1. Read the text.

Without any doubt, people were always preoccupied with the quality of food consumed. This is an essential prerequisite for health, and dietary attention is not restricted to our modern over-consuming societies. Whether we consider the staple crops common in each con­tinent, or the transition from foraging to farming, or religious re­strictions concerning food preparation or consumption, we realize that a bio-historical investigation of human culture is very intensely connected with nutritional matters. Nutrition is a basic element of cul­tural identity, and it influences the way of living, social structure (large-scale agriculture engenders centralized urban societies as opposed to nomadic hunters), and health.

In 1999, a very original exhibit was organized at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece, as a result of an exem­plary international and interdisciplinary collaboration. Through bioarchaeological, zoological, anthropological, and archaeologi­cal analyses, the nutritional backgrounds of two major cultures which flourished in Greece during the second millennium B.C. were exam­ined: the Minoans in Crete and the Mycenaean, who inhabited many regions in continental Greece.

The study began with the examination of ceramic artifacts, the clay vessels used for the preparation and consumption of food. Or­ganic remains on the clay shards were analyzed. The results of the analysis were astonishing, proving that every single examined shard revealed some kind of information about the products it had once contained. Thus, through chemical analysis, long speculated theo­ries about the nutritional habits of early societies would be checked and re-examined upon a purely scientific basis. In addition, skeletal remains from 227 tombs and various sites were examined, in search of the protein content of diet (stable isotope analysis). As a result, a generally held theory about Bronze Age diet, that meat was reserved for high days and holidays, has been disproved. All Bronze Age results indicate that Minoans and Myceneans had diets rich in ani­mal protein. This has been shown for surprise was that the popula­tion buried in the cemetery of Armenoi in Central Crete was not eating fish. A Neolithic bowl from Cave Gerani in Rethymnon contained vegetable stew.

Honey was used as a sweetener for drinks. Wine was resinated, sometimes with pine resin, proving that the Greek resin is more than 3,500 years old. Mixed fermented beverages (wine, beer and mead) have been attested for both Crete and the Mainland. Perfume industries have been traced, using oil of iris, an extremely valuable product even today.

The production of olive oil in Crete, the consumption of meat, leafy vegetables, fruit, olive oil, stew, lentils in various palatial settlements of Crete and of pork, cereals, pulses and honey at Mycenaean Thebes, are revealed by the analysis of the shards. This infor­mation can be compared to iconographic representations or references in later texts – like Homer – and contribute towards a lively bioarchaeological examination of the organic past of these major European civilizations.