Anthro Lecture 8 2.12 Dr. Colclasure

The Archaeology of Food:

• What could someone learn abt you based on what you eat?
  • I'm American
  • I have a sweet tooth
  • I live in the modern day
  • I'm from Tennessee
  • I'm upper-middle-class
• Key Concepts:
  • Diet: food regularly consumed by an individual
    • Nutrition
    • Availability
    • Social and Culture Variables
  • Subsistence Strategy: how a group gets food
    • Hunting and gathering
    • Pastoralism: animals, nomadism
    • Horticulture: small-scale (gardening)
    • Agriculture: reliable on domesticated plants
    • Industrial Agriculture
  • Cuisine: a style of cooking associated w/a group of ppl
  • Foodways: encompasses the social, cultural, and economic dimensions of food
  • Learning about foodways:
    • Artwork
    • Written Records
    • Paleoethnobotony (archeobotany): study of seeds & other plant remains from archaeological sites
    • Zooarchaeology: study of animal bones and other remains from archaeological sites
    • Ceramic Analysis: study ceramics to learn about cooking, storage, and serving. Sometimes, chemical analysis can reveal what was once inside a vessel
    • Bioarchaeology: study of human bones and other biological materials from archaeological sites
    • Cultivating heat:
      • Were independently domesticated in Mexico, the Amazon, and the central Andes
      • Domestication: adaptation of a plant or animal from a wild or natural state (via selective breeding) to life in close association w/humans
      • Why chilis?
        • Capsacin evolved as a defense mechanism. The chemicals bind to pain receptors in mammals' mouths and throats. They're rich in Vitamin C but have little nutritional value otherwise
        • Chilis have flavor to food
        • Human brains released endorphins in response.
        • Chilis can be used medicinally and can help preserve food
      • How?
        • seeds are often preserved from samples of soil that are put though a process called "floatation"
        • Selective breeding changes features of the seeds to be more advantageous to collecting and sewing those seeds
        • Paleoethnobotanists can see how seeds change over time as they are subject to selective breeding
        • Paleoethnobotanists continue to refine our knowledge abt chili pepper cultivation over time using multiple lines of evidence
          • Ecological modelling: using computer modelling to recreate past climates to understand how ecological factors impacted cultivation
        • Seeds can tell us abt social change
          • seed size was affected by colonization due to disruption of indigenous foodways
    • Feasting in Cahokia:
      • Mississippians: Native American societies in the Midwestern, Eastern,, and Southeastern US from around 800-1600 AD
      • Archaeologists found evidence of large gatherings in the borrow pits ust outside Cahokia's Grand Plaza
      • Each layer represents a different large social gathering over time
        • Wide variety of plants and animals
          • Quinoa, Deer, pumpkin seeds, fish, squash, prairie chickens (high-status foods) etc.
        • Beads, craft supplies, stone tools, painted pottery, etc.
        • Cahokians had regular large social gatherings
        • Commensal politics: social relationships formed through shared meals. Food acts as a medium for expressing and negotiating power dynamics