The variation in the types of food sharing in the appendix causes many difficulties for the interpretation of archaeological sites, as it seems likely that there was a similar or possibly even greater degree of variation in the past as there is today. A further problem with archaeological food sharing is actually identifying it in the first place. Waguespack (2002, 367) states that the lack of visibility of archaeological food sharing means that identifying it is not straightforward. Enloe (2003, 6-7) describes some of the arguments for food sharing archaeologically as not being grounded in the archaeological record. The study of archaeological food sharing has been approached in two very distinct ways; Waguespack (2002) proposes a theoretical approach where the patterns of sharing behaviour are modelled and the model is compared to the archaeological record. While Enloe (2003) and Enloe and David (1992) consider the evidence of interactions between hearths from the spatial patterning of the site without attaching any theoretical model to these interactions. In order to interpret the food sharing practices at Pincevent a combination of these two approaches will be used. Firstly the pure data that Enloe (2003) has provided for food sharing at Pincevent will be compared with the data on the food sharing practices of the Nunamiut provided by Binford (1978). Secondly this data will be compared with Waguespack’s (2002) model for equal and unequal food sharing patterns.

The site at Pincevent in the Paris Basin is almost unique in the degree of preservation of bone, and the meticulous excavation and recording of the spatial distribution of the site (Enloe 2003, 11). It is this level of preservation that allows the identification of interactions between hearths such as the refitting of burnt stones that have been found to match between hearths (Leroi-Gourhan 1972, 225-227; Julien et al 1992), as well as the refitting of reindeer bones that has shown that food sharing actually took place (Enloe and David 1992, 299; Enloe 2003, 11).