Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Subsistence in Developing Cities

Trustees Of Boston University, Boston

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation project will examine the role of animals in the urban economy of a large, pre-modern city in order to further understanding of how urban food economies relate to social organization and wealth inequalities. Systems of food production and distribution are closely tied to the economic organization and social structure of a society, and can serve to reinforce social inequalities, particularly in cities in which many households do not directly produce their own food. Archaeology is ideally situated to investigate the many ways in which food systems contributed to urban developments in the world's earliest cities, providing a unique perspective that can inform on the potential impacts of today's growing urban populations. This project will provide a comparative data on one aspect of the food system from an important pre-modern city, foster international and interdisciplinary collaboration, and engage in public outreach within the research area. This research examines the role of animals in the urban economy of a pre-modern city that is a vital case study in understanding the relationships between food production, urban economies and the development of social inequalities. Teotihuacan (100-550/650 CE), located in central highland Mexico, was a large, diverse city and is unique in the ancient world as a city that was provisioned in the absence of large domesticates, and one that was able to do so in a way that supported its everyday urban residents. The research will evaluate how urban and rural residents of Teotihuacan acquired animals, and the role of hunting and raising animals to the urban economy. To evaluate multiple trajectories of change over time, this study presents an innovative integration of zooarchaeological analysis, to identify the types of animals consumed by residents, and carbon stable isotope analysis to distinguish animals from natural environments, and those which lived in anthropogenic environments, such as agricultural fields or animal pens. In addition, this research employs zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS), a new technique for the identification of faunal remains based on collagen peptide fingerprints, to overcome limitations in the morphological identification of animal bones. 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.