Elements in the Archaeology of Food – serie

Due to the multi-faceted nature of food - as sustenance, symbol, and commodity - diverse theoretical perspectives have been used to study it in archaeology. One of the more influential and versatile of these approaches is behavioral ecology: the study of behavioral adaptation to local environments. Behavioral ecology provides a powerful body of theory for understanding human decision-making in both the past and present. This Element reviews what behavioral ecology is, how it has been used by archaeologists to study decision-making concerning food and subsistence, how it articulates with other ecological approaches, and how it can help us to better understand sustainability in our contemporary world. The use of behavioral ecology to bridge the archaeological and the contemporary can not only explain the roots of important behavioral processes, but provide potential policy solutions to promote a more sustainable society today.

This Element approaches large game hunting through a social and symbolic lens. In most societies, the hunting and consumption of certain iconic species carries deep symbolism and is surrounded by ritualized practices. However, the form of these rituals and symbols varies substantially. The Element explores some recurring themes associated with hunting and eating game, such as gender, prestige, and generosity, and trace how these play out in the context of egalitarian versus hierarchical societies, foragers versus farmers, and in different parts of the world. Once people start herding domestic livestock, hunting takes on a new significance as an engagement with what is now defined as the Wild. Foragers do not make this distinction, but their interactions with prey animals are also heavily symbolic. As societies become more stratified, hunting large animals may be partly or entirely reserved for the elite, and hunting practices are elaborated to display and build power.

This Element provides an overview of food and foodways in Ancient China, from the earliest humans (~500k BP) up to its historical beginnings: the foundation of the Zhou dynasty (at the start of the 1st millennium BCE). While textual data provides insights on food and diet during China's historical periods, archaeological data is the main source for studying the deep past and reconstructing what people ate, how they ate and with whom they ate it. This Element introduces the plants and animals that formed the building blocks of ancient diets and cuisines, as well as how they created localized lifeways and unifying constructs across ancient China. Foodways, how food was grown, prepared and consumed, was central in the development of differing social, economic and political realities, as it shaped ritual and burial practices, differentiated ethnic groups, solidified community ties and deepened or assuaged social inequalities.

This Element provides an overview of food and foodways in Ancient China, from the earliest humans (~500k BP) up to its historical beginnings: the foundation of the Zhou dynasty (at the start of the 1st millennium BCE). While textual data provides insights on food and diet during China's historical periods, archaeological data is the main source for studying the deep past and reconstructing what people ate, how they ate and with whom they ate it. This Element introduces the plants and animals that formed the building blocks of ancient diets and cuisines, as well as how they created localized lifeways and unifying constructs across ancient China. Foodways, how food was grown, prepared and consumed, was central in the development of differing social, economic and political realities, as it shaped ritual and burial practices, differentiated ethnic groups, solidified community ties and deepened or assuaged social inequalities.

Due to the multi-faceted nature of food - as sustenance, symbol, and commodity - diverse theoretical perspectives have been used to study it in archaeology. One of the more influential and versatile of these approaches is behavioral ecology: the study of behavioral adaptation to local environments. Behavioral ecology provides a powerful body of theory for understanding human decision-making in both the past and present. This Element reviews what behavioral ecology is, how it has been used by archaeologists to study decision-making concerning food and subsistence, how it articulates with other ecological approaches, and how it can help us to better understand sustainability in our contemporary world. The use of behavioral ecology to bridge the archaeological and the contemporary can not only explain the roots of important behavioral processes, but provide potential policy solutions to promote a more sustainable society today.

The advent of urbanism had profound impacts on landscape management, agricultural production, food preservation, and cuisine. This Element examines the 6,000-year history of urbanism through the archaeological perspective of food, using the analysis of cooking and eating vessels, botanical remains, and animal bones along with texts and iconographic evidence to understand the foodways that spurred and accompanied the growth of cities. Human-environmental changes took place as farmers became fewer in number but increasingly essential as providers of food for city-based consumers. The Element also examines the ways in which cities today share patterns of food production and consumption with the first urban settlements, and that we can address questions of sustainability, nutritional improvement, and other desired outcomes by recognizing how the growth of cities has resulted in distinct constraints and opportunities related to food.

The advent of urbanism had profound impacts on landscape management, agricultural production, food preservation, and cuisine. This Element examines the 6,000-year history of urbanism through the archaeological perspective of food, using the analysis of cooking and eating vessels, botanical remains, and animal bones along with texts and iconographic evidence to understand the foodways that spurred and accompanied the growth of cities. Human-environmental changes took place as farmers became fewer in number but increasingly essential as providers of food for city-based consumers. The Element also examines the ways in which cities today share patterns of food production and consumption with the first urban settlements, and that we can address questions of sustainability, nutritional improvement, and other desired outcomes by recognizing how the growth of cities has resulted in distinct constraints and opportunities related to food.

Anthropologists have struggled with the concept of the food taboo for over a century; and archaeologists struggle with detecting them in the material signatures of the past. Yet by recognizing that ancient peoples must have followed taboos, some of which may have persisted for thousands of years, we gain insight into how cultural traditions shaped the ways in which people ate and interacted with their environments. This Element concerns food and the cultural structures that surround it. It provides an overview of the history and anthropological understandings of food taboos, and offers critical engagement with the current archaeological method and theory investigating these. Archaeological case studies, including the pig taboo in Judaism and ethnoarchaeological analysis of various mammalian taboos among the Nukak of Amazonia, shed light on the difficulties and prospects of studying food taboos in the material record.

Anthropologists have struggled with the concept of the food taboo for over a century; and archaeologists struggle with detecting them in the material signatures of the past. Yet by recognizing that ancient peoples must have followed taboos, some of which may have persisted for thousands of years, we gain insight into how cultural traditions shaped the ways in which people ate and interacted with their environments. This Element concerns food and the cultural structures that surround it. It provides an overview of the history and anthropological understandings of food taboos, and offers critical engagement with the current archaeological method and theory investigating these. Archaeological case studies, including the pig taboo in Judaism and ethnoarchaeological analysis of various mammalian taboos among the Nukak of Amazonia, shed light on the difficulties and prospects of studying food taboos in the material record.