Guess Who's Coming to Dinner examines how specific types of food were prepared and eaten during feasting rituals in prehistoric Europe and the Near East. Such rituals allowed people to build and maintain their power and prestige and to maintain or contest the status quo. At the same time, they also contributed to the inner cohesion and sense of community of a group. When eating and drinking together, people share thoughts and beliefs and perceive the world and human relationships in a certain way. The twelve contributions to this book reflect the main theoretical and methodological issues related to the study of food and feasting in prehistoric Europe and the Near East.



The book is introduced by Ferrán Adrià, considered to be the world's greatest chef. Famed for his "molecular gastronomy", he invented the technique of reducing foods to their essence and then changing how they are presented, for example in the form of foam. In 2010,he was named Best Chef of the Decade by the prestigious Restaurant magazine.

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• CONTRIBUTORS
• PROLOGUE
• 1: APPETITE COMES WITH EATING : AN OVERVIEW OF THE SOCIAL MEANING OF RITUAL FOOD AND DRINK CONSUMPTION
• 2: COMMENSALITY RITUALS: FEEDING IDENTITIES IN PREHISTORY
  • Starters
  • Ingredients: the body and food. The border between biological and social aspects
  • From the milk loaf to the baguette: food consumption and the construction of identities
  • Molecular cookery: food as metaphor and a tool for the construction of memory
  • Coffee and mints: reflexions on food, body and memory
  • Acknowledgement
  • References
• 3: FEASTING AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS IN THE EPIPALEOLITHIC OF THE FERTILE CRESCENT: AN INTERPRETIVE EXERCISE
  • Steps and Procedures
  • Step 1: Overall Epipaleolithic Evidence for Feasting
  • Step 2: Reconstructing Epipaleolithic Feasts
  • The Problem of Structures
  • Steps 3 & 4: Social Units and Community Dynamics
  • Summaryxd
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• 4: EVOLVING HUMAN/ANIMAL INTERACTIONS IN THE NEAR EASTERN NEOLITHIC: FEASTING AS A CASE STUDY
  • Introduction
  • The bull in symbolic contexts
  • The background to feasting in the southern Levant
  • Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
• 5: FEEDING STONEHENGE: FEASTING IN LATE NEOLITHIC BRITAIN
  • Durrington Walls: a large Neolithic settlement close to Stonehenge
  • The houses at Durrington Walls
  • Dating of the Durrington Walls village
  • The size of the Durrington Walls settlement
  • Feasting activities at Durrington Walls
  • Conclusion
  • References
• 6: POLITICAL CUISINE: RITUALS OF COMMENSALITY IN THE NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE AEGEAN
  • Feasting in the ‘palatial’ later Bronze Age
  • Neolithic – Early Bronze Age commensality
  • Discussion: diachronic change in the Neolithic-Early Bronze Age Aegean
  • Commensality, inequality and social change
  • References
• 7: DRINKING AND EATING TOGETHER: THE SOCIAL AND SYMBOLIC CONTEXT OF COMMENSALITY RITUALS IN THE BELL BEAKERS OF THE INTERIOR OF IBERIA (2500–2000 CAL BC)
  • The Beaker debate: from peoples to exchange systems
  • Eating and drinking: two dimensions of Beaker rituals
  • Beaker commensality rituals in their social and symbolic context
  • References
• 8: FEASTING DEATH: FUNERARY RITUALS IN THE BRONZE AGE SOCIETIES OF SOUTH-EASTERN IBERIA
  • Argaric feasting rituals: the faunal evidence from the mortuary record
  • Argaric feasting rituals: the social patterns in meat offerings
  • Discussion: ritual meat consumption in its wider funerary context
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Appendix
  • References
• 9: FEASTING METALS AND THE IDEOLOGY OF POWER IN THE LATE BRONZE AGE OF ATLANTIC IBERIA
  • Introduction
  • Feasting metals: from the workshop to the ritual
  • From archaeological contexts to social modelling
  • Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • Appendix
  • References
• 10: REPRESENTING COMMUNITIES IN HETEROGENEOUS WORLDS: STAPLE FOODS AND RITUAL PRACTICES IN THE PHOENICIAN DIASPORA
  • Introduction
  • Cereal grains, communities and identities in the Phoenician world
  • Rituals, communities, and food
  • Cereal grains and ritual in the Phoenician world
  • Firstfruits, memories, and colonial spaces
  • Cakes for Astarté
  • Colonial porridges
  • References
• 11: CONSUMPTION RELATIONS IN NORTHERN IBERIAN HOUSEHOLDS
  • Introduction
  • Dining: eating and drinking with other people
  • Commensality in the household: the space of daily living
  • Domestic commensality in Northern Iberia: some archaeological examples from the mid Iberian period
  • The fortified habitat of Puig Castellet (Lloret de Mar): Area 3
  • Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
• 12: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL IDENTIFICATION OF FEASTS AND BANQUETS: THEORETICAL NOTES AND THE CASE OF MAS CASTELLAR
  • Introduction
  • Defining a banquet: the main features
  • The site at Mas Castellar de Pontós (Alt Empordà-Girona, Spain)
  • Interpretating the remains at Mas Castellar
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgement
  • References