Anth 897 048 Fall 2009

Fall 2009

Graduate Seminar

Archaeology of Food

Anthropology 897.048

Margie Scarry

W 9:00-11:45

(meeting time may be negotiable)

Food is a biological necessity; individuals, households, communities and polities must find ways to continuously meet their nutritional needs.  Thus, the ecological settings in which people live and the ways in which they procure and produce their food are integral to many other aspects of their lives.  Understanding the pragmatics of food availability, acquisition and distribution can provide key insights to settlement patterns, economic arrangements and political organization.  But for people the world over, food is imbued with meaning; foodways embody and materialize identities and create, signal and maintain social ties.

In this seminar, we will explore the ways that archaeological investigations of foodways can inform and enrich our understanding of peoples’ lives in the past.  This is not a methods course.  We will discuss strengths and limitations of data where appropriate, but our emphasis will be on theoretical issues and the ways that archaeological data (plant and animal remains, human skeletal remains, ceramics, stone tools, storage facilities, etc) can be used to address a variety of questions.  We will start by reading and discussing some of the recent anthropological—as well as folklore and sociological—literature on foodways.  Then we will turn to the archaeological literature and read theoretical pieces paired with pertinent case studies.  Archaeological topics that we will cover include the classics—subsistence strategies and domestication—but also more recent explorations of food storage (risk management and/or conspicuous display), consumption (private/public meals, feasting), and differences in foodways along varied social dimensions (gender, status, ethnicity).  [Note this list of topics is provisional and can be adjusted according to the interests of seminar participants.]