Reconstructing institutional food practices in early Mesopotamia using multi-proxy biomolecular evidence

Abstract

The world’s first public institutions developed in Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium BCE. There is broad consensus that food, its control, and (re-)distribution played a central role in these processes, but the composition of institutional meals remains poorly understood. We integrate organic residue, compound-specific isotope, archaeobotanical, zooarchaeological, and contextual analyses of 37 vessels from Late Chalcolithic institutional contexts at Shakhi Kora (Kurdistan Region of Iraq). Lipid biomarkers and isotopic signatures reveal sustained consumption of diverse foods over several centuries, with substantial contributions from ruminant, non-ruminant, and freshwater resources, alongside plant and dairy products. This suggests that animal protein, both from domesticates and wild resources, was accessible to a wider range of persons and was likely consumed far more frequently than text-centred reconstructions of early institutional economies have tended to envisage. The widespread presence of Pinaceae-derived compounds further suggests the routine flavouring or processing of meals with tree resin.