Southeast Asian countries, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, are renowned for their culinary diversity. Yet little is known about the early development and variation of these cuisines, which potentially have their origins more than 2000 years ago. An understanding of culinary practice is relevant not only to understanding subsistence practices but also to gaining insight into the formation of stable and unified social and political groups. Shared practices provide an important "glue" which bind societies together and archaeology provides a means to set such interactions within an extended chronological context. Findings of this research will be incorporated into exhibits at Long An Provincial Museum (Vietnam), Siwalima Museum (Eastern Indonesia), and the Burke Museum (University of Washington).
Under the guidance of Dr. John Krigbaum and in collaboration with colleagues from Australian National University, University of Washington, Southern Institute for Sustainable Development (Vietnam), and Long An Provincial Museum (Vietnam), Michelle S. Eusebio will conduct organic residue analysis on sampled pottery vessels from two Neolithic and two Metal Age sites situated along the tributaries of the Mekong River in southern Vietnam. Data collected will facilitate identification of different types of food (plant, terrestrial animal and aquatic food resources) that were prepared and/or served on recovered pottery. In combination with technofunctional analysis to infer form and function of this pottery, the results will provide complementary evidence of plant and animal resources exploited as food, and inform understanding of the variation, change, and continuity between cuisines. This research will address the questions: Do culinary practices reflect the available food resources and/or culturally conditioned practices in prehistoric Southeast Asia? What are the community identities of these people who occupied these sites based on their shared culinary practices? To aid in the interpretation of the Vietnamese prehistoric data, she will analyze pottery samples from a Neolithic coastal site in eastern Indonesia to provide an outgroup comparison. Ms. Eusebio will also construct a modern Southeast Asian reference collection of organic residues based on experimental and ethnographic pottery samples with known cooking histories and she will isotopically quantify oils and fats from economically important and endemic species of flora and fauna. This project is the first microregional and diachronic survey of food residues from Vietnam, focused on the preparation and presentation of food rather than simply its acquisition. Research findings will demonstrate that prehistoric Southeast Asia provides an ideal spatial and temporal benchmark for comparison to other regions with respect to diversity of cuisines and correlations with social identity. The recovery of food residues in prehistoric pottery used by different communities of people in southern Vietnam will contribute to our detailed knowledge of the history and development of regional cuisines.
