Le strutture di combustione ad uso alimentare nell’età del Bronzo. Dal record archeologico all’archeologia sperimentale

This article aims at analyzing ovens and cooking plates found in Italian prehistoric contexts. A multidisciplinary approach has been carried out to improve our understanding of finds from excavations carried out by the University of Bologna. An overview of previous researches is useful in preliminarily identifying manufacturing techniques and materials of these structures and their role in food production. More elaborate technical analyses and an experimental reproduction carried out during the activities of the Laboratory of Experimental Archaeology allowed a better understanding of the processeses involved, and, most significantly, to enhance the identification of traces of cooking activities during archaeological excavations. Ethnoarchaeology and archaeometry thus seem to be among the most qualified disciplines to investigate this kind of evidence and to design an ontological classification of prehistoric structures.