Household storage, surplus and supra-household storage in prehistoric and protohistoric societies of the Western Mediterranean

Underrated aspects of a true Mediterranean diet: understanding traditional features for worldwide application of a "Planeterranean" diet

Over the last decades, the Mediterranean diet gained enormous scientific, social, and commercial attention due to proven positive effects on health and undeniable taste that facilitated a widespread popularity. Researchers have investigated the role of Mediterranean-type dietary patterns on human health all around the world, reporting consistent findings concerning its benefits. However, what does truly define the Mediterranean diet? The myriad of dietary scores synthesizes the nutritional content of a Mediterranean-type diet, but a variety of aspects are generally unexplored when studying the adherence to this dietary pattern. Among dietary factors, the main characteristics of the Mediterranean diet, such as consumption of fruit and vegetables, olive oil, and cereals should be accompanied by other underrated features, such as the following: (i) specific reference to whole-grain consumption; (ii) considering the consumption of legumes, nuts, seeds, herbs and spices often untested when exploring the adherence to the Mediterranean diet; (iii) consumption of eggs and dairy products as common foods consumed in the Mediterranean region (irrespectively of the modern demonization of dietary fat intake). Another main feature of the Mediterranean diet includes (red) wine consumption, but more general patterns of alcohol intake are generally unmeasured, lacking specificity concerning the drinking occasion and intensity (i.e., alcohol drinking during meals). Among other underrated aspects, cooking methods are rather simple and yet extremely varied. Several underrated aspects are related to the quality of food consumed when the Mediterranean diet was first investigated: foods are locally produced, minimally processed, and preserved with more natural methods (i.e., fermentation), strongly connected with the territory with limited and controlled impact on the environment. Dietary habits are also associated with lifestyle behaviors, such as sleeping patterns, and social and cultural values, favoring commensality and frugality. In conclusion, it is rather reductive to consider the Mediterranean diet as just a pattern of food groups to be consumed decontextualized from the social and geographical background of Mediterranean culture. While the methodologies to study the Mediterranean diet have demonstrated to be useful up to date, a more holistic approach should be considered in future studies by considering the aforementioned underrated features and values to be potentially applied globally through the concept of a "Planeterranean" diet.

Small Animals, Big Impact? Early Farmers and Pre- and Post-Harvest Pests from the Middle Neolithic Site of Les Bagnoles in the South-East of France (L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, Vaucluse, Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur)

Pests appear to have accompanied humans and their crops since the beginning of farming. Nevertheless, their study is only rarely integrated into research on farming in prehistory. An assemblage of invertebrates and small mammals was recovered from the waterlogged layers of three wells at the Middle Neolithic site (4250–3700 cal B.C.) of Les Bagnoles (SE France). The microfaunal remains were retrieved from sediment samples by wet sieving (wash-over technique). The most common among the rodents is the wood mouse. The assemblage also consists of insect remains of grain weevil, seed beetle, and corn ground beetle. The different finds not only offer data on the role of insect and rodent pests in the Neolithic but on the possible strategies adopted by the early farming communities in the western Mediterranean in response to pest infestation. The findings appear to confirm the hypothesis that the wood mouse was a commensal and storage pest in settlements long before the arrival of the invasive house mouse during the Bronze Age. The presence of the main storage pest, the grain weevil, suggests a long-term grain storage issue at Les Bagnoles. The combination of the results of the site’s archaeobotanical findings with those of other sites in the western Mediterranean suggests that the shift from naked to glume wheat around 4000 B.C. may also stem from a reaction to the problem of grain weevil infestation.