979 Department of Prehistory and Archaeology,
University of Sheffield

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Abstract
Dennell, R. W.
Prehistoric diet and nutrition: some food for thought
The paper reviews some of the main problems in studying the diet and nutrition of con-
temporary individuals and communities. The potential value of prehistoric food residues
and skeletal data to studies of ancient dietary and nutritional levels is then discussed, and it is
suggested that these topics lie outside the range of archaeological data. Instead, prehistorians
are advised to use archaeo-dietary evidence to investigate prehistoric food production, and
skeletal information as a guide to prevailing levels of environmental health. Archaeologists
should be cautious when applying dietary and nutritional data to prehistoric studies, and of
drawing conclusions on these topics from archaeological evidence.