In anthropology, it has become axiomatic that social relationships are constructed through food practices and embodied in food. This paper suggests that both ritual and quotidian commensality have as either a goal or a consequence the construction of specific relations of sociality, and in this regard are not so different. What may distinguish these spheres of commensality, however, are the types of persons engaged in the act of shared consumption. The paper considers ritual commensality as a means of exploring the social universe and indigenous ontology of native Andean peoples, using both archaeological and ethnohistoric data. The role such commensal activities may have played in the construction of, and engagement with, other-than-human persons in the late pre-Columbian Andes is considered.

In the urban culture of the ancient Near East religious festivals offer a major occasion to present and to re-establish the social networks of a city. An analysis of the ritual texts from the Late Bronze Age city of Emar (13th century BC) reveals how various groups in the urban society were involved in the preparation and consumption of food. Feasting meant the participation of persons from different households at urban localities such as a temple. Most interestingly the meaning of the foodstuffs consumed in urban festivals was already established during their preparation, in which various organizations were involved.

Feasting is a generally a ritualized activity, and faunal and artistic evidence from Neolithic Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia support the symbolic importance and memorialization of feast animals. Such memorialization is placed within private homes, in the same general household context as quotidian consumption and food stores. Both daily meals and feasting were thus constant presences within the household, suggesting that both were key components of household identity. However, the two phenomena were kept largely spatially segregated within the household. Feasting memorabilia were strategically placed to advertise particular identities to others, perhaps as claims of power or prestige. In contrast, quotidian food stores were not advertised, but kept concealed in visually inaccessible private storerooms, suggesting that domestic goods were deliberately kept from interhousehold comparison or competition. The Çatalhöyük evidence thus suggests that in the Central Anatolian Neolithic, daily meals and ritualized feasting played different—but both fundamental, and arguably complementary—roles in specifically household identities. Both also take the broader community into account in terms of their household uses and placements, but in opposite ways.

This paper explores the relationship between mundane domestic and more formal meals in recent rural Greece, as a prelude to a diachronic examination of the range of commensal behavior through the Neolithic and Bronze Age of the same region. Analysis of recent practices highlights the role of a hierarchy of low- to high-value foods. While Neolithic commensality beyond the household emphasizes equality and collective cohesion, formal commensality takes a strikingly and increasingly diacritical form through the Bronze Age. It is argued that Bronze Age diacritical commensality was part of a broader strategy of elite ‘choreography’ of social life. A hierarchy of foods, which linked diacritical behavior, labor mobilization and risk buffering, may have played a critical role in driving this trajectory of change.

Ritual commensality is a well documented social practice in texts and visual arts of the Ancient Near East. However, no information about daily commensality can be derived from these sources .The mere fact that a daily procedure as simple as eating and drinking was depicted hints at the meaning of this scene as a social event with a high symbolic value, while ordinary daily meals never seem to be represented. This paper argues that in everyday life, the boundaries between ritual and daily commensality were often floating. In order to acquire information on daily commensal practice and on the differences to ritual commensality, the architectonic and the more unspectacular archaeological remains at the Mesopotamian site of Tall Bazi are investigated.

This paper attempts to draw a picture of different kinds of commensalities in the Near Eastern Pottery Neolithic (7th millennium BC) through an analysis of consumption vessels. The case study will be the Syrian and Turkish regions of the Northern Levant. I shall underline the strong symbolic function of vessels in distinguishing commensal events and argue that the basic role of commensality remains largely unmodified until the end of the Ubaid period (2nd half of 5th millennium BC). The beginning of the Late Chalcolithic then marks a major change. At this point, the development of different types of commensalities leads to a decrease in the role of pottery as symbolic marker of commensal events.

The redistribution of meals and feasting practices in the early centralized society of Arslantepe VI A in south-eastern Anatolia (Late Chalcolithic 5 – 3300/3000 cal. BCE) are presented in this paper as examples of commensal politics. Within the framework of Mesopotamian early state formation, this period represents a stimulating case because of the evidence of economic centralization, the significant amount of materials found in in situ contexts, and the presence of functionally distinct architecture. Food and beverages were the economic base of the power of elites; yet it is not only through feasting activities that food enters Late Chalcolithic gastro-politics, but also through the meals disbursed in exchange for labor.

Recent anthropological research on commensality has emphasized how food consumption creates and mediates social relations and social identities. The goal of this paper is to integrate the often neglected study of production and labor into studies of commensality. I will explore the commensal relationships formed by the consumption of food during cooperative communal work events through a discussion of the Terminal Ubaid levels from three sites in northern Mesopotamia. I have suggested that flint-scraped bowls were used to provide for extra-household labor recruited during times of labor shortage by households of similar social standing, while painted ceramics were used for daily food consumption. In this scenario flint-scraped bowls were used in different social contexts by people of similar social standing.

How do daily meals resemble larger feast gatherings? In many cultures every act associated with food is filled with meaning and sanctity. Feasts usually feed more people than daily household meals, and by their scale, gain centrifugal meanings. These ritual foods for the deities, ancestors and large groups do not often look like daily meals in the Andean region. One of the goals of the Taraco Archaeological Project (TAP) is to study the past foodways in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia. Evidence of unusual ingredients suggests that experimentation with exotic foods occurred in ritual settings on a community level, reflecting centripetal constructions in these larger meals.

Commensality in terms of archaeological investigations seems to revolve around questions of feasting and everyday eating patterns. The nature of the available evidence moves archaeologists and ancient historians to conjecture about these questions in innovative and thoughtful ways. How can a modern historian of food enter into this conversation? The history of restaurants in the West seems to provide one way into this debate and poses the question of what evidence we actually have for what commensality might be.