The Viking Archaeology Blog is concerned with news reports featuring Viking period archaeology. It was primarily constructed as a source for the University of Oxford Online Course in Viking Archaeology: Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Settlers. For news reports for general European archaeology, go to The Archaeology of Europe News Blog.
Saturday, 28 March 2020
Bone analyzes tell about kitchen utensils in the Middle Ages
Clay pots? Wooden spoons? Copper pots? Silver forks? What materials has man used for making kitchen utensils throughout history? A new study now sheds light on the use of kitchen utensils made of copper.
At first thought, you would not expect hundreds of years old bones from a medieval cemetery to be able to tell you very much – let alone anything about what kinds of kitchen utensils were used to prepare food.
But when you put such a bone in the hands of Professor Kaare Lund Rasmussen, the bone begins to talk about the past.
A warehouse full of bones
- For the first time, we have succeeded in tracing the use of copper cookware in bones. Not in isolated cases, but in many bones over many years, and thus we can identify trends in historical use of copper in the household, he explains.
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