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Big Pots for Big Shots: Feasting and Storage in a Mississippian Community
Abstract
In small-scale societies, ritual feasts are often an important setting for social integration and status competition. Material evidence of feasting and food storage may be preserved in community ceremonial precincts, such as platform mounds. To identify food-consumption activities, ceramic samples from mound and village contexts at the prehistoric Lubbub Creek site in Alabama are compared. There are no significant differences in the distribution of decorated types, ware categories, or vessel shapes. However, the mound has a more restricted range of vessel sizes and disproportionately larger vessels than the village sample. These results, together with supporting feature and faunal data, suggest that mound activities included large-group feasts and food storage.
... The functional analysis focused on the morphological characteristics-such as vessel shape, size, and surface treatment-that could shed light on vessel functions and relate the archaeological ceramics to past foodways (e.g., Blitz 1993;Hally 1986;Pauketat 1987;Skibo 2013). It should, however, be pointed out that in Eastern Bantuspeaking societies, ceramics are more than functional food containers. ...
... Large vessels, such as those from the Zhizo deposit at TSR4 and the Leokwe deposit at TSR6, were probably used for cooking for and serving larger consumption groups (see Mills 1999;Schapiro 1984). However, only a few of these larger vessels were recorded and using more regular-size vessels to cater for a large group may have been more common (Blitz 1993). Vessel size variation in and between use contexts can also signal a wide range of food-related activities, including different storage and preparation needs. ...
... TSR3 and TSR4 (both Zhizo deposits) have the largest variety of different vessel shapes, and these may have been spaces where a diversity of foodrelated activities took place (see Blitz 1993). The proportion of unburnished vessels at TSR3 is high, suggesting a similar pattern of household activities as TSR2. ...
Foods and foodways are closely connected to social processes and activities. The functions of ceramic vessels in transporting, storing, processing, and serving food are tied to these social processes. Vessel functions can thus provide direct evidence of social activities. This article presents the results of a functional analysis of ceramic vessels from Schroda, a tenth- to eleventh-century farming settlement located in the middle Limpopo Valley, South Africa. Physical attributes such as vessel form, size, surface treatment, and sooting are considered in conjunction with ethnographic sources and comparative archaeological data to identify vessel functions and how these might relate to different activity areas across the site. Continuity and change in vessel use between the site’s Zhizo- and Leokwe-phase deposits are also discussed.
... Archaeologists working in the Mississippi period (AD 1000-1550) of southeastern North America have considered the social status of participants to be an especially important dimension of feasting variability. Discussions of small-scale, exclusive elite feasting and large-scale, elite-sponsored feasting emphasize the agency of a few high-ranking members of society, while recognizing the provisioner role played by nonelite people (Blitz 1993;Jackson and Scott 1995;Welch and Scarry 1995). Others point to the importance of communal eating events or feasts for establishing social ties across class lines, maintaining social cohesion within Mississippian communities, or expressing a common social identity (Maxham 2000;Pauketat et al. 2002;Scarry and Steponaitis 1997;VanDerwarker et al. 2007). ...
... Recent excavations in Parchman Place's residential areas provide ceramic samples from discrete deposits that can be used to investigate food-related practices. We used Hally's (1984Hally's ( , 1986) work on Mississippi period pottery assemblages from northern Georgia as a framework for understanding contemporary domestic assemblages, which typically included vessels of various shapes and sizes that correspond with ethnographically observed food storage, preparation, cooking, and serving practices of the descendants of Mississippian people (see also Blitz 1993;Boudreaux 2010;Pauketat 1987;Wilson and Rodning 2002). Nondomestic or special-use pottery assemblages differed from domestic pottery assemblages in a number of ways. ...
... Frequently, they lacked the full range of vessel sizes that characterize domestic assemblages. Deposits containing a high proportion of large vessels are often interpreted as debris from eating events involving many people or elite members of society (e.g., Blitz 1993;Boudreaux 2010:27;Wallis and Blessing 2015:7). Conversely, assemblages containing high proportions of small vessels have been interpreted as evidence for food-related activities focused on small groups (e.g., Boudreaux 2010:27). ...
Communal eating events or feasts were important activities associated with the founding and maintenance of Mississippian communities in the southeastern United States. More often than not, however, archaeological deposits of food refuse are interpreted along a spectrum, with household-level consumption at one end and community-wide feasting at the other. Here, we draw attention to the important ways that domestic food practices contributed to social events and processes at the community level. We examine ceramic, botanical, and faunal assemblages from two fourteenth-century contexts at Parchman Place (22CO511), a Late Mississippi period site in the northern Yazoo Basin. For the earlier deposit, everyday ceramics and plant foods combined with high-utility deer portions and exotic birds suggest potluck-style feasting meant to bring people together in the context of establishing a community in place. We interpret the later deposit, with its pure ash matrix, focus on serving wares, and purposeful disposal of edible maize and animal remains, as the result of activities related to maize harvest ceremonialism. Both practices suggest that household contributions in general and disposal of domestic food refuse in particular are critical yet underappreciated venues for creating and maintaining community ties in the Mississippian Southeast.
... Como lo han indicado Dietler y Hayden, es importante diferenciar el consumo comunal del "consumo diario doméstico y del simple intercambio de alimentos sin consumo comunal [traducción del autor]" (Dietler y Hayden 2001:3). Grandes cantidades de alimentos, grandes e inusuales cantidades de vasijas para cocinar y servir de tamaño grande, ítems exóticos y parafernalia narcótica, en conjunto, son indicadores de festines (Blitz 1993;DeBoer 2001;Dietler y Herbich 2001;Hayden 2001;Mills 1999;Potter 2000;Rosenswig 2007). ...
... Los cuencos son vasijas para servir, que pueden ser utilizadas tanto para alimentos sólidos, como para líquidos (DeBoer 2001;Lumbreras 2005). Las ollas sin cuello pueden ser utilizadas para cocinar o para almacenar (Blitz 1993;Lumbreras 2005). Los cuencos poseen bordes no restrictos, lo cual es importante, ya que "los vasijas no restrictas son ventajosas no solamente al momento de retirar los contenidos, sino al momento de colocarlos al interior de la vasija [traducción del autor]" (Rice 1987:241). ...
... Los festines auspiciados pueden servir como ambientes en los cuales el ritual y conocimiento es controlado e incluso manipulado. Las frecuencias de jarras identificadas en el basural del sector Wacheqsa, sugieren que al mismo tiempo que se consumían grandes cantidades de alimentos, se libaban abundantes bebidas, probablemente alcohólicas, ya que este tipo de bebidas es omnipresente en festines supracomunales (Blitz 1993;DeBoer 200;Dietler y Hayden 2001;Hayden 1995;Jennings 2005;Jennings et al. 2005;Potter 2000), siendo la chicha de maíz el candidato más idóneo. Las jarras son recipientes más apropiados para líquidos, ya que presentan cuellos y bordes restrictos, los cuales son útiles para mantener los contenidos al interior de la vasija y están especialmente adaptados para contener brebajes (Rice 1987). ...
Feasts have been understood as the locus of different types of interactions between various segments of the social sphere. Sponsored feasts at the supra-household level can provide information regarding the relationship between those who hosted the feasts and those who attended them. This paper presents evidence for supra-household feasts, retrieved from a large, stratified midden excavated at the site of Chavín de Huántar that dates to the Late Formative period (800-500 BC) in the Central Andes. I first analyze the formal characteristics of the midden deposits, and then examine variation in vessel types and frequencies, faunal remains, narcotic paraphernalia, and exotic items. Finally, I discuss the implications of supra-household feasts in the context of Andean ceremonialism and power strategies during the Central Andes Late Formative period.
... Costly signaling occurs in the context of competition for mates or adherents and so indirectly affects reproductive success or survival; this occurs in the shorter term compared with bet hedging (Aranyosi 1999;Hayden 1998) and requires an audience to receive the signal. Feasting, which has been proposed as having been a major mound-related activity in the region in the Mississippian period (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993bJackson and Scott 1995), is one form of costly signaling. Large-scale feasts would have involved preparation and consumption of quantities of foodstuffs that required large vessels, such as those the final use of which was as burial urns. ...
... This, plus the substantial amount of food they could hold, might indicate use on special occasions such as feasts. The hypothesis also predicts that vessels would have been discarded in the context of feasting, which has been argued to have occurred on Mississippian mounds in the Southeast (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993bJackson and Scott 1995;Kelly 2001;Scott and Jackson 1998). Concerning the single-mound Lubbub Creek site on the Tombigbee River in western Alabama, John Blitz argued that mound-related feasting was in evidence based on vessel size comparisons between mound and village refuse (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993b. ...
... The hypothesis also predicts that vessels would have been discarded in the context of feasting, which has been argued to have occurred on Mississippian mounds in the Southeast (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993bJackson and Scott 1995;Kelly 2001;Scott and Jackson 1998). Concerning the single-mound Lubbub Creek site on the Tombigbee River in western Alabama, John Blitz argued that mound-related feasting was in evidence based on vessel size comparisons between mound and village refuse (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993b. The measure of vessel size used was orifice diameter. ...
Large ceramic vessels used as burial urns occasionally have been found in Late Mississippian/protohistoric contexts in Alabama and Mississippi. Ethnohistorical documents suggest that large vessels were used for cooking in a domestic context. A systematic examination of three urns from east-central Mississippi shows multiple uses prior to their final deposition with burials. Vessel size analysis of a temporal sequence of sherds from midden contexts used sherd thickness and curvature data to show that large vessels became more common. Three explanations are examined to better understand the use of large vessels during this time: bet hedging, costly signaling, and changing technology. The results confirm the use of burial urns in domestic contexts before their final use as interment containers, making technological change the most viable of the three hypotheses.
... Como lo han indicado Dietler y Hayden, es importante diferenciar el consumo comunal del "consumo diario doméstico y del simple intercambio de alimentos sin consumo comunal [traducción del autor]" (Dietler y Hayden 2001:3). Grandes cantidades de alimentos, grandes e inusuales cantidades de vasijas para cocinar y servir de tamaño grande, ítems exóticos y parafernalia narcótica, en conjunto, son indicadores de festines (Blitz 1993;DeBoer 2001;Dietler y Herbich 2001;Hayden 2001;Mills 1999;Potter 2000;Rosenswig 2007). ...
... Los cuencos son vasijas para servir, que pueden ser utilizadas tanto para alimentos sólidos, como para líquidos (DeBoer 2001;Lumbreras 2005). Las ollas sin cuello pueden ser utilizadas para cocinar o para almacenar (Blitz 1993;Lumbreras 2005). Los cuencos poseen bordes no restrictos, lo cual es importante, ya que "los vasijas no restrictas son ventajosas no solamente al momento de retirar los contenidos, sino al momento de colocarlos al interior de la vasija [traducción del autor]" (Rice 1987:241). ...
... Los festines auspiciados pueden servir como ambientes en los cuales el ritual y conocimiento es controlado e incluso manipulado. Las frecuencias de jarras identificadas en el basural del sector Wacheqsa, sugieren que al mismo tiempo que se consumían grandes cantidades de alimentos, se libaban abundantes bebidas, probablemente alcohólicas, ya que este tipo de bebidas es omnipresente en festines supracomunales (Blitz 1993;DeBoer 200;Dietler y Hayden 2001;Hayden 1995;Jennings 2005;Jennings et al. 2005;Potter 2000), siendo la chicha de maíz el candidato más idóneo. Las jarras son recipientes más apropiados para líquidos, ya que presentan cuellos y bordes restrictos, los cuales son útiles para mantener los contenidos al interior de la vasija y están especialmente adaptados para contener brebajes (Rice 1987). ...
Feasts have been understood as the locus of different types of interactions between various segments of the social sphere. Sponsored feasts at the supra-household level can provide information regarding the relationship between those who hosted the feasts and those who attended them. This paper presents evidence for supra-household feasts, retrieved from a large, stratified midden exca-vated at the site of Chavín de Huántar that dates to the Late Formative period (800-500 BC) in the Central Andes. I first analyze the formal characteristics of the midden deposits, and then examine variation in vessel types and frequencies, faunal remains, narcotic paraphernalia, and exotic items. Finally, I discuss the implications of supra-household feasts in the context of Andean ceremonialism and power strategies during the Central Andes Late Formative period.
... Analyses based on the optimization and maximization of energy and nutrition were challenged as projecting current cultural values onto past peoples (Hamilakis 1999), and scholars turned increasingly toward investigations of food's historically and culturally specific roles and meanings. In the U.S., historical archaeologists initiated the field; perihistorians and scholars working in areas with extended cultural continuity followed; prehistorians entered the field last (Blitz 1993;Crader 1990;Hastorf 1991;McKee 1999;Miracle 2002;Schulz and Gust 1983). In the U.K., the Late Bronze and Iron Ages were early foci of study (Parker Pearson 2003, p. 3). ...
... Other researchers emphasize that while one motive may be primary, all feasts simultaneously involve both social integration (via shared participation) and competition for social capital (via differential donations, service, seating, behavior, etc.) (Clarke 2001;Dietler 2001;Hamilakis 2008;Joyce 2010;Twiss 2008). These different conceptions of feasting are apparent in discussions of feasting's possible role in the origins of agriculture or of specific domestications (Hayden 2003;Twiss 2008) and in the origins of social complexity (Blitz 1993;Pauketat et al. 2002;Rosenswig 2007). Some of these studies attribute the changes to explicitly competitive feasting (Hayden 1990(Hayden , 2003. ...
... The literature on food storage and economic differentiation includes discussions of trade relationships (Mylona 2008, p. 88) and political economics (Blitz 1993;Earle and D'Altroy 1982;Margomenou 2008), but much of it focuses on the size of a society's basal economic unit, a topic that comprises both the extent of socioeconomic fragmentation within a group and the extent to which economic differences can be masked. The premise in these studies is that with private storage, households individually assume the risks and rewards of production; they also are able to conceal their wealth (i.e., their food supply) from their neighbors, easing obfuscation of interhousehold economic differentiation Young 1997, p. 25). ...
This article reviews current archaeological research on the interactions between food and intrasocietal diversity. Today’s archaeology of food and diversity is theoretically diverse but generally views food as biologically necessary and cognitively prominent material culture that plays an active role in constructing and negotiating social distinctions. Areal foci in the literature include Europe, Southwest Asia, Mesoamerica, the U.S. Southwest, and the Andes; thematic emphases include economic, status, ethnic, gender, and religious distinctions. Methodological issues that must be considered when assessing the social implications of food remains include not only the contexts and characters of specific samples but also the integration of multiple data sets that may all differ with respect to their taphonomic histories and the aspects of food behavior they reflect.
... Another aspect of the Shields study is the examination of the nature of a St. Johns II ritual/ceremonial assemblage and the comparison of the ceramic contents of five isolated middens with the surrounding low-shell areas. Investigations of ceremonial assemblages from the American southwest and the Mississippian heartland have focused on refuse density, concentrations of unusual forms and size classes, or purposefully constructed special event middens (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993bBunzell 1972;Mills 1999;Pluckhahn 2002;Kelly 1938;Renfrew 2001;Stark 1999;Toll 2001;Walker 2001;Wills 2001;Windes 1987:561-617). Increased scale or density of ceramic and faunal discard recovered in isolated or layered constructions are used to infer large aggregations. ...
... Ranges and concentrations of bowl sizes (small, medium, or large) also contribute the interpretation of domestic or feasting discard. Not only increased numbers of individual serving (open or simple) bowl forms, but also the presence of larger-sized vessels implies aggregations of guests whose collective appetites could be more efficiently allayed by using over-sized cooking pots (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993bDeal 1998:192;DeBoer 2001:223-230;Hally 1986;Kelly 2001;Mills 1986Mills , 1999Steponaitis 1983;Wills 2001;Windes 1987 [These studies also distinguish cooking from water or storage containers and report greater percentages of pottery than are normally recovered from domestic contexts]). Unequal distribution of large-sized vessels has also been used to determine focal gathering spots within the broader site. ...
... River basin continued much later that previously thought (Ashley 2003a;Stephenson 2003). Formal and stylistic attributes imply efficiency or ineffectiveness regarding use as storage, processing, cooking, and serving vessels (Arnold 1999;Blitz 1993a;Cordell 2001;Costin 1999;Deal 1998;Hally 1984Hally , 1986Mills 1999;Sassaman 1993;Skibo 1992;Steponaitis 1983;Stoltman 1999). For example, globular vessels are constructed with a restricted orifice that is highly effective in containing material but restricts access. ...
This thesis presents a detailed analysis of a St. Johns II (A.D. 900-1250) ceramic assemblage recovered from the Shields site in extreme northeastern Florida. The ceramic assemblage was recovered from activity areas immediately north and northwest of the Shields burial mound (8DU12). The study collection is comprised of two pottery types: the St. Johns and Ocmulgee III series. St. Johns ceramics represent the local tradition and Ocmulgee pottery was originally produced in south-central Georgia near the confluences of the Ocmulgee, Oconee, and Altamaha rivers. This mixed assemblage offers the opportunity to explore the maintenance of pottery traditions (i.e., paste construction, formal and stylistic characteristics). The study also examines the possible roles of pottery at this ritual/ceremonial site as well as the roles of St. Johns and Ocmulgee women potters who, through the steadfast recreation of traditional pottery vessels, reinforced and reproduced cultural identity while engaging in long distance and long-term interaction. The construction of traditional vessels was not a fragile concept to the women of this area, for, through 350 years of exchange, trade, probable intermarriage, and alliance, distinct pottery traditions persisted.
... Mississippian researchers have used a similar notion of centralized surpluses to underlay most models of chiefdom development (Anderson 1994(Anderson , 1996Emerson 1997;King 2003;Pauketat 1994;Peebles and Kus 1977;Steponaitis 1978;Welch 1991). Recently, however, some have questioned the claim that elites in the Mississippian Southeast ever took control over economic resources (Muller 1997), and others have called for closer examination of the processes and organization of production, labor, and the subsequent flow of surpluses that embodied prehistoric political economies (Blitz 1993a; Cobb 1996Cobb , 2000Pauketat 2004;Saitta 1994). ...
... In a study of the Lubbub Creek chiefdom, Blitz (1993aBlitz ( , 1993b looked for evidence of feasting events and food storage. By comparing ceramic assemblages from mound and village contexts, he was able to show there were no differences in vessel types and shapes between the two contexts. ...
... In a study of the Lubbub Creek chiefdom, Blitz (1993aBlitz ( , 1993b looked for evidence of feasting events and food storage. By comparing ceramic assemblages from mound and village contexts, he was able to show there were no differences in vessel types and shapes between the two contexts. ...
Typescript. Thesis (M.A.)--University of Alabama, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-90).
... Pottery, one of the ubiquitous of household artifacts, provides another means to that established methods. Technically, some researches associate social status to ceramic vessel size (Blitz 1993), style/decoration (Pauketat and Emerson 1991), volume (Nelson 1981), and quantity of vessel types and forms (Cowgill;Altschul, and Sload 1984); however, most important ceramic vessels, in fact, are regarded the means (Braun 1983) that are used to process foods, which vary in cost and availability. There are also many studies that were designed mainly to demonstrate the cross-cultural use of food, especially luxury or highcost foods, as a social status marker (Blitz 1993). ...
... Technically, some researches associate social status to ceramic vessel size (Blitz 1993), style/decoration (Pauketat and Emerson 1991), volume (Nelson 1981), and quantity of vessel types and forms (Cowgill;Altschul, and Sload 1984); however, most important ceramic vessels, in fact, are regarded the means (Braun 1983) that are used to process foods, which vary in cost and availability. There are also many studies that were designed mainly to demonstrate the cross-cultural use of food, especially luxury or highcost foods, as a social status marker (Blitz 1993). ...
The recent decade witnessed a remarkable development in the field study of ethnoarchaeological ceramic, as more sophisticated reading has been presented with the framework of social theories and analyses and held multiple variables and different levels of mutability as a way to present a thoughtful understanding of social boundaries. The progressive stage of sequential development is included in the perception of ceramic changes, attached to technological changes, ceramic use, distribution, and social limitations. A number of Malaysian and Southeast Asian studies have coupled with culture and technical framework to examine manufacture variability, the dynamics of culture transformation among generation, and from another hand, the articulation between ceramic technology and social networks. The present article is a theoretical review of ethnoarchaeological issues conducted mainly to remedy ceramic issues within the cultural view. Such a study is an interactive part reflecting on the previous studies presented in the scope of ethnoarchaeology. The course aims to review several cultural issues that emerged in the ceramic field and link them to the influential external factors that cause the formation of several ceramic technologies. The current study contributes to the present social understanding of material culture and society from ethnoarchaeological perspective.
... Studies of feasting have been a productive part of research that examines the development and expression of social relations and integrative practices and institutions in complex societies (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993bDietler 1996;Dietler and Hayden 2001;Hayden 1996;LeCount 2001;VanDerwarker 1999;VanDerwarker et al. 2007;Welch and Scarry 1995). ...
... Studies of feasting have been a productive part of research that examines the development and expression of social relations and integrative practices and institutions in complex societies (Blitz 1993a(Blitz , 1993bDietler 1996;Dietler and Hayden 2001;Hayden 1996;LeCount 2001;VanDerwarker 1999;VanDerwarker et al. 2007;Welch and Scarry 1995). ...
This dissertation examines the development of the Washausen mound and village settlement in west-central Illinois, which was occupied during the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. Results from a high-resolution geophysical survey as well as from excavations, artifact analyses, and radiocarbon dating provide information on how large farming villages were organized just prior to initial rapid growth of the massive Mississippian center of Cahokia. Casey Barrier presents a regional demographic trajectory demonstrating that large villages like Washausen formed through an ongoing process of population aggregations and dispersals by migrating residential groups. By taking a community-based approach informed by political-economic theories on kin-based agricultural societies, Barrier shows how coalesced corporate groups created new institutions that favored the development of larger nucleated settlements and regional integration.
... Adams 2004;Arthur 2003;Clarke 2001;Dietler andHerbich 2001, 2006;Hayden 2003;Wiessner and Tumu 1998). Recently, a growing body of archaeological studies has begun to demonstrate the deep antiquity of feasting and its historical significance, in cases ranging from the ancient Near East and Egypt (Benz and Wächtler 2006;Pollock 2003;Schmandt-Besserat 2001;Smith 2003) to South, Central, and North America (Blitz 1993;Bray 2003b;Brown 2001;Clark and Blake 1994;Goldstein 2003;Jennings 2005;Kelly 2001;Knight 2001;Lau 2002;LeCount 2001;Mills 2004Mills , 2007Morris 1979;Phillips and Sebastian 2004;Potter 2000;Potter and Ortman 2004;Rosenswig 2007;Smith et al. 2003), prehistoric Europe (Benz and Gramsch 2006;Dietler 1990Dietler , 1996Dietler , 1999Dietler , 2006bMüller 2006;Ralph 2005;Wright 2004), South-east and East Asia (Junker 1999;Nelson 2003) and beyond. ...
... Given the scale and frequent ostentation of state-or elite-sponsored feasting, this is likely to be the form most immediately visible to archaeologists. But feasting is also a feature of social practice at other levels of these same state societies, often in different forms, and it is equally crucial to political action in societies without social classes, centralized political structures, or formal political roles (see Blitz 1993;Clark and Blake 1994;Dietler 1990Dietler , 1996Dietler , 2001Dietler and Hayden 2001;Hayden 1990Hayden , 1996Hayden , 2001Hayden , 2003Potter 2000;Mills 2004;Sadr 2004). Understanding the ways feasting operates in these diverse contexts requires moving beyond examination of general structural roles to explore the dynamic nature of feasts as privileged ritual sites of micro-political and economic practice and the implications this has for social change. ...
Food and drink have an especially prominent place in ritual and religion because they are 'embodied material culture'. That is, they are material objects produced specifically to be destroyed by a form of consumption that involves ingestion into the human body. Feasting and fasting are two alternative ways to mobilize the symbolic power of food and drink, through either ritualized commensal consumption or refusal of consumption. Although ethnographic and historical research has shown that both practices are common in societies around the world and throughout history, the archaeological visibility of fasting is far more limited than that of feasting. This undoubtedly explains why the surge of recent interest by archaeologists in feasting has not been accompanied by a similar pursuit of fasting. This article examines the symbolic logic and material basis of both practices through a theoretical discussion based upon comparative ethnographic and historical data.
... As an interpretive rubric, feasting has been used to analyze some of our discipline's most significant and enduring questions: the push-pull factors in agricultural adoption and intensification; the effects of transforming necessary activities such as eating into symbolic events; and the rise of social complexity as emerging elites use food to define and emphasize status (e.g., Adams 2004;Blitz 1993;Bray 2002;Dietler 1996Dietler , 2001Dietler and Hayden 2001a;Gremillion 2011;Hayden 2001Hayden , 2003Hayden , 2009Helwing 2003;Klarich 2010;Koch 2003;LeCount 2001;Mills 2004Mills , 2007Pollock 2012;Porter 2011;Zori et al. 2013). Indeed, the vast amount of literature on feasting in archaeology might suggest that there is very little that could possibly be added to the repertoire of analysis. ...
... 167, 170). Although archaeologists often presume that larger-than-quotidian serving vessels are an important hallmark of feasting (e.g., Blitz 1993), attention also should be paid to the serving dishes (such as bowls and drinking vessels) used by individual guests. Large serving vessels may be a risky strategy for hosts, particularly if the food runs out or is insufficient to actually fill the dishes. ...
Archaeologists often interpret the physical evidence for large-scale consumption of food and beverages as the remains of feasts that successfully enhanced personal reputations, consolidated power, or ensured community solidarity. However, ethnographic accounts illustrate the potential for “feast failure”: people may or may not contribute, may or may not come to the feast, may or may not be satisfied, and may or may not repay the feast-giver in labor or obeisance. Because they involve so many logistical and material components before, during, and after the event, feasts almost always exhibit some shortcomings. These failures paradoxically provide both hosts and guests the opportunity to demonstrate their managerial skills, a factor that would have been increasingly important with the development of multiple and overlapping groups at the inception of social complexity. The use of failure-prone events as testing grounds for social integration also may explain the increased amount and diversity of feasting behavior over time.
... baskets, pots, pits, silos) and material (e.g. leather, stone, clay, wood) (Blitz 1993;Stopp 2002;Atalay and Hastorf 2006;Sakaguchi 2009); and (c) different locations within or near housing structures (e.g. dedicated storage bins and rooms) (Byrd 2002;Atalay and Hastorf 2006;Kuijt 2008;Kuijt and Finlayson 2009;Kuijt 2011) or at a distance from any settlement (e.g. ...
... Alternatively, another common food source, such as stands of fruit trees and cereals, could be harvested through cooperative seasonal gatherings, also involving cooperation for processing and storing foodstuff, to be consumed in common feasting ceremonies throughout the year (e.g. Blitz 1993;Twiss 2008). We considered that this approach can represent a broad variety of trajectories in terms of food-related cooperative behaviour and sharing (Bahuchet 1990;Shelach 2006;Carballo et al. 2014). ...
A consistent access to food is paramount for humans at individual and group level. Besides providing the basic nutritional needs, access to food defines social structures and has stimulated innovation in food procurement, processing and storage. We focus on the social aspects of food storage, namely the role of cooperation for the emergence and maintenance of common stocks. Cooperative food stocks are examined here as a type of common-pool resource, where appropriators must cooperate to avoid shortage (i.e. the tragedy of commons). 'Food for all' is an agent-based model in which agents face the social dilemma of whether or not to store in a cooperative stock, adapting their strategies through a simple reinforcement learning mechanism. The model provides insights on the evolution of cooperation in terms of storage efficiency and considering the presence of social norms that regulate reciprocity. For cooperative food storage to emerge and be maintained, a significant dependency on the stored food and some degree of external pressure are needed. In fact, cooperative food storage emerges as the best performing strategy when facing environmental stress. Likewise, an intermediate control over reciprocity favours cooperation for food storage, suggesting that concepts of closed reciprocity are precursors to cooperative stocks, while excess control over reciprocity is detrimental for such institution.
... Pottery, one of the most ubiquitous of household artifacts, provides another means of establishing status. Previous research has linked social status to ceramic vessel size (Blitz, 1993), style/decoration (Pauketat and Emerson, 1991), volume (Nelson, 1981;Potter, 2000;Trostel, 1994), and quantity of vessel types and forms (Cowgill et al., 1984, p. 166;Deal, 1998, pp. 101-107;Lewis, 1951, p. 183). ...
... 101-107;Lewis, 1951, p. 183). However, most important, ceramic vessels are tools (see Braun, 1983) that are used to process foods that vary in cost and availability, and there are many studies that demonstrate the cross-cultural use of food, especially luxury or high-cost foods, as a social status marker (Blitz, 1993;Carlson, 1990, pp. 303-304;Damerow, 1996;de Garine, 1996, p. 210;Dietler, 1996;Hayden, 1996;Netting, 1964, pp. 376-377;Potter, 2000). ...
The use of a pottery vessel leaves markers on the ceramic wall that can inform archaeologists how the vessel functioned in the past. At present, archaeologists have little information for understanding how use-alteration reflects the complex nature of ceramic function and socioeconomic status. I conducted a 2-year ethnoarchaeological research project among the Gamo people of southwestern Ethiopia, who continue to produce and use pottery on a daily basis. This research indicates that interior surface attrition occurs primarily on pottery vessels used in wealthy households because of fermentation processes from high-status foods. Thus, the Gamo example suggests that there is a relationship between ceramic use-alteration and household socioeconomic status.
... Commensal politics and gift giving at funerary occasions are often key for building and negotiating relationships among the living (Blitz 1993;Parker Pearson 1999;Fung 2000;Dietler 2001;Underhill 2002;Hayden 2009). The use of pottery at funeral events for building prestige and power in the northern Tao River Valley, however, seems less likely. ...
During the Neolithic and Bronze Age, goods and ideas moved between Central Asia and the Chinese Central Plain via north-western China. While the crops, animals and technologies exchanged are well documented, the local and social bases of these interactions are poorly known. Here, the authors use petrographic analysis of ceramic sherds from Gansu Province, China, to document the local production of pottery vessels and their circulation between sites. Individual vessel forms are associated with multiple paste recipes indicating the production of similar products by different communities of practice. It is argued the circulation of these vessels forged inter-community relationships. In aggregate, these local networks underpinned longer-distance exchange between Central and East Asia.
... Si bien, la preservación de los restos orgánicos resulta difícil y depende de condiciones tafonómicas de los contextos arqueológicos, no ocurre lo mismo con la cerámica, un material ampliamente usado en época prehispánica. De la cerámica es posible extraer información cualitativa (decoración) y cuantitativa relacionada con el tamaño de las vasijas usadas para preparar y servir grandes volúmenes de alimentos (Blitzs, 1993). ...
Con la llegada de la arqueología postprocesual, el estudio de las fiestas ha cobrado gran relevancia para comprender los procesos de complejización social, aportando una visión antropológica a la interpretación del pasado. Sin embargo, varios autores han recalcado el problema metodológico de la asociación directa entre un tipo de evidencia y los festejos, sin corroborar estos correlatos con otras escalas de análisis. Por lo tanto, en este artículo se argumenta la utilidad de implementar un enfoque multiescalar para rastrear los festejos en el registro arqueológico. Con este propósito en mente, primero se presentan los enfoques teóricos imperantes y una discusión sobre el concepto de festejos y comensalidad política. Luego, se expondrán las principales características de los festejos y su visibilidad en el registro arqueológico. Finalmente, se argumentará la necesidad de un abordaje multiescalar, usando como ejemplo estudios de caso en Estados Unidos y Colombia prehispánicos.
... Las prácticas relacionadas con la alimentación y la cocina, es decir, las actividades y relaciones que permiten convertir las materias primas en productos socialmente comestibles han sido el foco de varios estudios arqueológicos que caracterizaron los diversos modos de producir y consumir los alimentos (e.g. Blitz 1993;Brumfield 1991;Campo 1997;Hastorf 1988;Johannessen 1993;Lyman 1987;Stahl y Zeidler 1990). ...
El trabajo describe las principales plantas silvestres comestibles usadas en la
actualidad y en el pasado por la etnia toba (qom), en las inmediaciones del Río Bermejito,
en una porción de la región conocida como Impenetrable, en el Departamento
General Güemes (Chaco, Argentina). En el marco de un estudio integral de la etnobotánica
toba, se obtuvo información por medio de observación participante, encuestas
semi-estructuradas y entrevistas en profundidad; asimismo se realizaron recorridas a
campo en compañía de guías nativos documentando, de esta manera, los especímenes
vegetales. Se registró el empleo –en la actualidad y en el pasado– de 46 especies alimenticias,
pertenecientes a 20 familias botánicas. Asimismo, se señalan semejanzas
y rasgos distintivos de la alimentación toba en comparación con la de otros grupos
étnicos del Gran Chaco Sudamericano. Por otra parte, se detallan las aplicaciones de
los vegetales comestibles atendiendo a la disponibilidad y abundancia a lo largo del
ciclo anual. Siguiendo un criterio diacrónico se analizó la vigencia y actualidad de las
prácticas alimentarias en las que intervienen las especies relevadas. En este sentido,
del total de los recursos alimenticios silvestres que documentamos, sólo un 25% de
las especies resultan de uso habitual o frecuente en el presente. Se analiza asimismo, la percepción y actitud de los nativos asociados al empleo y/o desuso de las plantas
silvestres comestibles. Finalmente, se discute el rol y eventuales aportes de los trabajos
de índole etnobotánico, en relación con la situación nutricional y sanitaria de los
tobas (qom) del Impenetrable.
... Ceramic vessels can serve many purposes, one of which is storage (Braun, 1983;DeBoer and Lathrap, 1979;Longacre, 1985;Rice, 1987, p. 208). Archaeologists working in the Mississippian Southeast and elsewhere in the world have demonstrated that one function of large vessels, particularly jars, would have been food storage (Blitz, 1993b;Hally, 1986;Henrickson and McDonald, 1983;Shapiro, 1984;Steponaitis, 1983;Smith, 1985Smith, , 1988. Hally (1986), for instance, reviewed ethnohistoric and ethnographic literature concerning historic southeastern native groups to examine food-related activities and the kinds of vessels associated with different food-related tasks. ...
Theories of the development of complex societies often equate the production of surpluses with centralized political economies. Most descriptions of economic intensification within Mississippian societies of Eastern North America have placed analytical explanation upon a shift from domestic autonomy to elite oversight early in the Mississippian period. This study examines storage locations, through examination of a newly recognized type of oversized ceramic storage technology, within the Moundville region. Data from this research are used to show that surplus production is not best explained using models of economic centralization. Rather, surplus production at early Moundville was organized by various distinct social groups storing and utilizing agricultural resources. Through time, some groups may have enjoyed greater success than others at producing surpluses. Evidence for storage is widely distributed, yet some differences in storage capacities are present. These spatial differences broadly mirror general patterns in the amount of labor invested in mound construction and the diachronic use of mounds across the site. These results allow us to consider the relationship between storage and relative surplus production, as well as the dynamic political-economic relations between distinct social groups through time in early complex agricultural societies.
... Translated into pottery consumption, one would expect the representative individual to socialize with food more frequently, with more different people, in larger and denser settlements, leading to an increase in the systemic inventory and use-rate of pottery, and thus to an increase in the per capita breakage and accumulation, or consumption, rate. Many studies have noted, for example, that archaeological evidence of feasting activity is generally more prevalent in larger settlements, and is reflected in larger pottery vessels that break into more sherds, increased breakage rates of pottery vessels, and increases in specialized production of pottery vessels (Abbott, 2000;Blitz, 1993;Bray, 2003;Mills, 2007;Spielmann, 2002Spielmann, , 2004). This is one example of how the process we describe here can play out in concrete human terms. ...
A common method of estimating population in archaeology is to multiply a settlement area by an occupational density. Empirical studies show that occupational density generally increases with settlement size but estimating occupational density when structural remains are not observable has remained a methodological challenge. Here, we investigate the possibility that occupational density is systematically related to the surface artifact density of archaeological sites. First, we employ settlement scaling theory, a framework tested in a variety of other settings, to derive the expected relationship between artifact density and population density, finding that the rate of per capita pottery consumption is expected to increase in relative terms with settlement population due to an increase in the rate of social interchange involving food. Then, we analyze data from the Chifeng Region of northern China to show that pottery consumption rates, reflected in measured densities of potsherds, do in fact increase with settlement areas in a way that is consistent with this expectation. We use this result to characterize long-term trends in social development in northern China over seven millennia, and to suggest a method that improves the accuracy and precision of demographic reconstructions by incorporating the nonlinear relationship between artifact density and population density in the analysis.
... It is also possible that the WPA era (Works Progress Administration, 1939-1943 (Dye, 2017) salvage recovery protocols at Link/Slayden biased in the direction of a temporally earlier (i.e., incipient/early maize adoption) mortuary sample. More speculative, but an aspect to consider given the archaeologically-based conclusion by Bass (1985) that the Link polity is ethnically different from Gray Farm, is regional variability in the symbolic or ritual role of maize or, in the routine maize processing and/or preparation (e.g., roasted, hominy, hoecake, and/or corn mush) which may have reduced the oral bioavailability of starch (e.g., Blitz, 1993;Briggs, 2016;Fritz & Lopincot, 2007;Katz et al., 1974;Peres, 2017;Raviele, 2011). ...
The later prehistoric subsistence-settlement pattern in the Kentucky Lake Reservoir (KLR) of northern west-central Tennessee is of interest as human occupation inexplicably terminates by AD 1450 as part of a larger regional depopulation. Antemortem tooth loss (ATL) collectively and by tooth type was identified in four site samples from the KLR. These are a Late Woodland (AD 600-900) sample (Hobbs) and three Middle Mississippian period (AD 1100- 1400) hierarchically organized and presumptively maize agriculturalist samples (Link/Slayden, Gray Farm , Thompson Village). ATL prevalence in the Hobbs sample is consistent with a native crop and seasonal foraging economy. The ATL in the Link sample is more congruent with the pre-maize Late Woodland sample than the essentially contemporaneous Gray Farm site sample. Thompson Village, a later-dated satellite community of the Gray Farm polity, exhibits significantly fewer ATL than the Gray Farm sample. This may flag climate-influenced agricultural shortfall of dietary carbohydrates later in the occupation sequence. Additionally, males in the Gray Farm site sample have significantly more ATL than males in the other two Mississippian samples. The patterns suggest regional, possibly shortfall mitigated, differences in maize intensification with a polity-specific male-focused maize consumption in the Gray Site.
... Indices of wealth and abundance? We see no scenes depicting large food stores, contrary to the phenomenon of conspicuous food store displays frequently documented in Mississippian sites (Blitz 1993) and Inkan sites (D'Altroy 1985). Outside of the Maya area, conspicuous stores indexed wealth, symbolized moral rectitude (similarly to Kahn 1986), or indicated divine favor. ...
From Fighting with Food to Feasts, anthropological literature has long demonstrated the active social role of food, as substance as much as symbol. Foodstuffs in the Maya area created obligation, bound people together, marked difference, ritualized practice, and incentivized social movement. Plants, as primary or even sole ingredients, occupied a special place in these dynamics. Beyond basic nutritional building blocks, plants were active agents, socially marshalled to amass labor for monumental projects such as terraces and canals, valued as (fickle) commodities in long-distance trade, and assembled in elaborate dishes for large-scale ceremonial feasts. Moreover, day-to-day activities reinforced or overturned social norms through the medium of food-- collection, preparation, and consumption. Social messages were ingested, as much as they were transformed and maintained through ingestion. All of this aside from the many ways food plants were used in ritualized practice but not ever physically consumed by ancient Maya participants.
Drawing from the writings of scholars including Mary Weismantel, Marshall McLuhan, and Charles Saunders Peirce, I consider the ways that food plants in the Maya area operated simultaneously as icons, indices, and symbols, often independently of human intention and sometimes in opposition. Using published work by other scholars, as well as paleoethnobotanical data I’ve collected from multiple sites in the Maya area, I draw a picture of plants that were manipulated for social ends as frequently as they actively manipulated the worlds around them. From transported landscapes to trade wars, food plants played dynamic roles in the lives of ancient Maya people. This perspective goes beyond the basic matter of subsistence to get at the heart of sociality.
... Rim diameter is often used as a proxy for pot size within a given type. Various studies have demonstrated that pot size is related to the social context of consumption, such as household size and status or wealth (Blitz 1993;Deal 1998;Hayden and Cannon 1984;Tani 1994;Trostel 1994;Turner and Lofgren 1966) and that cooking and serving pots tend to be the best indicators of group size (Mills 1999, p. 103;Shapiro 1984, p. 706). Rim diameter of the Yanshi Shangcheng sherds was inferred by carefully aligning the sherds on a standard rim diameter chart as described in Orton et al. (1993). ...
In this study, we investigate how ceramics used in domestic contexts may have differed between elites and “commoners” at Yanshi Shangcheng, a walled settlement from the early Shang (Erligang) period of northern China. Marked social stratification is evident at the site, particularly in the form of differential architecture and the layout of the settlement, which had an inner “palace” district and an outer lower status area. We inquire into whether social difference infused the sphere of daily life and daily cuisine at this early Bronze Age settlement. We performed a suite of statistical tests on two types of grayware cooking pots, guan jars and li tripods, from elite and lower status contexts, including a permutation-based modified multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), univariate tests, and a test of the homogeneity of multivariate dispersions. We tested variables related to main stages in the pottery production sequence, including clay preparation, vessel construction, and vessel firing. Pottery data, such as characteristics of the fabric, measurements of thickness, rim diameter, color, and hardness, were recorded at the site visually and with the aid of a hand lens and various measurement devices. Results indicate significant aspects of heterogeneity related to thickness, hardness, pot size, surface texture, and color. Results also indicate little difference in variables related to clay preparation methods. Possible explanations for the differences are explored, including developments in firing conditions and selection of higher quality pieces for elites. The statistical techniques developed herein could be applied to a range of artifactual types to investigate questions of difference.
... La cuantiosa información provista por trabajos etnoarqueológicos, arqueológicos y experimentales (Blitz, 1993;Henrickson y McDonald, 1983;Hally, 1986;Menacho 2001y 2007, Tite et al. 2001) permiten plantear la existencia en el conjunto analizado de cinco categorías funcionales hipotéticas (Tabla 2): a) almacenaje de líquidos, b) almacenaje "seco", c) procesamiento/cocción, d) consumo de alimentos y e) consumo de bebidas. ...
El presente trabajo indaga la variabilidad espacial de
prácticas cotidianas a partir del análisis del conjunto
cerámico recuperado en una unidad residencial del primer
milenio d.C, ubicada en el sitio La Bolsa 1 (Valle de Tafí,
Tucumán). Los análisis realizados intentan responder las
siguientes preguntas: ¿De qué forma pueden utilizarse los
restos cerámicos como indicadores de prácticas humanas?
¿Cuáles son las características formales, tecnológicas
y funcionales de un conjunto cerámico recuperado en
contextos domésticos del primer milenio? ¿Cómo participan
los recipientes cerámicos en la articulación de prácticas
y la reproducción de estructuras sociales en las aldeas
tempranas?‘ Para responder a estos interrogantes se han
utilizado las herramientas de análisis diseñadas por Karina
Menacho (2001; 2007) de las que se recupera su clasificación
funcional del registro cerámico desarrollada en base a
trabajos etnográficos y etnoarqueológicos.
... Archaeological studies of feasting have focused on evidence of special foods and beverages, unusual food preparation facilities, marked consumption spaces, and vessels distinct from those used to serve quotidian meals or for routine food preparation (e.g., Blitz 1993;Pauketat et al. 2002;Potter 2000). Archaeologists typically rely on a suite of such evidence to make the case that large-scale, public feasting occurred in the Native North American past, including the quantity and variety of food remains, places and occasions marked for special events, and unusual ratios of serving vessels to cooking vessels. ...
Archaeological studies of North American shell middens have recently highlighted Native societies’ impacts on marine and estuarine waterscapes. Middens containing deposits of oyster shell (Crassostrea virginica) reveal histories of subsistence, settlement mobility, resource decline, and the long-term sustainability of fisheries. In this case study, we bring to the fore another important aspect of precolonial oyster exploitation: the habitat from which oysters were harvested. Five morphological attributes are measured to indicate whether Native fishers harvested oysters from nearshore or offshore habitats. Once combined with the archaeological context in which oyster shell was deposited, knowledge of harvesting location offers an avenue for considering social practice, the array of activities and pathways through which Native societies made and transformed the worlds in which they lived. In order to demonstrate the interpretive potential of this line of inquiry, we offer a comparative analysis of oyster shells from two contexts at Kiskiak, a Powhatan town in Tidewater Virginia. We hypothesize that Kiskiak fishers harvested large quantities of oysters from nearshore habitats and limited numbers of oysters from offshore reefs, casting light on social practices contributing to the oyster fishery’s sustainability on a millennial timescale.
... The area on top of Cape Chirok is interpreted as a place for collective rituals or festivities connected with male activities such as the hunting or fishing (Andreeva et al., 1986:169;Zhushchikhovskaya, 2005:110). According to ethnographic and archaeological records, collective festivities, often accompanied by ritual eating and drinking, were a component of traditional community life (Gebauer, 1995;Hayden, 1995;Blitz, 1998). ...
... The vessels recovered inside the chultun suggest that this was a feasting event, as the vessels are not only large, but are typical of forms used in the preparation and serving of food. In terms of the size of the vessels, it stands that larger pots would be able to feed greater numbers of people (Blitz 1993). A range of vessel forms was recovered from inside the chultun, for a total of 131 drinking containers. ...
Ritual feasting was an integral part of ancient societies; the Maya were no exception. Archaeologists working in this region have used various lines of evidence, including the study of scenes depicted on painted polychrome drinking vases and ethnohistoric sources written by Spanish colonists, to attempt the reconstruction of ancient Maya feasts. However, while feasting deposits have been identified across sites in the Maya world, few have been studied from an archaeobotanical perspective. In this paper, macrobotanical results from a Late Classic (mid-to-late 8th century ad) feasting deposit from the site of La Corona, located in northwestern Petén, Guatemala, are presented. The archaeobotanical results suggest that the participants of these feasts were served dishes and beverages made from ingredients collected from wild and domestic landscapes, and that plants with specific medicinal properties may have also been part of the menu. These data suggest that ancient Maya feasts were events that cannot be simply recreated through painted ceramic vases or from reading historic records, and that if we are to appreciate the nuances of ancient Maya feasts, the archaeobotanical record needs to be considered and further evaluated.
... Hayden (2014, p. 1) states that in the past, ''there may have been no more powerful engine of cultural change than feasts.'' Indeed, feasting is cited globally for its role in innovations such as plant and animal domestication (Hayden 2001(Hayden , 2009b(Hayden , 2014, pottery manufacture (Clark and Gosser 1995;Sassaman 1993), elaborate mortuary rituals (Claassen 2010), and creation and maintenance of social status (Blitz 1993;Dietler and Herbich 2001;Hastorf 2008;Hayden 2009aHayden , b, 2014Perodie 2001). The idea of feasting as an underlying catalyst for unique human innovations is intriguing; however, there are several considerations that we must keep in mind when addressing the potential for feasting in the archaeological record. ...
Interest in the study of foodways through an archaeological lens, particularly in the American Southeast, is evident in the abundance of literature on this topic over the past decade. Foodways as a concept includes all of the activities, rules, and meanings that surround the production, harvesting, processing, cooking, serving, and consumption of food. We study foodways and components of foodways archaeologically through direct and indirect evidence. The current synthesis is concerned with research themes in the archaeology of Southeastern foodways, including feasting, gender, social and political status, and food insecurity. In this review, I explore the information that can be learned from material remains of the foodstuffs themselves and the multiple lines of evidence that can help us better understand the meanings, rituals, processes, and cultural meanings and motivations of foodways.
... Análisis relevantes para incluir en esta discusión son los marcadores diferenciales de actividad, estado de salud y las diferencias alimenticias (AMBROSE et al., 2003;SAPOLSKY, 2004), que para los contextos Goya-Malabrigo, es una agenda que aún está por desarrollarse, de la misma manera que los análisis enfocados en desigualdades de los conjuntos cerámicos, la estandarización de las pastas, las variaciones en los tamaños de los recipientes o la presencia de decoración diferencial (BLITZ, 1993;HAYDEN, 1995;PAUKETAT;EMERSON, 1991). ...
La unidad arqueológica Goya-Malabrigo agrupa poblaciones precoloniales
de cazadores-recolectores complejos, adaptados al sistema pulsátil de la cuenca del
río Paraná, insertos dentro de un proceso de intensificación en la explotación del
ambiente basado en los peces y los mamíferos terrestres, con una ingesta secundaria
de alimentos vegetales. Desarrollaron conductas densodependientes entre las que se
incluyen la redundancia ocupacional, conductas territoriales con defensa activa de los
espacios productivos, almacenamiento, generación de áreas formales de inhumación,
la elevación de algunas bases residenciales y la generación de un equipo complejo
de recipientes cerámicos destinados al procesamiento y almacenamiento de una
fracción de los recursos. No existen por el momento dentro del registro, evidencias que
permitan sostener la existencia de desigualdad institucionalizada. Las características
observadas señalan notables similitudes con las otras unidades arqueológicas del área,
con las cuales comparte un proceso evolutivo conjunto desarrollado a partir del III
milenio AP como mínimo, dentro un probable esquema monofilético, local, y anterior
al proceso de expansión de los grupos arawak al sur de la cuenca del Amazonas. No
existen evidencias de la influencia de estos últimos en el origen de Goya-Malabrigo.
... In the past, public feasting events involving the community were financed at the supra-household level (Potter 2000) and were sometimes held in specialised communal spaces, typically on or near sacred sites (temples, monuments, tombs, ancestor shrines) or other types of specialised locales (men's houses) and sometimes in structures having specialised facilities (Blitz 1993, Chicoine 2011, Hayden 2014. Such feasts were often regulated by ceremonial participation in the ritual calendar. ...
Much of the research into East Polynesian ceremonial sites focuses on temple-altar
(marae-ahu) complexes as sacred sites where varied religious rituals and rites of
passage were performed. Yet ethnohistoric documents and the Tahitian lexicon
suggest a broader role for Ma‘ohi (indigenous Tahitian) ceremonial architecture as
the foci of individual and corporate ceremonies of a religious, economic and political
nature. Utilising a spatio-temporal perspective, I investigate the function of feasting
at terraces attached to a range of community and familial level temples, in addition
to communal spaces within residential sites in the Society Islands. My goal is to
explore the ways that Ma‘ohi household leaders, chiefs and priests may have utilised
feasting to materialise their economic authority, while at the same time facilitating
the formation of communal identities. I utilise archaeological data to identify feasting
at monumental architectural sites of varying scale and complexity and house sites
of differing status. I then turn to ethnographic analogy and social theory to suggest
differing functions of feasting at different site types. As I argue, feasting serves as
a highly visible social act, representing not only a political leader’s generosity, but
delineating boundaries of particular social groups and control over resources. In the
Society Island chiefdoms, at both the household and community scales, feasting is
strongly correlated, but not uniquely associated with, ceremonial sites and served
varied secular and sacred functions. I conclude that feasting actively solidified local
and community level leader’s economic, socio-political and ideological power in
varied ceremonial contexts of the late prehistoric Society Island chiefdoms.
... In Mississippian contexts, as elsewhere, large serving vessels are associated with feasts (e.g. Blitz 1993;Mills 1999). The specific cooking or serving functions of the Parnell vessels is still unclear, but their size is commensurate with Mississippian feasting vessels designed for servicing relatively large groups of people. ...
Interactions with the bodies of hunted animals often follow prescriptions pertaining to social relationships among human and non-human persons. Despite this, deposits of archaeological food remains are seldom considered in terms of deliberate placement, instead serving primarily as reflections of preparation and consumption activities. The residues of feasts, in particular, are often highlighted as indexes of special consumption events, although such salient occasions might also be expected to highlight ritualized depositional practices as well. This study reconsiders the archaeological residues of feasts through the vantage of a fauna-filled pit in late Pre-Columbian Florida. Most of the contents of the feature correlate with a large feast, but the structure of the deposit and inclusion of specific elements reflects scrupulous emplacement. Drawing on North American relational ontologies, we explore the idea that this pit feature was created as a deliberate bundle, the result of an intentional act of interment that was concerned with positioning its contents in ways that manifested and shaped various relationships.
... Inter-community integration is visible in the archaeological record by the presence of ceremonial centers. Several recent studies in the Southeast attempt to identify and understand the signifi cance of the ceremonies likely to have been conducted at these centers, stressing the role of feasting in the establishment of regional polities and social hierarchies (e.g., Knight 1986;Blitz 1993;Jackson and Scott 1995;Kelly 1997;Pauketat et al. 2002). In these studies, ethnographic and historic information is used to demonstrate that connections between communities are created when some groups host feasts that cross-cut existing social barriers (such as kinship ties) and institute new links between formerly unaffiliated or even hostile groups. ...
... The available archaeological data from Juffure suggest that episodic deposits were the result of larger meals, indicative of communal gatherings similar to what archaeologists working in multiple regions and time periods have identified as feasting (i.e., Blitz 1993;Dietler 2001;Klarich2010;LeCount 2001;Potter2000), which occurred fairly frequently in the eighteenth century. This can be correlated with access to Atlantic wealth and levels of interaction in the former commercial center. ...
This paper explores the connection between ceramic production and dietary changes immediately before, during, and through the decline of the Atlantic trade at Juffure on the Gambia River. The height of the Atlantic trade in the eighteenth century was a period of increased ceramic production and technical experimentation. Simultaneously, there is increase in the diversity of consumption evident in the faunal and botanical remains recovered. This diversity, in both ceramic manufacture and diet, all but disappears with the decline of the Atlantic trade on the river. It is argued that the greater variety observed in ceramic manufacture during the height of the Atlantic trade is related to social practices of display associated with food. This is accomplished through a comparison of everyday and special events composed of displays of food and wealth across ethnic boundaries. These are indicative of different traditions of consumption and discard rather than signaling ethnic differentiation.
... En el R81, los pucos reconocidos pertenecen el 90 por ciento al tamaño grande, lo cual podría indicar que el consumo de alimentos, en este recinto, lo estarían llevando a cabo grandes grupos de personas (Blitz 1993), lo cual estaría de acuerdo con una de las hipótesis propuesta acerca de la realización, en este tipo de recintos, de actividades comunitarias. ...
En el amplio campo de la arqueología, los estudios acerca de la historia de la disciplina se han constituido en los últimos años en una fructífera vertiente de producción intelectual. El presente volumen reune trabajos de estudiosos del tema procedentes de distintos países de América del Sur, a fin de contribuir al desarrollo de un diálogo crítico acerca de las investigaciones recientes. La cuestión del papel de la arqueología en la formulación de identidades culturales, nacionales y regionales en los siglos XIX y XX constituye un eje central, al cual se agrega una serie de otras cuestiones, tales como las vinculaciones personales e institucionales entre los arqueólogos sudamericanos; las formas de construcción de narrativas arqueológicas y la relación de las mismas con el otro cultural, tanto ya sea del pasado, como con las comunidades indígenas contemporáneas.
... The Cana-Gbengamey assemblage, for example, is dominated by dishes with inverted rims (serving dishes and pot lids), small and medium jars with everted rims (storage and cooking jars), and small jars with inverted rims (cooking pots) (Fig. 13, right). Larger storage vessels, cooking pots, and serving vessels, often associated with the kind of largescale centralized food preparation associated with feasting in archaeological contexts (Blitz 1993;Hayden 1996), account for no more than 9 % of this assemblage. In all, this pattern is in keeping with food preparation at a household level, wherein meals were prepared within smaller cooking and serving vessels for individual residential groups. ...
Feasting is a central component of elite power strategies in complex societies worldwide. In the precolonial Kingdom of Dahomey, located in the Republic of B,nin, public feasts were a critical component of royal strategies to attract and bind political subjects over the course of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, a period of dramatic political transformation on the Bight of Benin. Archaeological excavations within the domestic quarters of a series of Dahomean royal palace sites have yielded diverse faunal and ceramic assemblages that represent clear examples of (1) ritualized food consumption and (2) everyday culinary practices. In this paper, faunal and ceramic evidence from two excavated contexts is marshaled to distinguish the archaeological signatures of feasting in Dahomey, highlighting the importance of private feasts in attempts to build political influence in the domestic zones of Dahomean royal palaces. In particular, this analysis foregrounds how royal women jockeyed for power and influence during a period of political uncertainty.
... Accordingly, we highlight the following three behavioral choices that researchers have demonstrated to be critical to the emergence and sustainability of cooperation, all conveniently beginning with the letter r: (1) reciprocity, (2) reputation, and (3) retribution (compare Richerson 1992, 2009;Boyd et al. 2003;Fehr and Gächter 2000;Fehr and Schmidt 1999;Henrich 2006, 2007;Milinski et al. 2002;Nowak 2006;Ostrom and Walker 1997;Richerson et al. 2003). Reciprocity is perhaps the most familiar in anthropology, following classic ethnographic cases such as the Trobriand Kula exchange and Pacific Northwest potlatch, and it has already been incorporated into archaeological theory (e.g., Blitz 1993;Clark and Blake 1994;Dietler and Hayden 2001). Game theoretic models such as tit-for-tat ("you scratch my back, I scratch yours") center on reciprocity, and have been influential in theorizing decision-making among collective actors, including both in contemporary international politics (e.g., Axelrod 1997) and prehistoric politics (e.g., Bonhage-Freund and Kurland 1994). ...
Investigations of the evolutionary dynamics of cooperation and collective
action provide productive venues for theorizing social complexity, yet this multidisciplinary
scholarship contains analytical and epistemological tensions that require
reconciliation. We propose a course for integration of this diverse literature to
investigate the emergence and developmental trajectories of complex societies.
Greater attention to collective action problems, cultural mechanisms that promote
cooperation, differentiation of human interests, and multiscalar research designs
provide firmer conceptual underpinnings for a theoretically grounded cultural evolutionary
framework. The case of agricultural intensification in pre-Hispanic highland
Mexico is used to illustrate major points of the paper.
Keywords Cooperation . Collective action . Cultural evolution . Agricultural
intensification
... Es importante mencionar que la decisión de trabajar con EDK univariados y bivariados recae en examinar si los modos observados en EDK univariados son replicados utilizando EDK bivariados con la adición de grosor a diámetro. Del mismo modo era importante examinar si diámetro es un buen indicador de modalidad al investigar tamaños de vasijas tal cual lo podría indicar su extenso uso en la literatura arqueológica (Blitz 1993;Drennan 1996;Longacre 1999;Mills 1999;Potter 2000;Rosenswig 2007). Es de esperar que los modos reflejados en el análisis univariado resistan la adición de la categoría de grosor. ...
In this paper I analyze a sub set of 3020 diagnostic ceramic sherds recovered in five spatial units identified in Chavín de Huántar, Peru, in order to find patterns of association between the categories of diameter and thickness per type of ceramic vessel and to identify possible differences of those patterning’s among spatial units. I have used Kernel Density Estimates (KDE) for the purpose of identify modalities in diameters and thickness per type in each spatial unit.
... Since feasts are commonly ritually charged, the remnants receive special treatment for their discard'. Special 'feasting middens', often located in special locations, are a key archaeological signature of feasts (Blitz 1993;Chicoine 2011;Claassen 2010;Hayden 2001: 40;Potter 2000;Russo 2004). The location of the three largest midden mounds at Goemu (two linear mounds and platform mound) at the northern end of the site away from most small residential middens is consistent with isolation of feasting refuse (Fig. 8). ...
Practice theory focuses attention on agency and the generative dimensions of sites and material culture in terms of social formation and reproduction. This approach is applied to the ritualization of midden deposits by Torres Strait Islanders of northeast Australia. Ritualization of middens was achieved by three depositional strategies of privileged differentiation: referencing of mortuary remains, discrimination of animal bones and mounding of deposits. In addition, ritualized middens were spatially separated into small residential mounds and large communal feasting mounds. Ritualized middening was part of a broader social process of maintaining the biographical status of midden materials as a dimension of community socialization, identify and cohesion.
... Empowering Feasts: Evidence from the Seventh to Eleventh Centuries AD One way archaeologists have sought to reconstruct ancient feasting activities is through an examination of ceramic vessel forms. Serving vessels have long been recognized as crucial parts of the feasting ritual through their size, style, and elaboration (Blitz 1993;Junker 1999;Junker et al. 1994;Mills 2007;Pauketat et al. 2002;Potter 2000). Of importance to the argument here are serving vessels, which are viewed as centerpieces to the ritual performances of feasts, making the feast host's wealth 'visible' (Cook and Glowacki 2003, p. 197), through the presentation of special or labor-intensive food, but also through the control over and use of specialized vessels. ...
Historically, the Swahili of the eastern African coast have performed feasts through which they negotiated and contested social
power. Feasts draw on tradition and practice, but create the space for, and conditions of, imbalance and social debt. Drawing
on this historical frame, I examine the archaeology of feasting in the more distant Swahili past, AD 700–1500, in particular
looking at how feasts can domesticate distant power—the power drawn from objects and practices from elsewhere. By charting
changing assemblages of imported and local ceramics alongside settlement and food preferences, I examine developments in feasting
patterns and the way feasts provided a social context within which local and distant power could be translated into authority.
KeywordsSwahili-Feasting-Display-Ceramics-East Africa
We investigate the link between the consumption of foodstuffs, excavation of a large pit, and disposal of waste at the Tillar Farms site (3DR30), southeast Arkansas, using refit and oxygen isotope analyses of well-preserved freshwater mussel shells from Feature 1. Only 0.13% of 7,408 valves analyzed were unidentifiable to species.The refit analysis produced 460 refits across 23 species and strongly indicates that the shell midden represents a single episode of shellfish gathering, consumption, and discard. Oxygen isotope analysis of five randomly selected shells are used as a test of the refit results. δ18O values from the five archaeological shells are compared to modern control samples of live-collected specimens from Bayou Bartholomew in winter of 2011. Refit analysis suggests the accumulation of mussel shells occurred quickly, likely as a result of one collection, consumption, and discard event. δ18O values suggest this activity took place during a single winter season.
In archaeology, emotion has often been thought to lie beyond the reach of responsible materialist scholarship. However, this study illustrates the central role of emotion in the formation of consensus-based political systems. In the Late Woodland longhouse societies of north-eastern North America, political alliance-building depended on emotion work – elaborated interpersonal attentions in the form of grooming, bodily adornment, smoking and gift-giving that were intended to shift the affective character of relationships and satisfy deep personal desires. Emotion work depended heavily on material things – especially wampum beads and smoking pipes – that connected individual bodies with the body politic. A crucial part of the process of building and maintaining grassroots social collectives, emotion work produced historically particular forms of power and political subjectivity. These practices can be understood as a kind of corporeal politics, one with lasting consequences for indigenous sociopolitical development in eastern North America.
This study investigates comparatively the prospect that excessive dental wear in certain Late Archaic populations in eastern North America was caused by extensive shellfish consumption and the associated ingestion of grit. Specifically, the amount and rate of dental wear at Indian Knoll, a large shell midden site in western Kentucky, are compared to those at the Black Earth site, a contemporary occupation in southern Illinois with no evidence of shellfish utilization. Results show no significant differences in dental wear between Indian Knoll and Black Earth and point correspondingly toward the alternative prospect that the intensification of Late Archaic food-processing technology using stone-grinding and hot-rock cooking was the proximate cause. Such technologies provided short-term caloric benefits, but long-term disease consequences for adults of child-bearing age. A decrease in young adult dental wear correlates with the adoption of both food production and pottery in the subsequent Woodland period.
Few ethnoarchaeological studies have combined the production and use of groundstones and pottery as indicators of household variation in subsistence and socioeconomics. This ethnoarchaeological study explores how the Gamo people who live in southwestern Ethiopia interact with their culinary tools of pottery and groundstones. One of the unique cultural features of the Gamo is their strict caste system, which forces artisans such as potters and groundstone makers into a full-time specialization. This paper uses a chaîne opératoire analysis regarding groundstone and pottery production and then addresses their use by drawing from household studies from three Gamo communities. The analysis discusses the role that social hierarchy can have on cooking and craft variation within households. Thus, these artisans bring to life crafts that give the Gamo tools to create their daily subsistence, and these tools and foods allow us to explore two key archaeological issues: subsistence and socioeconomic variation of people's households.
This paper presents a ceremonial feasting deposit from Late Helladic IIIA2 Tsoungiza. The dominance of head and foot bones from at least six cattle suggests on-site butchery, with the possibility that the meat was distributed for consumption elsewhere. The pottery fulfills most of the criteria proposed here for recognizing feasting activities in ceramic assemblages. A ceramic female figure, similar to those from sanctuaries at Phylakopi and Mycenae, ties the feasting to religious rituals. It is suggested that regional feasts contributed to maintaining political and economic alliances within the area around Mycenae.
The present contribution examines feasting practices at Huambacho (800–200 cal. B.C.), an Early Horizon elite center of the Nepeña Valley, Department of Ancash, Peru. Feasts are approached as long-term strategies essential to the political economy of human societies. Drawing upon data from public architecture, material culture and food remains, the study closely considers feasts as political actions and investigates the organization and social meaning of these special events. At Huambacho, I contend that the diacritical aspects of feasting practices, such as the use of exclusive spaces and special paraphernalia, contributed to the dual celebration of communal identity and prosperity, and the creation and reproduction of social inequalities. The research highlights the dual centripetal and centrifugal dynamics of Early Horizon feasts and demonstrates the role of the Huambacho center in advertising the success of the local community based on new forms of production and innovative rules of commensal hospitality.Highlights► Feasts are universal human practices part of important political strategies. ► Variability in feasting practices inform on political economy of a society. ► Excavations at Huambacho (800–200 cal. B.C.), coastal Peru, have yielded evidence of feasts. ► Evidence from architectural forms, material culture and food remains is analyzed. ► Results indicate complex feasting landscapes with dual centripetal and centrifugal components.
This study analyses 485 chipped stone artefacts recovered from the Early Neolithic Körös culture settlement at Ecsegfalva 23 in Hungary, representing one of the largest such assemblages from this culture. The analysis reveals two dominant raw materials: limnic quartzites (60%) and Carpathian obsidians (32.5%) from sources in north-eastern Hungary and Eastern Slovakia, both obtained from areas outside the distribution of the Körös culture or any other Early Neolithic culture. Contacts to the west are indicated by Szentgál Radiolarite and to the south by so-called Banat Flint. Two distinct traditions are identified: a "Danubian" pattern characterised by on-site production using the punch technique and a "Balkan" pattern involving finished tools made elsewhere using pressure flaking. Tool types include truncated blades, trapezes, and various cutting implements, with use-wear analysis indicating activities like woodworking, hide processing, and plant cutting. The results of the study of the lithic artefacts from the Ecsegfalva 23 site suggest that the Körös culture carries elements of the Early Balkan Neolithic as well as relics of Late Mesolithic traditions.
Choyke, A.M. 2007. Objects for a Lifetime – Tools for a Season: The Worked Osseous Material from Ecsegfalva 23. in: A. Whittle (ed.), The Early Neolithic on the Great Hungarian Plain. Investigations of the Körös Culture Site of Ecsegfalva 23, County Békés. Vol.II, Varia Archaeologica Hungarica XXI, Budapest: Institute of archaeology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences: 641-666.
This paper explores definitions of luxury foods and considers the role of luxuries in marking social distinction. It is proposed that luxury foods are those foods that offer a refinement in texture, taste, fat content or other quality (such as stimulant or inebriant) and offer distinction, because of either their quantity or quality. Ethnographic research has revealed that an emphasis on quantity of food and elaboration of common staples is found mostly in societies without strong social stratification, while an emphasis on quality and style is characteristic of societies with institutionalized forms of social ranking. In the former context the consumption of luxury foods is used primarily to create or enhance social bonds, in the latter to create or enhance exclusivity and distance. The archaeological recognition of luxury foods is reviewed to demonstrate how archaeology is well placed to add regional breadth and chronological depth to the study of the changing role and meaning of luxury foods.
Interpreting variation in the size and quality of houses is a difficult task for the archaeologist. Are larger houses a sign of a larger household, of a higher-status household, or of a household which has lived at the site longer than others? This paper uses ethnographic data on the Kekchi Maya to test these alternative explanations. The discussion reveals a complex relationship between social positions, wealth, and house size. It is suggested that houses serve different symbolic functions in settlements with different kinds of economies.
Ethnographic data from a contemporary Highland Mayan village are used to test Turner and Lofgren's (1966) proposition that the capacities of cooking vessels reflect the size of households. Some variation in the volumes of cooking jars in the present sample probably is due to differences in household size. However, it appears that significant amounts of variation also can be explained by reference to conditions that are indirectly related to social status and wealth. Problems and prospects for archaeological application of the measure are discussed.
Symbolic objects for ceremonial display, or sacra, tend to be systematically related in their representational content to the cult institutions that produce and manipulate them. Cult organization is normally pluralistic among preliterate complex societies. Mississippian sacra suggest a triad of coexisting types of cult institution: (1) a communal cult type emphasizing earth/fertility and purification ritual, (2) a chiefly cult type serving to sanctify chiefly authority, and (3) a priestly cult type mediating between the other two, supervising mortuary ritual and ancestor veneration.
Data derived from analyses of vessel size and shape have been largely overlooked by researchers who seek to understand Mississippian site variability. Vessel form data are analyzed to demonstrate that relative site permanence and the relative size of group that lived at or visited sites are reflected in the size and shape of ceramic vessels. Vessel forms from four archaeological sites are compared, each of which played a different role within a single, late Mississippian society of the Georgia Piedmont.
Archaeologists now possess the knowledge and techniques necessary to identify pottery-vessel function with a reasonable degree of specificity. This article is intended to demonstrate that capability. The pottery vessel assemblage characteristic of the sixteenth-century Barnett phase in northwest Georgia consists of 13 physically and morphologically distinct vessel types. The mechanical performance characteristics of these vessel types are identified and employed in formulating hypotheses concerning the way vessel types were used. Historic Southeastern Indian food habits are reconstructed from ethnohistorical and ethnographic evidence and employed to refine the vessel-use hypotheses.
The evolutionary stage designated chiefdom or ranked society is examined for its utility in archaeological research. The concept of redistribution is abandoned as an indicator of chiefdoms. A cybernetic model of chiefdoms is presented, and measures of mortuary differentiation, ritual-regulatory networks, subsistence autonomy, and part-time craft specialization are proposed as indicators of this type of socio-political organization.
Archaic societies in the American midcontinent tend to be viewed as “archetypal” egalitarian, subsistence-oriented, gatherer–hunters. The strong techno-environmental orientation of most recent studies makes it hard to understand how and why increasingly socially differentiated gatherer-hunter societies emerged during the later Woodland period. In this article I attempt a social perspective on gatherer-hunters in general and those of the Archaic in particular. I suggest that alliance and exchange are universal hominid strategies and that, while they may have ecologically or biologically adaptive features, they are primarily about social relations and social reproduction.
Gatherer-hunter reciprocity has been stressed in the literature, but the opposite side of the coin is debt, and debt is about inequality, however slight or well masked. The internal social feedbacks embedded in alliance and exchange that might exacerbate social differentiation, and the feedback between social demand and productive intensification are explored. The divide between the midcontinental Archaic and Woodland begins to crumble.
The theoretical approach to agricultural origins in the last decade has concentrated on techno‐environmental and demographic causality. This paper attempts to show that both are dependent upon the social structure, and that this is where the enquiry should begin. The social properties of a tribal system are examined; first, in an anthropological framework using ethnographic illustrations, and then in an archaeological framework using prehistoric data. The ability of such systems to generate increasing demands on production, which under certain conditions may be resolved by a commitment to agriculture, is stressed.
The central thesis of this article is that Mesolithic/Archaic technological innovations enabled some hunter/gatherers to create an abundant and stable resource base which could not be adversely affected by socioeconomic competition using food resources. In contrast to earlier hunter/gatherers, highly competitive individuals with accumulative personalities emerged in the new resource-rich communities, and they used the competitive feast as a means of developing, extending, and consolidating their power. It is in the context of these “accumulators” and the feasting complex that the first domesticates generally appear and diffuse most readily. This view stands in contrast to many models that posit domestication occurring in marginal hunting/gathering groups experiencing severe resource stress. The view of the first domesticates as prestige items used by accumulators to outclass their rivals explains the otherwise mystifying nature of many of the first domesticates, including dogs, gourds, chili peppers, and avocados.
Tesis (Doctor of Philosophy) University of Michigan.
Appendix D : Faunal Remains
- J S Belmont
Bioarchaeological Comparisons of the Late Miller III and Summerville I Phases in the Gainesville Lake Area of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway
- G G Cole
- M C Hill
- H B Ensor
Hiwassee Island : An Archaeological Account of Four Tennessee Indian Peoples
- T M N Lewis
- M Kneberg
Classification of Ceramics from the Lubbub Creek Archaeological Locality
- C B Mann
The Identification of Style on Moundville Engraved Vessels : A Preliminary Note
- M Hardin
Archaeology of the Fatherland Site : The Grand Village of the Natchez
- R S Neitzel
The Mississippi Period
- J A Brown
Analysis of the Faunal Remains of the Fatherland Site In Archaeology of the Fatherland Site : The Grand Village of the Natchez
- C E Cleland
Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley and Adjacent Coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Bulletin No. 43
- J R Swanton
DeJarnette 1942 An Archaeological Survey of Pickwick Basin in the Adjacent Portions of the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee
- W S Webb
Appendix II : Faunal Remains
- J T Penman
Yarborough Site Faunal Remains Clay County, Mississippi
- S L Scott
Moundville's Economy
- P D Welch