Cooking with plants in the Palaeolithic
Monday 6th October 2025, 6pm BST
Speaker: Dr Ceren Kabukcu (University of Liverpool)
Over the past two decades there has been increasing evidence on the importance of plant foods in later Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer diets. While most of the evidence to date suggests the use of tubers and starch-rich wild grasses as plant foods, evidence on the use and consumption of wild legumes and nuts had been relatively limited from Middle and Upper Palaeolithic occupations. Recent archaeobotanical results from carbonised plant macro-remains from sites such as Shanidar and Palegawra Cave (Zagros, northern Iraq) and Franchthi Cave (Aegean basin, Greece) demonstrate that there is a long-term tradition of reliance on these protein-rich plant foods. In addition, analysis of carbonised ‘food crumbs’ shows the complexity and diversity in culinary practices at these sites, including multi-step preparation of plants with unpalatable and potentially toxic compounds. I will discuss this evidence in relation to Palaeolithic nutrition and the environments of hunter-gatherer occupations in Southwest Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean.
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Cover image from Kabukcu, C., et al. (2023) 'Cooking in caves: Palaeolithic carbonised plant food remains from Franchthi and Shanidar', Antiquity, 97(391), pp. 12-28. CC-BY.
