The ins and the outs: Foodways, feasts, and social differentiation in the Baekje Kingdom, Korea

• We compared pottery assemblages from multiple Baekje settlements in Korea.
• Pungnap Toseong contained more storing and serving vessels than other sites.
• People used serving vessels in rituals and feasts.
• Food consumption in commensal contexts consolidated social alliances and hierarchy.

This article compares pottery assemblages from Pungnap Toseong (PT) and 16 adjacent settlements in order to understand the status-related foodways in the Hanseong phase (18 BCE–CE 475) of the Baekje Kingdom in Korea. PT is an earthen-walled site that may have been the first capital town of Baekje. Its residents were arguably of higher status than those of other settlements and, as with other complex societies, are likely to have used food and food-related activities for reinforcing, maintaining, and transforming social relations. The intersite comparison reveals that PT contains more ceramic wares than any other site, especially more storing and serving vessels; abundant storing vessels suggest surplus production mobilized toward the center, while abundant serving vessels are, along with zooarchaeological remains, indicative of rituals and feasts. Researchers have argued that Baekje’s elites differentiated themselves from those of lower rank by consuming luxurious foods. This study adds another dimension to the previous discussion by showing that regardless of food quality, the people of PT had a large amount of stored foods and occasionally consumed foods in commensal contexts in order to maintain their social alliances and reinforce the hierarchy.