Connecting Foodways: Cultural Entanglement and Technological Transmission between the Middle Nile valley and central and eastern Africa during the Early Iron Age

我们对非洲区域间关系研究的贡献将通过对过去食物方式的研究来探索中非和东非的跨文化联系。最近在苏丹Meroe地区发现的一些厨房背景，将作为鉴定早期铁器时代（约公元前1000年-公元1000年）一系列准备和消费实践相关材料的基础。我们的多学科方法将侧重于与食物有关的物质文化的功能特征，结合广泛的实验室分析套件。这些高分辨率的调查将作为建立区域食品加工和消费传统详细模型的第一步。在第二步中，Meroe案例研究将为中非和东非研究区域内的跨文化比较提供基础，例如厄立特里亚，埃塞俄比亚和乍得，利用挖掘材料，遗产数据和出版来源。这样，特定的与食物有关的人工制品将作为整个地区相互作用的指标，以确定更广泛的非洲食品技术传统。

Our contribution to the study of inter-regional African entanglements will explore cross-cultural connections in central and eastern Africa through the study of past foodways. A number of recently discovered kitchen contexts from the region of Meroe, Sudan, will serve as a basis for identifying a range of material correlates of preparatory and consumptive practices during the Early Iron Age (ca. 1000 BC – 1000 AD). Our multidisciplinary approach will focus on the functional traits of food-related material culture, incorporating a broad suite of laboratory analyses. These high resolution investigations will serve as the first step in generating a detailed model of the regional tradition of food processing and consumption. In a second step, the Meroe case study will then provide the basis for a cross-cultural comparison within the study area of central and eastern Africa, for example Eritrea, Ethiopia and Chad, utilising excavation material, legacy data and published sources. This way, specific food-related artefacts will serve as indicators of interaction throughout this region, to identify broader African traditions of food technologies.