They will be presenting two lectures, in English, by Dra Ceren Kabukcu from the University of Liverpool. The first lecture will be at 2.30pm at the Museu do Traje in São Bras de Alportel, and the second lecture will be at 6pm at the Convento de São José in Lagoa.


Dra Ceren Kabukcu will be looking at the evidence from Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and later hunter-gatherer occupations in the Near East. She will be talking about both the plant ingredients in past hunter-gatherer diets and the emerging evidence for their cooking. Her research to date highlights the significance of food preparation as well as the flavour of plant ingredients in past diets, including those of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. Sites from which evidence has been recovered include Franchthi Cave, in Argolis, Greece (later Palaeolithic), from which a carbonised bread-like item was recovered, and Shanidar Cave, in Zagros, Iraqi Kurdistan, from which remains of carbonised food including fragments of wild pea were recovered.

Dra Ceren Kabukcu is an archaeological scientist with expertise on the analysis and identification of plant remains from archaeological sites. She works with several international teams collaborating on excavations in Turkey, northern Iraq and Mongolia, as well as working on the analysis of materials from the broader region and the Eastern Mediterranean. Since 2017, she has held several prestigious research fellowships, including a brief fellowship at the University of Algarve, ICArEHB (The Interdisciplinary Centre for Archaeology and the Evolution of Human Behaviour). She currently holds a tenure-track research fellowship at the University of Liverpool.


Non-members are welcome to attend AAA lectures for a 5-euro admission fee, with all money raised by the AAA being used for archaeological grants and speakers. For more information contact algarvearchass@gmail.com, visit arquealgarve.weebly.com or Facebook 'Algarve Archaeological Association'. Please check the website or Facebook page for any last-minute changes.

Press release by Jane Robertson