Doctoral Dissertation Research: Archaeological investigation of foodways and social organization in the Americas

George Washington University, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation project will use archaeological plant and animal evidence to advance knowledge about how food was utilized, how food related to social organization, and more broadly, how sociopolitical complexity developed in the human past. The project will not only generate detailed data on faunal and botanical remains to advance archaeological theory, but will also provide time depth and comparative data for understanding modern societal challenges related to food and inequality. The project will support and strengthen international scientific collaborations and student training in STEM research. Public and community science outreach and conservation of local historical heritage will also be fostered through community and researcher collaborations. This project builds upon recent calls by scholars to develop a more social approach to the archaeological study of food practices, including consideration of the relationship between people and food in everyday and ritual settings within a social and cultural system. The investigators will address the relationship between food and social organization through a thorough analysis of exceptionally well-preserved faunal and botanical remains of an early village in the Mixteca Alta of Oaxaca, Mexico. The archaeological site of Etlatongois is temporally situated at the dawn of social complexity in the Oaxacan region of Mesoamerica, ca. 1000 BC. Zooarchaeological and paleoethnobotanical analyses will be carried out in one of the largest faunal and floral samples ever excavated for the region, in terms of volume of material pertaining to a single time period. The excellent preservation of the sample will also allow for the study of the comparative morphology of maize to better understand the development of this domesticate. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.