Foodways Archaeology: A Decade of Research from the Southeastern United States

A Method for Conceptualizing and Classifying Feasting: Interpreting Communal Consumption in the Archaeological Record

“…Likewise, large numbers of people sometimes gather for communal eating with little to no evidence of status negotiation (e.g., Knight 2001; Potter and Ortman 2004). These events leave different archaeological signatures and have different social outcomes (Peres 2017:433), but in Twiss's conception, each would fall in the middle of the spectrum, and further differentiation would be impossible. My scheme attempts to differentiate these middle-ground cases in a useful way.…”

“…This difficulty has led to the tendency of labeling something “ritual” whenever modern archaeologists cannot easily ascertain a functional or practical explanation for its appearance (Brück 1999:317–318; Fogelin 2007:59; Goody 1961:156–157; Richards and Thomas 1984:189). This propensity is also present in the feasting literature, as concentrations of food remains are sometimes labeled feasts with little to no consideration for context or meaning (Peres 2017). Correcting this tendency in the study of ritual entailed the development of distinctly archaeological approaches (e.g., Brück 1999; Gillespie 2008; Renfrew 1985; Richards and Thomas 1984; Swenson 2015); such materially and contextually driven approaches aptly illustrate the type of work that remains to better recognize and interpret ancient feasts (see also Hayden 2014:77).…”

“…However, “foodways archaeology in the American Southeast has been dominated by a search for extraordinary events to make grand statements about the construction and maintenance of political and social power” (Peres 2017:437), especially due to the long-standing focus on studies of the role of food within Mississippian chiefdoms (e.g., Jackson 2014; Jackson and Scott 1995, 2003; Knight 2004; VanDerwarker 1999; Welch and Scarry 1995). As they have moved away from emphasizing the grandness of the event, some southeastern archaeologists have turned toward investigating the social roles that eating events of all kinds played within past societies by drawing together multiple lines of evidence, including plant, animal, and ceramic remains; contextual information; and historic and ethnographic documentation (e.g., Kassabaum 2018; Kelly 2001; Pauketat et al 2002; Peres 2017:432; VanDerwarker and Peres 2010). In the second half of this article, I combine these datasets to interpret eating events that occurred at a precontact site in the American Southeast.…”

“…Anthropologists universally recognize food as being “good to think” (sensu Lévi-Strauss 1963). Looking beyond its role as a subsistence resource, they recognize the dialectic relationship between food and the social, economic, and political worlds in which it is selected, prepared, consumed, and discarded (Appadurai 1981; Bourdieu 1984; Crowther 2013; Goody 1982; Gumerman 1997; Peres 2017; Van der Veen 2003). Food—and in particular its consumption—plays an active role in the creation and negotiation of social identities and relationships (Kerner et al 2015).…”

“Living off the Land”: How Subsistence Promotes Well-Being and Resilience among Indigenous Peoples of the Southeastern United States

“…This inquiry investigates how subsistence relates to well-being and resilience. Subsistence is generally thought to relate to the activities through which food is acquired, processed, prepared, and consumed (i.e., what people eat, how they produce or acquire it, and whether those activities emphasize hunting, gathering, and fishing or horticulture and agriculture; Hudson 1976; Scarry 1993; Gremillion 1997; Smith 2011; White 2013; Peres 2014, 2017). As such, the purpose of this qualitative inquiry is to examine indigenous peoples’ perspectives on and experiences with subsistence living, investigating how subsistence living may contribute to well-being, resilience, and cultural connection by promoting physical exercise, a healthy diet, and psychological wellness.…”