Feasting, Phoenician Trade and Dynamics of Social Change in Northeastern Iberia

Rituals of Commensality in the Early Iron Age Settlement of Sant Jaume (Alcanar, Catalonia)

Authors

  • Samuel Sardà Seuma Universitat Pompeu Fabra
  • David Garcia i Rubert Universitat de Barcelona
  • Isabel Moreno Martínez Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v29i1.31012

Keywords:

CC1-960 Archaeology

Abstract

The archaeological study of feasting practices has proved to be one of the most fruitful lines of research in the social interpretation of the Mediterranean protohistoric record. The focus has been particularly effective for assessing the development of socio-political complexity and the evolution of socialization strategies that characterize many small-scale societies. In seeking to provide a similar assessment, this study analyses a set of ceramic tableware recovered from the early Iron Age site (seventh to sixth centuries BC) of Sant Jaume (Alcanar, Catalonia) and its associated domestic spaces and architectonic structures. Drawing on the postulates of commensality studies, we examine the functional and symbolic characteristics of these artefacts and the social practices linked to them.

Author Biographies

  • Samuel Sardà Seuma, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
    Samuel Sardà is Adjunct Lecturer in the Humanities Department of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, where he teaches prehistory. His research focuses on the study of food practices, identities, ritual and social change in the first-millennium bc Mediterranean, particularly among the Iron Age peoples of northeastern Iberia. He received his doctoral degree in History and Archaeology from the Institut Català d’Arqueologia Clàssica at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona in 2010. He has been involved in several research projects in Spain and Algeria. He currently participates in a comparative project of Greek and Phoenician colonial spaces in the Iberian peninsula and Sardinia.
  • David Garcia i Rubert, Universitat de Barcelona
    David Garcia i Rubert is Professor in the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Barcelona. His research covers themes such as Phoenician colonization and the dynamics of social change and power relations in the ancient western Mediterranean, particularly in southern Catalonia and northern Valencia. He has co-directed the Sant Jaume archaeological research project since 2000 on behalf of the Grup de Recerca en Arqueologia Protohistòrica of the University of Barcelona. He has been a visiting scholar in both the UK (2010) and Ecuador (2010 and 2011). He received his PhD in History from the University of Barcelona in 2005.
  • Isabel Moreno Martínez, Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya
    Isabel Moreno is an archaeologist and conservator/restorer in the Archaeological Museum of Catalonia (MAC-Barcelona). Her archaeological research within the Grup de Recerca en Arqueologia Protohistòrica focuses on the study of material culture and social practices in the early Iron Age of northeastern Iberia. She has co-directed the Sant Jaume archaeological research project since 2000. Her doctoral research focuses on the study of the history of archaeological conservation work in Catalonia.

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Published

2016-06-10

Issue

Vol. 29 No. 1 (2016)

Section

Articles

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

For information regarding our Open Access policy, click here.

How to Cite

Sardà Seuma, S., Garcia i Rubert, D., & Moreno Martínez, I. (2016). Feasting, Phoenician Trade and Dynamics of Social Change in Northeastern Iberia: Rituals of Commensality in the Early Iron Age Settlement of Sant Jaume (Alcanar, Catalonia). Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 29(1), 37-60. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v29i1.31012