Diet and Social Stratification in Ancient Puerto Rico

Field Museum Of Natural History, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

With the support of the National Science Foundation, an interdisciplinary team of Puerto Rican and American archaeologists, physical anthropologists, and experts in bone chemistry will conduct eighteen months of research into the relationship between the development of social complexity and changes in human diet at four prehistoric Puerto Rican sites. The principal goal of this work is an increased understanding of the changes in the consumption of foodstuffs over time that may reflect broader transformations of society. At the time of European conquest, many of the indigenous peoples of Puerto Rico were organized in stratified societies that have been described by modern anthropologists as chiefdoms. These stratified societies had developed locally in Puerto Rico from earlier egalitarian groups through a series of socio-cultural changes that took place over more than 4000 years of occupation. While a great deal of research has been directed at understanding the causes and consequences of increasing social hierarchization in regions like Mesopotamia, Mexico, and the Andes, comparatively little effort has been expended on regions such as the Caribbean. The present study aims to address just one portion of the issues surrounding the development of social stratification in this traditionally under-studied region through the study of food, which in many societies is an excellent barometer of social difference (e.g., such as caviar and pheasants in Western cultures). This work will attempt to tease out changes in the patterns of food consumption through time, focusing on the elucidation of differences in diet between common people and a developing social elite. In order to accomplish these goals, a rigorous methodology for the study of prehistoric diets will be employed involving the analysis of a large sample (ca. 250 individuals) of human remains from the four sites. Diet will be analyzed at an individual level by means of the chemical analysis of the bones and possible foodstuffs. A technique called stable isotope analysis allows for the relatively precise discrimination of the diets of long-deceased individuals. The data derived from this analysis will be coupled with detailed archaeological information from the sites under analysis and will be rigorously chronologically controlled through the radiocarbon dating of all individuals under study. The intellectual merit of this project is twofold: First, it seeks to study the in situ development of social stratification in a part of the world that has traditionally received short shrift. Second, it attempts to track social change at the level of the individual, through the study of their diets, rather than using aggregate measures. This technique will allow for the production of much finer-grained data allowing for far more robust theory building and evaluation. The impacts of the present project will be felt on a broad scale first because the methodology employed will be able to be implemented in the study of other regions and societies, and second because the results of the study will be widely disseminated to both academic and lay constituencies. This project will assist in the training of both Puerto Rican and American (graduate and undergraduate) students and will facilitate further collaboration between Caribbeanists on one hand and American archaeologists on the other.