Culinary choices, craft technologies, and plant foods: ethnoarchaeological perspectives from central India

Introduction

The study attempts to situate culinary objects within the realm of the everyday social world of humans by employing ethnoarchaeological methods to examine how plant foods paved the way for the development of specific cooking equipment, which in turn led to the creation of distinct foodways in a region. In archaeological research, prehistoric human dietary studies have primarily focused on meat consumption; however, recent studies have shifted the focus to consider the importance of plant foods in the evolution and dispersal of the human population, highlighting their key role in early adaptations to novel environments (McConnell and O'Connor, 1997; Barton, 2005; Jones, 2009; Hardy, 2010; Summerhayes et al., 2010; Stiner and Kuhn, 2009; Dilkes-Hall et al., 2019; Florin et al., 2020; Barker et al., 2007). As India is known for its diverse food traditions where plants mark the major component (Roy et al., 1998), the variety of tools utilized for this purpose in the vast stretches of the subcontinent is apparent. To delve deeper into this quest, the region of central India is a must-study location, being crucial to understanding the evolution of ancient humans (Misra, 1997; Sonakia and de Lumley, 2006; Patnaik et al., 2009; Jha et al., 2020) and the development of subsequent anthropomorphic traits in this part of the

world. Here, many indigenous groups reside in mountainous and forested areas, who continue their ancestral way of living, where their foodways represent the uses of traditional food preparation methods, and their culinary objects reveal a sense of primordial existence (Srivastava and Chandra, 2025). Agriculture and the collection of wild edibles are the prominent subsistence activities among these Indigenous groups, such as the Gond and Baiga. In their daily lives, they use a variety of crafts for culinary activities, including storage, cooking, and serving, while several equipment help in other associated works, like cutting, mixing, grinding and many others.

Culinary practices, being crucial in everyday human food behavior, operate as structured systems in which ingredients, tools, and techniques are mutually constitutive. Plant foods in particular, owing to their seasonal rhythms, storage properties, and varied processing requirements, demand specific technological responses, thereby shaping the morphology of implements, the organization of domestic space, and leading the evolution of craft knowledge. These relationships are crucial in terms of the recent development in materiality studies and ethnoarchaeology, as they shifted the focus from symbolic interpretation of artifacts to examine how objects emerge from routine engagements within ecological constraints and technical tasks. With this backdrop, foodways-related objects, such as grinding stones, hearths, storage bins, and cooking vessels, are considered, for this study, as the active participants in technical systems structured around food economies. In recent decades, archaeological research on food has made significant contributions through archaeobotanical perspectives, advancing our understanding of plant domestication and crop dispersal. However, fewer studies have systematically explored how the processing requirements of specific plant foods generate patterned material signatures, a lacuna this paper addresses.

Hence, through an ethnoarchaeological investigation in central India, focusing on the Gond and Baiga Communities, this paper seeks to identify systematic correlations between plant-based foods and the design, use, and spatial distribution of culinary implements. These groups maintain diverse plant-based subsistence strategies that include cultivating millets alongside gathering wild edibles. This implies that they utilize a variety of culinary instruments and utensils to process them in different ways. Considering all of this, the present study has twofold specific aims: first, to investigate how different categories of plant foods generate distinct technological and spatial requirements; second, to document how these requirements structure the form and function of culinary artifacts. By presenting archaeological records and ethnographic information together, it argues that the plant-food economy actively structures material culture by shaping technological choices, domestic organization, and embodied skills.

It has been said that foodways is a complex phenomenon of humans' social structure that connects people to geographic location, specific climate, a period, ethnic groups or family (Atkins and Bowler, 2016). Also, it is quite often the case that individuals share food, and mealtimes are occasions when an entire family, community, or even a village gathers (Fox, 2003). So, for an individual, food becomes the subject of symbolic action about sociality and our position in society; especially, the women's contribution in the past will be depicted in a true manner in this pursuit (Srivastava and Chandra, 2024). Usually, plant food creates this nexus of culture and traditions; and significantly ties the people to their land and community. As the Indigenous communities living in central India are considered to be the descendants of the region's early inhabitants (Sharma et al., 2012), their knowledge tradition holds significant value in discerning these nuanced meanings (Srivastava and Chandra, 2025) embedded within the usual everyday activities of human beings related to plant foods. In this way, the present study provides novel insights into how plant foods add to the human adaptive capacity by leading to innovative appliances to consume them in a more effective manner.

The materiality of culinary crafts: social dimensions of food

In the purview of food studies, the materiality of food is not merely about the physical properties of the items digested but also about the symbolic meanings and social practices associated with them (Douglas, 1972; Goody, 1982; Adams, 2004; Dusselier, 2009). Food, as a material substance, carries with it a multitude of cultural significances. For instance, the ingredients used in traditional dishes often reflect the geographical and ecological contexts in which they are produced (Sutton, 2001). The methods of food preparation and cooking techniques are passed down through generations, embodying the knowledge and skills of a community. Similarly, the tools and utensils used in cooking, such as mortars and pestles, grinding stones, and clay pots, are not just functional objects but also artifacts that tell stories of cultural heritage and technological innovation (Clark, 1984; Lyons and D'andrea, 2003; Arthur, 2006). Together, these elements form a complex web of interactions that reflect and reinforce cultural identities, social structures, and historical narratives. However, anthropological theories provide valuable frameworks for understanding the materiality of food and crafts. Marcel Mauss's theory of gift exchange, for instance, emphasizes the social and symbolic aspects of material objects. Drawing on the theory of gift exchange by Mauss (1954), culinary crafts can be understood as social gifts that carry obligations of reciprocity and function as total social facts, embedding food practices within networks of kinship, status, and moral economy. In many indigenous communities, the exchange of food and crafted items is not merely an economic transaction but a means of establishing and maintaining social relationships. Similarly, Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital emphasizes the role of material objects in shaping and reflecting social hierarchies and cultural identities. As Bourdieu (1984, 1986) says, “taste is socially structured,” his viewpoint marks that culinary craft operates as a form of cultural capital in which embodied skills and objectified kitchen materials work together to produce class distinctions and reproduce social hierarchies.

Building on these insights, Cultural Materialism, as developed by Harris (1979, 1998), provides a framework for understanding how material conditions, such as the availability of resources, technological constraints, and environmental factors, directly influence cultural practices, including foodways and craft production. According to him, the infrastructure of society (its modes of production and reproduction) plays a determining role in shaping ideologies and social structures. Thus, culinary crafts can be seen as practical adaptations to environmental and economic realities, with cultural meanings emerging as a consequence of these material conditions (Ingold, 2011). From an ecological and evolutionary perspective, these works offer valuable insights into the co-evolutionary dynamics between humans and their environments and highlight how human practices, such as the selective breeding of plants and animals, or the cultivation of particular landscapes for food production, alter ecological conditions and, in turn, shape cultural expressions like food preparation and craftwork. Culinary tools and techniques can thus be seen not only as responses to ecological constraints but also as active agents in transforming environments to better suit human needs, reinforcing the feedback loop between material culture and human adaptation. Such embodied tools and skills are central to the transmission of cultural knowledge and the lived experience of materiality.

Study area and the methodology

The central region of India is characterized by its plateaus, hills, mountains, and river valleys, where giants of Indian geology, such as the Vindhya and Satpura mountains and the Narmada River, define the landscape. These geographical elements not only determine the region's physical geography but also influence its ecology, climate, drainage and human settlements. While the Narmada River and Vindhya Mountain carve a picturesque rift valley, the dense forest supports a rich mosaic of biodiversity, making the area home to early human settlements, tribal cultures, and diverse ecosystems, and thus a cradle of both cultural heritage and biological diversity. Therefore, owing to its profound archaeological and anthropological importance, this area has been deliberately chosen for the present archaeological investigation. However, for ethnographic fieldwork, one part of central India, the Maikal hills region, is considered because the communities under study are primarily concentrated here (Shrivastava and Caldirola, 2005; Sikarwar, 2017); hence, the villages within this area were inspected ethnographically for this particular purpose.

Archaeologically, the studied region is marked by several excavated sites spanning the Paleolithic to subsequent evolutionary periods, which have provided extensive data on past human life, including lithic, ceramic, faunal, and floral evidence. To glean information about the food behavior of past inhabitants, excavation reports, articles, and ASI monographs are consulted. These sources provide systematically recorded information on the site context, radiocarbon dates, and in situ findings. Particular attention was given to non-biological evidence associated with food activities, ceramic typologies, and architectural features of the sites, as defined by archaeologists who have worked here. From these documents, chronological data were used to trace diachronic changes in dietary practices across cultural phases. After their systematic analysis, the food-related information is contemplated, like plant food remains and artifacts related to culinary activities. Subsequently, a visit to the Madhya Pradesh State Museum in Bhopal also added further archaeological insights into the region's archaeological materials, as this museum houses a significant collection of artifacts from various sites across central India. From here, the curated assemblages of diverse household appliances, such as pottery, grinding stones, and other tools used in foodways, were documented, which further provided an essential reference framework for comparative analysis. All of these are presented here chronologically to illustrate how the enduring link between plant foods and humans' everyday efforts steered the new technologies and associated cooking appliances.

As ethnoarchaeology marks the principal methodological approach of this study, it is grounded in intensive fieldwork combined with a layered theoretical framework (Binford, 1978; Stiles, 1977; David and Kramer, 2001; Lyons, 2017) that explores the interplay between material culture, ecological adaptation, and culinary practice among the Gond and Baiga communities of the Maikal Hills in Central India (Figure 1). Over the course of three rounds of field visits from 2023 to 2024 in ten villages under the districts of Anuppur and Dindori in the state of Madhya Pradesh, qualitative methods, including participant observation, informal interviews, and spatial documentation, were employed to record the domestic and culinary lifeways of these communities. This involved 40 household surveys and semi-structured interviews with 65 individuals from both of the groups in the villages of Farri Semar, Damgarh, Mekal Pahar, Mirchadadar, Choktipani, Sonteerath, Kharideeh, Bajag, Jagatpur, and Barbaspur. Respondents were selected through a snowball sampling method, with caution taken regarding their settlement at the forested location as an inclusion criterion. This followed an immersive engagement with households, focusing on how tools, architecture, and other related implements were used in plant food preparation, storage, and consumption contexts. Observations of everyday routines, object use, and spatial configurations were complemented by conversations with community elders and household members, particularly women, who are the primary agents in the culinary domain. This was done by a questionnaire survey and open-ended interviews, where the language used was Hindi and the local dialect, Chhattisgarhi, with the assistance of an interpreter. All of this ethnographic information was later analyzed alongside the archaeological dataset.

It has been said that culinary objects are an intrinsic part of the human food system, where their presence not only distinguishes human meals from those of other living beings but also demonstrates the various distinctions between nature and culture. In the very early ages, when humans used flakes for the purpose of cutting animal carcasses, that very event paved the way toward the development of an exclusive way of food consumption that has never been developed on any other earthborn. Hence, this study aims to reveal the trajectory of the inception of these peculiar tools, which diversified in subsequent periods and are visible in the Indigenous communities, for which plant foods have been the driving catalyst substance.

Prehistoric evidence of plant food consumption in central India

Long before full-scale agriculture emerged, prehistoric lifeways in India were strongly anchored in the consumption of plant foods (Lukacs and Pal, 1993; Morrison, 2006; Saraswat, 1991). Even though floral remains are frequently less visible archaeologically than bones or stone tools, evidence from macrobotanical remains, phytoliths, pollen, charred seeds, and most importantly, the tools used to gather and process plant resources shows that early humans in central India interacted with plant foods in methodically informed and culturally embedded ways (Mittre, 1965; Kajale, 1975). From Lower Paleolithic riverine locales to Chalcolithic communities, plant-based diets influenced technical innovation, seasonal mobility, and subsistence tactics in a variety of settings in this region (Tables 1 and 2).

Table 1. Mesolithic/upper paleolithic sites.

Evidence mostly inferred: gathering, processing, and use of wild plant foods.

Table 2. Neolithic/chalcolithic sites.

Direct evidence of agriculture, storage, and domesticated plants.

Due to taphonomic limitations, direct floral remains are rare at early open-air sites like Durkadi Nala, Tikoda, Mahadeo-Piparia, Dhansi, and Saguna Ghat. However, access to plant foods, including wild fruits, tubers, rhizomes, seeds, and aquatic vegetation, is strongly suggested by the biological settings of these locations, which include river valleys, forest borders, and alluvial plains (Figure 2). The Paleolithic tools from these sites include Acheulean as well as Middle Paleolithic scrapers and flakes that would have been effective for cutting fibrous plant materials and stripping bark. At this time, the regular use of riverine landscapes compels us to think about the practice of a subsistence that includes plant foods as the most predictable and renewable resources, which must be buffered against the uncertainties of hunting.

By the Mesolithic period, represented by sites such as Adamgarh, Bhimbetka, Baghor, Rampur, and Kunjhun, there is clearer evidence for intensified plant exploitation. The emergence of microlithic tools, including blades, points, and backed tools, reflects more flexible subsistence strategies adapted to diverse ecological niches. At Bhimbetka and Adamgarh, the presence of grinding stones, hammerstones, and hearths within rock shelter contexts suggests the regular processing of plant foods, including wild grains, seeds, tubers, and leafy plants. It means that Mesolithic groups appear to have practiced broad-spectrum foraging, combining the hunting of small and medium-sized animals with the systematic gathering of plant resources. Rock arts from the region's prehistoric sites further reinforces this interpretation, as it depicts plants, honey collection, and communal activities linked to their subsistence.

The transition to the Neolithic period was an upheaval in the plant food consumption pattern, pertaining to increasing sedentism and the start of cultivation. Sites that reveal evidence of this period include Arjuni, Hoshangabad, Eran, Dangwada and Chichali, which offer a clear shift toward plant-based food consumption. Although direct archaeobotanical data from many Neolithic sites of central India are limited, other associated artifacts like ground stone, including querns, pestles and mullers, indicate regular processing of cereals and pulses, while regional studies suggest their cultivation along with the continued use of wild plant foods.

Later on, during the Chalcolithic period, plant food consumption became most archaeologically visible at well-documented sites such as Kayatha, Maheshwar-Navadotoli, Avara, Mahidpur, Runija, Shajapur, and Manoti. These sites represent established agrarian villages with permanent architecture, storage facilities, and a wide range of tools and culinary crafts associated with food production and preparation. Excavation at Navadatoli and other Malwa culture sites has yielded saddle querns, grinding slabs, rubbing stones and hearth installations within domestic contexts, indicating routine processing of plant foods. Along with this, there are studies about the faunal remains from the Malwa region in a chalcolithic context, which document the cultivation and consumption of wheat, barley, millets, lentils, black gram, green gram, oilseeds and some varieties of fruits. Across this long prehistoric sequence of central India, a clear trajectory of plant food consumption emerges, which shows how these ingredients were crucial for expanding the past subsistence strategies and supporting technological innovation by enhancing the prehistoric economy through a diverse range of culinary crafts.

Culinary craft utilization in traditional foodways: ethnographic perspectives from the maikal hills

During the ethnographic fieldwork, we encountered a wide range of information that covered almost every aspect of foodways in a household of an Indigenous group, including domestic architecture, kitchen space, culinary apparatus, and crafts involved in food-related practices. In the following paragraphs, we first draw the daily scene of these houses and the placement of culinary objects (Figure 3), and later on these insights are presented under four sub-themes, which critically showcase the evolved interplay of human food and culinary crafts persisting among the Gond and Baiga people, and reflect on how such non-biological elements of foodways constitute an essential component in shaping human dietary habits.

Everyday household of an indigenous community in the Maikal hills

A typical Baiga house looks very simple, consisting usually of one hall with a partition of grain-bins (Kothi) next to the door. The door is made of wood or bamboo. Wooden doors are sometimes decorated with beautiful carvings. The smaller portion on the back side of the Kothi is used as the kitchen, and the bigger portion attached to the door is used as a bedroom. The kitchen consists of a Chulha (hearth) for cooking. Next to the hearth is the place for worship of home deities. Sometimes it is made in the shape of a slightly raised platform. Usually, one or two coconuts can be found placed over there as an offering. No idol is used except a trident in some cases. Above the Chulha, different types of kitchen materials and ingredients are hung from the roof and walls. Mud and metal utensils are placed on the floor. The stand for the water pots, known as Majhouta, is placed opposite the door. On the front side of the house, a Baramda or open meeting place is constructed with the continuation of the roof and half walls. This place contains mud and stone Jata for husking and grinding, and also Kadi (mortar) and Musal (pestle) for husking. In these houses, some of the household goods are hung from the roof, which also becomes oily and black from the smoke of the constant hearth fire.

The water pots are kept over the Majhouta, which is a water stand, made up of one flat piece of wood fixed on two long wooden pegs at a height of about three feet. Earthen and brass water pots are kept over it. Water is taken out with the help of gourd vessels. Dried gourd vessels with a long handle are utilized for this. An earthen pot is called Paniya Handi. A gourd vessel is also used to drink water. The gourd vessel is not defiled, but water is drunk with the help of a hand, just keeping the palm below the mouth. Utensils made of brass, aluminum, iron, terracotta, wood, and bamboo are also found in the Baiga and Gond houses nowadays. These people make Mahua liquor by using a set of terracotta pots (Hadia and Paina), aluminum pots and a bamboo pipe through a steaming (vaporization) and cooling process. Mahlon's leaves are very useful for the culinary activities of these people. It is used to prepare plates and cups. So, whenever the Baiga women go to the forest, they bring Mahlon leaves with them. Its cup is also used for drinking liquor by both males and females, while its rope is very strong and is used for various purposes, including tying and knotting. They also use the ropes made up of various types of grasses. They make and use a Bahari (broom) of Mowa grass and a Kharrata (bamboo stick broom) for cleaning their houses as a part of everyday culinary activities.

The Baiga and Gond people make and use different sorts of baskets. They also purchase the baskets from Dhuliya community. They use different sorts of baskets for different purposes, such as Mora, Dali, Dauri, Kikrahi, Tukna, Churki, Chalgi, etc., for keeping vegetables and other objects. Duti (a small triangular basket with a flat base and a rope handle) is used for keeping small fish. A supa (Winnowing fan) is used for cleaning grains. Pitla is a small pouch made up of bark (Udar tree) and used for squeezing oil from pulses and seeds. They also use a bamboo fan (Bijni) to get air and speed the cooking fire. Kadi-Musal (mortar and pestle) and mud-made Jata are used for husking, while stone Kunanta and Jata (Chakki) are used for grinding. Kawar-Sika, a bamboo stick with hanging rope nets at both ends to hold the pot, is used to carry water pots and baskets by holding it on the shoulders.

This description highlights the diverse range of objects used by the Gond and Baiga people living in the villages of the Maikal hills, providing a glimpse into the variety of tools employed in the consumption of plant foods (Table 3). All of these items are traditionally made from locally available natural materials and exhibit similarities with culinary crafts unearthed from archaeological sites, providing a cue for the relationship between plant foods and the emergence of these crafts. Below is the thematic analysis of all the information related to the indigenous foodways practiced by the contemporary aboriginals of the Maikal Hills.

Table 3. List of culinary tools and utensils.

Object utilized by indigenous communities of the Maikal hills for foodways activities.

Domestic architecture and the organization of plant foods processing

Traditional dwellings in the Maikal hills region are generally constructed using locally available materials, such as mud, bamboo, timber, and thatch (Kumar, 2021; Shah and Virmani, 2025). These houses are often single-room or semi-partitioned structures with attached open courtyards. The architectural layout reflects both environmental adaptation and cultural preferences (Shah and Virmani, 2025; Sahay and Gupta, 2015), particularly in relation to food preparation and storage. The kitchen area, usually located either within the main house or in a semi-open space adjoining it, serves as the focal point of daily domestic life and culinary activity. Our ethnographic observation reveals that plant foods occupy a central place in the subsistence strategies of both Baiga and Gond households, as these groups are heavily dependent on traditional occupations, including agriculture, small game hunting, fishing and gathering of wild edibles. Staples such as millets, maize, forest tubers, pulses, and seasonal vegetables are regularly processed and prepared within domestic spaces. So, the architectural features of kitchens, such as raised mud platforms, hearths constructed at floor level, and wall niches, are directly linked to the handling, preparation, and cooking of these plant resources. In particular spaces of the house, hearths are typically built using clay or by arranging locally sourced stones, which are designed to accommodate traditional cooking vessels used for boiling, roasting, and steaming plant-based foods.

In these houses nestled in the forested landscape, the Courtyards are an integral part that serve as multifunctional spaces where food-related activities extend beyond cooking (Santos-Garcia and Braga, 2025; Abdelmalek, 2004). We observed that activities such as drying grains, pounding millets, sorting pulses, and processing wild plant foods often occur in these open areas. Grinding stones and wooden mortars are also kept permanently in courtyards, illustrating how architectural spaces facilitate repetitive culinary tasks associated with everyday food preparation (Kent, 1993). Storage facilities within an insider place further illustrate the integration of plant food consumption into an agrarian life. The relationship between domestic architecture and plant food consumption is also shaped by seasonal rhythms because, at the time of agricultural seasons, open spaces become centers for processing newly harvested crops, while in lean seasons, stored plant foods and foraged forest resources gain prominence. It was evident that architectural flexibility, such as movable hearths or temporary shelters built for specific processing tasks, is an indication of adaptive strategies that respond to environmental and subsistence needs.

Since the structure of the house is generally oriented to the cultural norms and values of the community (Rapoport, 1990), here, it is typically a single-room unit with a grain bin partition (Kothi), dividing the living room and kitchen. The grain bin, while practical for storage, also serves as a symbolic threshold between the sacred and the mundane, where the Kothi, located often adjacent to the door, simultaneously marks the presence of food security and separates the inner domestic domain from the public gaze. The living space, accessible first, functions as a resting zone and is often used for receiving guests, while the kitchen area, more secluded, is the inner sanctum where food preparation and ritual intersect.

Hearth and the culinary space

The hearth represents the most significant feature of the culinary space within domestic contexts, serving as a marker of cooking activities and the most essential element in food production, where plant foods are transformed into daily meals in the context of this research (Goldstein, 2008; Gabaccia, 2012). Among the Baiga and Gond communities, we reveal that the hearth is not only a technological installation but also a socially and culturally embedded space where specific plant foods are prepared according to established culinary norms. Hearths are here typically constructed using locally sourced clay, mud, stones, and occasionally reused ceramic fragments. They are most commonly located at floor level within enclosed kitchens or sometimes semi-open domestic spaces. The positioning and structure of the hearth allow for multiple cooking techniques suited to plant foods, including boiling, roasting, steaming, and slow simmering. Our data indicate that staple crops such as millets (including kodo and kutki), maize, and rice are routinely cooked on these hearths, primarily through boiling in earthen or metal vessels, where the frequent preparation of gruel-like foods and thick porridges reflects dietary preferences that are well adapted to both nutritional needs and local environmental conditions.

Beyond cultivated staples, we observed that the hearth plays a central role in the processing and preparation of wild plant foods gathered from the surrounding forests. Tubers, roots, and rhizomes collected during seasonal foraging are commonly brought back to the household and cooked at the hearth. Some are roasted directly in the embers, while others are boiled for long periods, a practice described by women as necessary to make these foods ‘soft' and safe to eat. Leafy greens, both cultivated varieties and wild species, are typically parboiled or lightly cooked on the hearth, often combined with pulses or forest-sourced condiments to enhance taste. These practices demonstrate the importance of hearth in detoxifying, softening, and enhancing the palatability of plant foods, on a daily basis (Beck et al., 2022). The culinary space around the hearth is also very practically arranged to support a range of preparatory activities associated with plant foods. Grinding stones and wooden mortars are mostly positioned near the hearth to make them easily accessible for use in dehusking and grinding millets and maize prior to cooking. During everyday cooking, we also observed grains and seeds being roasted on a tawa (iron griddle) or placed directly over the hearth fire. Oilseeds are also occasionally roasted on the hearth to enhance their savory flavor, while pulses are soaked in a bowl adjacently, before being cooked over the fire. Seasonal variation also affects the hearth use, with harvest periods marked by intensive drying and roasting of fresh crops and forest foods on indoor and outdoor hearths, while lean seasons rely on the slow cooking of stored grains and dried plant foods on indoor hearths for everyday sustenance.

Tools, cutlery and utensils in the consumption of plant foods

The consumption of plant foods among the Indigenous communities of the study area is mediated through a diverse assemblage of tools, cutlery, and utensils that reflect long-standing culinary traditions and close engagement with plant resources. Ethnographic evidence demonstrates that these material objects are not merely functional implements but integral components of food behavior, embodying knowledge systems related to plant processing, preparation, and consumption. Traditional culinary toolkits in the Maikal Hills region are largely composed of items made from locally available materials, such as stone, wood, clay, bamboo, and, nowadays, metal. Grinding stones, wooden mortars and pestles, winnowing baskets, ladles, and earthen vessels form the core assemblage used in the preparation and consumption of plant-based foods. These tools are closely adapted to the physical properties of specific plant foods, indicating a deep understanding of plant characteristics acquired through generations of practice.

Grinding stones (sil-batta type implements) are among the most significant tools associated with plant food consumption (Valamoti et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020). Our observations in the Maikal Hills villages indicate their extensive use in processing millets, maize, pulses, and dried plant products into flours or coarse pastes. The texture and size of grinding surfaces are suited to particular grains, allowing controlled processing depending on the intended dish. These stone tools often occupy fixed locations within domestic spaces, underscoring their centrality in daily culinary routines and their potential visibility in the archaeological record (Goldstein, 2008). Wooden mortars and pestles are commonly employed for dehusking millets and pounding grains prior to cooking. This activity not only facilitates consumption but also influences the taste, texture, and digestibility of plant foods. The repetitive use of these implements produces characteristic wear patterns, which hold significance, suggesting their unending use in a domestic setting. The continued reliance on such tools even today also highlights the persistence of such culinary crafts rooted in plant-based subsistence.

Utensils used for consumption further demonstrate the intimate link between culinary practices and plant foods. However, earthen pots are widely used for boiling grains, cooking pulses, and preparing thick porridges and stews made from cultivated and wild plant ingredients. Their thermal properties are particularly suited to slow cooking, which is essential for softening grains and detoxifying certain forest-collected plant foods. Metal vessels, increasingly common today, are often integrated into existing culinary systems rather than replacing traditional earthenware entirely. Baskets woven from bamboo or plant fibers play an essential role in both food preparation and consumption. Our ethnographic data document their use in washing, draining, and storing grains, as well as in serving roasted or dried plant foods. The craft of basket-making itself relies on specific plant species, further reinforcing the intertwined nature of culinary crafts and botanical knowledge. These perishable tools, while rarely preserved archaeologically, are crucial for understanding the full spectrum of plant food consumption practices. Although all of these material practices demonstrate how knowledge of plants is materially expressed through the design, use, and maintenance of tools.

Containers, carriers, and storing the plant foods

Storage practices form a critical component of plant-based subsistence systems, as plant foods are uniquely suited for long-term preservation compared to animal-based foods. Among the Baiga and Gond communities of the Maikal Hills, it was clearly demonstrated that the need to store plant foods, particularly grains, seeds, pulses, and dried forest products, has been a key factor in the development of specialized storage facilities and containers. Plant foods constitute the most reliable and storable components of the local diet. Staples such as millets (including kodo and kutki), maize, rice, and pulses are harvested seasonally but consumed throughout the year. In addition, forest-collected plant foods such as seeds, dried tubers, and fruits are also preserved for later use. The need to protect these food resources from moisture, pests, and spoilage has led to the development of diverse storage technologies embedded within domestic architecture and material culture.

Our experience in the field reveals that storage facilities are often integrated into household spaces. Granaries constructed from bamboo, wood, and mud are commonly used to store bulk quantities of grains. These structures may be freestanding or built adjacent to dwellings, reflecting both practical considerations and cultural norms (Valamoti and Jones, 2003). The use of mud plaster mixed with cow dung serves as a protective coating, helping to regulate humidity and deter insects. Such practices highlight a sophisticated understanding of plant preservation grounded in long-term experience. Within houses, smaller storage containers are used for everyday access to plant foods. Earthen pots, baskets woven from bamboo or plant fibers, and wooden bins are commonly employed to store processed grains, flour, pulses, and seeds. It means the choice of container material is closely linked to the nature of the stored plant food. For example, earthen vessels are preferred for grains that require dry and cool conditions, while baskets allow airflow and are suitable for short-term storage of freshly harvested produce. These material choices reflect an intimate knowledge of plant properties and storage requirements.

Processing activities prior to storage further emphasize the centrality of plant foods in shaping storage practices among these communities. Their everyday culinary practice shows that grains are often dried, winnowed, and sometimes lightly roasted before being stored to reduce moisture content and increase longevity. Leafy greens and certain forest plants are blanched, sun-dried, and stored in bundles or containers for later consumption. These preparatory steps demonstrate that storage is not a passive activity but an integral part of the culinary chaîne opératoire associated with plant foods. The post-harvest period in this region is marked by intense storage activity, as households process and store sufficient plant foods to last through lean seasons. Importantly, the emphasis on storage highlights a fundamental distinction between plant and animal foods (Valamoti and Jones, 2003). While animal products are typically consumed shortly after acquisition, plant foods lend themselves to accumulation, preservation, and delayed consumption. This characteristic has historically driven innovations in storage technologies and containers, shaping domestic architecture and material culture. However, among the Baiga and Gond communities, storage practices demonstrate how plant foods anchor long-term planning, seasonal scheduling, and culinary continuity.

Discussion

The archaeological record of central India, which is examined above diachronically from Mesolithic forager contexts to Neolithic-Chalcolithic agro-pastoral settlements, demonstrates a patterned intensification and diversification of plant-related technologies. Although, these assemblages have been interpreted descriptively (as evidence of sedentism or agriculture) by the earlier archaeological research in the region, rather than fully explaining how variability in artifact forms relates to plant-processing behavior. The present study, based on ethnographically observed foodways of Indigenous groups, asserts that the diversification of culinary objects in central Indian archaeological assemblages correlates with increased plant-food processing intensity and culinary flexibility rather than merely sedentism or technological sophistication.

As Binford (1962) argued, artifacts and the associated features should not be studied as isolated entities; instead, they should be interpreted as part of a “systemic whole”, that is, as components of past human behavior and cultural system. When the studied region reveals a steady proliferation of food-related objects: grinding stones, mullers, querns, pounders, mortars, perforated jars, storage bins, hearth installations and ceramic forms of varied morphology, this idea applies. All these objects from the long-term human habitation could be understood not merely as technological refinements, but as material responses to the inherent flexibility of plant foods in Binford's (1962) perspective. This is because animal resources often produce standardized toolkits (butchery, knives, roasting) while plant foods invite experimentation. For example, a single cereal can become porridge, bread, fermented drink, roasted grain or flour. As such, plant foods, particularly seeds, tubers, leafy greens, millets, pulses and wild fruits, permit multiple modes of transformation: pounding, grinding, soaking, fermenting, roasting, parching, drying, powdering and storage. This flexibility necessitates and stimulates diversification in culinary objects. Thus, material variability in archaeological assemblages may reflect not only technological progress but also the expansion of plant-based culinary possibilities.

The ethnographic data from the Maikal Hills communities show that their plant-based meals involve multiple sequential transformations, which create cumulative material footprints. Their everyday practices provide descriptive parallels to support the proposed hypothesis that culinary objects emerge not simply from technological evolution, but from sustained engagement with the transformative potential of plants. In contemporary practice, a single plant species may be processed in multiple ways depending on season, intended dish, and preservation needs. For example, millets are pounded to remove husks, ground into flour, boiled as whole grains, or fermented into gruels. Tubers are sliced, sun-dried, roasted, or mashed. Each variation requires distinct implements and thermal arrangements. The archaeological record of Central India, when read through this lens, reveals similar multiplicity. The proliferation of quern types, hammer stones, and ceramic vessels is therefore interpreted as material evidence of culinary plurality rather than technological redundancy. The given table, based on the ethnographic data, suggests that plant morphology dictates tool diversity (Table 4):

Table 4. Functional relationship between plant categories and processing tools.

Reinterpreting mesolithic plant processing

At the Mesolithic sites of Central India, including Bhimbetka and Adamgarh (Joshi, 1978; Misra, 1985), the presence of grinding stones and querns alongside microlithic assemblages and habitation floors indicates that plant processing was already technologically structured by those dwellers. These implements have often been treated as supplementary tools within a foraging economy. However, among contemporary Baiga households, wild seeds and minor millets gathered from forest margins undergo repeated stages of pounding, dehusking, and grinding before consumption. This implies that even in foraging-oriented economies, wild seeds and tubers undergo multiple preparatory stages requiring distinct tools. It further suggests that the archaeological presence of grinding stones at these sites, therefore, reflects not incidental use but sustained plant processing. The ethnographic data hints that such grinding stones would have been central to daily food preparation, especially for hard-coated seeds that cannot be consumed raw. Thus, the variability in grinding implements signals experimentation and differentiation in plant processing long before domesticated cereals appear in the records of central India.

Along with this, at Baghor and Rampur, occupation deposits associated with stone tools and evidence of wild plant use suggest sustained habitation with repeated plant exploitation. Among the Baigas, tubers collected from forest tracts are detoxified through roasting in ash-filled hearths before being pounded or mashed (detoxification of different kanda). This process requires controlled heating installations and heavy pounding tools. If ash deposits and grinding implements occur together in Mesolithic contexts, the ethnographic parallel indicates that tuber detoxification and processing were likely practiced. The inference is that plant consumption was technologically complex even in pre-agricultural settings, and it can be determined that certain plant-processing techniques were already standardized even at the very early age. These findings, thus, establish that the technological infrastructure for plant transformation predates agriculture and forms a structural foundation for later agricultural intensification.

Transition to neolithic-chalcolithic intensification

The transition to Neolithic–Chalcolithic contexts strengthens this pattern rather than disrupting it. At Kayatha, charred cereals and pulses recovered from storage pits demonstrate cultivation and planned surplus. Yet the presence of grinding stones within domestic contexts parallels contemporary Gond households, where cultivated millets are processed daily using large saddle querns positioned near cooking spaces. The archaeological association of storage pits and grinding tools at Kayatha suggests not only agricultural production but habitual transformation of stored grain into consumable forms. Our ethnographic observation clarifies that stored cereals are rarely consumed whole; they are almost always dehusked, ground, or boiled. Similarly, the archaeological presence of varied vessel forms at Maheshwar–Navdatoli implies diversified culinary treatments of plant foods. So, rather than viewing ceramic expansion merely as stylistic development, the ethnographic data indicate that vessel morphology reflects specific plant-processing requirements.

The integration of grinding stones within domestic floors at Manoti and Dangwada further supports this interpretation (Bhargava, 2017; Mishra and Mishra, 2003). In Baiga households, grinding stones are rarely stored away; they remain fixed in habitual locations because grinding is a repetitive daily activity. Their immobility produces spatially patterned wear areas and accumulations of plant residue. So, the archaeological clustering of querns within domestic structures at these sites suggests similar habitual placement and repeated use. From a broader perspective, this scenario indicates that plant foods became central to daily life, structuring domestic architecture and artifact distribution. Too, the spatial integration of processing tools within domestic structures reflects the normalization of plant-based culinary systems in the recent prehistoric age.

Culinary innovation as social driver

One of the significant points that emerges from the above deliberation of the past and present foodways tableau is that plant-based subsistence is not nutritionally neutral; it is culturally elaborated through objects. In this regard, it can be said that the diversification of culinary objects is not peripheral, but central to social development. This could be further explained by Ingold's (2011) view, which holds that materials possess trajectories and potentials that unfold through engagement. Plant foods, in this view, are not static resources but materials whose properties (hardness, fibrousness, moisture content, and fermentability) invite specific technological engagements. The diversity of culinary objects thus emerges as a relational outcome of plant properties and human experimentation, as shown in the Table 5.

Table 5. Feature–function relationships in archaeobotanical contexts.

It has been said by food anthropologists that “objects not only process plants; they shape taste and identity.” Archaeological variability in central India may therefore reflect the gradual development of integrated plant-based culinary systems alongside societal upheaval. This ethnoarchaeological synthesis also strengthens the core principle of anthropological theories (Douglas, 1972; Goody, 1982; Adams, 2004; Dusselier, 2009), in which food patterns and culinary choices are considered the “cultural codes”, where the present study adds that culinary crafts are also proxies for broader socio-economic transformations. The findings thus articulate that the diversification of culinary artifacts in prehistoric Central India corresponds directly to the intensification and diversification of plant-food processing to serve the growing anthropogenic needs.

Conclusion

This study demonstrates that the diversification of culinary objects in prehistoric Central India was closely linked to the flexible and transformable nature of plant foods. By integrating archaeological evidence with ethnographic observations among Gond and Baiga communities, the research shows that plant processing required multiple mechanical and thermal treatments. These treatments generated distinct artifactual forms and structured domestic space. The variability of querns, hammer stones, hearths, storage pits, and ceramic vessels, therefore, reflects not incidental technological change, but sustained engagement with plant transformation. In this regard, the principal contribution of this article lies in shifting the interpretation from a purely descriptive account of plant remains and tools toward a functional understanding of culinary materiality. Rather than treating grinding stones or storage features as passive indicators of agriculture, the study demonstrates that artifact variability correlates with botanical diversity and processing intensity. Culinary technologies emerge here as active agents in shaping subsistence systems, household organization, and long-term technological trajectories.

At the same time, this study has limitations. The ethnographic analogy, while illuminating, cannot establish direct cultural continuity between contemporary indigenous communities and prehistoric populations. Additionally, the archaeological interpretations rely largely on published reports; systematic use-wear, residue, and micro-botanical analyses remain uneven across sites. The strength of the given arguments would benefit from a quantitative comparison of artifact variability with archaeobotanical assemblages across stratified contexts. Future research should therefore prioritize integrated archaeobotanical and use-wear studies of grinding implements, spatial analysis of domestic processing areas, and residue analysis of ceramic vessels to test correlations between tool morphology and specific plant taxa. As the study reflects, experimental archaeology replicating wild and domesticated plant processing could further refine interpretations of wear patterns and thermal installations. In sum, this study establishes that plant-food flexibility was a significant driver in the development of culinary material culture in prehistoric Central India. By foregrounding the material consequences of plant transformation, it opens new avenues for interpreting food-related artifacts as dynamic indicators of human–plant interaction, technological innovation, and domestic organization across human evolutionary history.

Generative AI statement

The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.

Any alternative text (alt text) provided alongside figures in this article has been generated by Frontiers with the support of artificial intelligence and reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, including review by the authors wherever possible. If you identify any issues, please contact us.

Publisher's note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Footnotes

Edited by: Leilani Lucas, College of Southern Nevada, United States

Reviewed by: Anil Sharma, Institute of Environment and Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, India

Marlene Rojas-Le-Fort, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Ecuador