The Archaeology Of Food

Surveys the archaeology of food: its methods and its themes (economics, politics, status, identity, gender, ethnicity, ritual, religion).

What are the origins of agriculture? In what ways have technological advances related to food affected human development? How have food and foodways been used to create identity, communicate meaning, and organize society? In this highly readable, illustrated volume, archaeologists and other scholars from across the globe explore these questions and more. The Archaeology of Food offers more than 250 entries spanning geographic and temporal contexts and features recent discoveries alongside the results of decades of research. The contributors provide overviews of current knowledge and theoretical perspectives, raise key questions, and delve into myriad scientific, archaeological, and material analyses to add depth to our understanding of food. The encyclopedia serves as a reference for scholars and students in archaeology, food studies, and related disciplines, as well as fascinating reading for culinary historians, food writers, and food and archaeology enthusiasts.

Introduction : The Social Life of Food -- Part I. Laying the Groundwork -- Framing Food Investigation -- The Practices of a Meal in Society -- Part II. Current Food Studies in Archaeology -- The Archaeological Study of Food Activities -- Food Economics -- Food Politics : Power and Status -- Part III. Food and Identity : The Potentials of Food Archaeology -- Food in the Construction of Group Identity -- The Creation of Personal Identity : Food, Body and Personhood -- Food Creates Society

This volume examines the commensal politics of early states and empires and offers a comparative perspective on how food and feasting have figured in the political calculus of archaic states in both the Old and New Worlds. It provides a cross-cultural and comparative analysis for scholars and graduate students concerned with the archaeology of complex societies, the anthropology of food and feasting, ancient statecraft, archaeological approaches to micro-political processes, and the social interpretation of prehistoric pottery.

The chapters in this topically and methodologically diverse volume discuss the role food plays in the construction and maintenance of multiple levels of social identity; they also illustrate the myriad ways in which archaeologists may approach the issue. The book includes essays from archaeologists working in a wide range of time periods and areas: prehistorians and historical archaeologists, specialists in the Old World, and experts on the New World. Contributors use diverse data sets to discuss how food-procurement strategies, consumption patterns, and modes of cooking and dining are intertwined with the construction and maintenance of individual and group identities.

An archaeological study of African American foodways in nineteenth-century Annapolis In Eating in the Side Room, Mark Warner uses the archaeological data of food remains recovered from excavations in Annapolis, Maryland, and the Chesapeake to show how African Americans established identity in the face of pervasive racism and marginalization. By studying the meat purchasing habits of two African American families—the Maynards and the Burgesses—Warner skillfully demonstrates that while African Americans were actively participating in a growing mass consumer society, their food choices subtly yet unequivocally separated them from white society. The "side rooms" where the two families ate their meals not only satisfied their hunger but also their need to maintain autonomy from an oppressive culture. As a result, Warner claims, the independence that African Americans practiced during this time helped prepare their children and grandchildren to overcome persistent challenges of white oppression.  Publication of the paperback edition made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The archaeologies of food and warfare have independently developed over the past several decades. This volume aims to provide concrete linkages between these research topics through the examination of case studies worldwide. Topics considered within the book include: the impacts of warfare on the daily food quest, warfare and nutritional health, ritual foodways and violence, the provisioning of warriors and armies, status-based changes in diet during times of war, logistical constraints on military campaigns, and violent competition over subsistence resources. The diversity of perspectives included in this volume may be a product of new ways of conceptualizing violence—not simply as an isolated component of a society, nor as an attribute of a particular societal type—but instead as a transformative process that is lived and irrevocably alters social, economic, and political organization and relationships. This book highlights this transformative process by presenting a cross-cultural perspective on the connection between war and food through the inclusion of case studies from several continents.

The Prehistory of Food sets subsistence in its social context by focusing on food as a cultural artefact. It brings together contributors with a scientific and biological expertise as well as those interested in the patterns of consumption and social change, and includes a wide range of case studies.