Archaeologist Margaret Scarry will present her research on display and consumption of food at the Archaic Greek city of Azoria on the island of Crete. The residents of Azoria, claimed and performed varied social identities through contributions, displays and consumption of food in various social and physical contexts of this early urban center. This presentation will summarize the findings from ten sessions of large-scale excavations of shrines, assembly halls, public dining rooms, associated kitchens and storerooms, as well as the "townhouses" of prominent local families.
C. Margaret Scarry is an anthropologist, archaeologist, and professor specializing in archaeobotany. Within archaeology, she specializes in the identification and interpretation of plant remains. She is an authority on the pre-Colonial and Colonial use of plants by Indians of the American South, and has published extensively on Moundville and related areas. More recently, she has been investigating changes in foodways that accompanied the emergence of an early city-state on Crete. She was awarded a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Michigan (1986). She worked for 15 years as an archaeobotanical consultant then joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995. She is currently a Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Research Labs of Archaeology at UNC. Her publications include Foraging and Farming in the Eastern Woodlands, Case Studies in Environmental Archaeology (with E. J. Reitz and S. J. Scudder), and Rethinking Moundville and Its Hinterland (with Vincas Steponaitis).
Sponsored by Department of Anthropology, Department of Classics, Department of Botany, and the Western College Program
