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Anthropology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Anthropologists are interested in <OpenstaxTerm>foodways</OpenstaxTerm>, a term used to describe a society’s collection, production, and consumption of food. There is a particular interest in understanding how culinary traditions shape identity. It is not uncommon for archaeologists and cultural anthropologists to attempt to reconstruct food practices of the cultures they are studying, utilizing different types of clues. While written accounts, artwork, and visible food remnants help tell the story of a culture’s foodways, anthropologists also use residue studies of traces of food and drink in pottery, baskets, and gourds and stable isotope analysis of human bones and teeth, in which they measure isotopes (radioactive elements found naturally in food) to determine the diet of an individual and the environment in which they lived. These clues to ancient foodways can reveal a great deal about daily life.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Archaeologist Lisa <OpenstaxTerm>Duffy</OpenstaxTerm> has studied ancient <OpenstaxTerm>Maya</OpenstaxTerm> cuisine using residue from pottery and grinding stones. Residues include many kinds of trace materials left behind on the artifacts, such as charred remains on the sides of a cooking pot or microscopic plant or animal remains on the surface of a vessel. So far, residues have been successfully recovered from seven ancient Maya sites across Guatemala and Belize, some dating from as early as 600 BCE. Some of the chemicals that have been identified indicate use of chili pepper, cacao, chocolate, and tobacco, among other herbs and spices. While chocolate compounds have been found on culinary artifacts from many different social strata, most other residues are specifically associated with certain social classes. Through studies such as this, foodways help scientists better understand the social differences and lifestyles of early cultures.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00002" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/aad9b1c0425a4db8b3335c98a24063ead5a1fa0f" alt="(left) Wide, shallow grinding stone with a hand holding an oblong-shaped grinder in its center; (right) A circular sign in a museum with the following text: “Clues for Cacao Use - Archaeological evidence shows that the Olmec and Mayan civilizations were the first to grow cacao as a domesticated crop. They used cacao in their daily and traditional activities such as for trading and for weddings. 1150 BC to 1550 AD.”" mediaType="image/jpeg" width="1132" height="367" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1132">
	<strong>Figure 14.4</strong> The Maya used chocolate as an important ingredient in their diets and grew cacao as a domesticated crop. To make chocolate, seeds from cacao trees are fermented, dried, roasted, and ground into a paste. The grinding slab pictured here was traditionally used for the grinding stage in chocolate production. (credit: (left) “Making Chocolate Mayan Style Ixcacao Maya Belizean Chocolate Farm San Felipe Belize 2653” by bobistraveling/flickr, CC BY 2.0; (right) “History of Chocolate, 1150 BC to 1550 AD, Olmec &amp; Maya” by Gary Lee Todd/flickr, CC BY 2.0)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Foodways can also be explored by reconstituting foods in order to better understand their chemical and sensual characteristics. In one experiment, physicist Seamus <OpenstaxTerm>Blackley</OpenstaxTerm> and his colleagues, archaeologist Serena <OpenstaxTerm>Love</OpenstaxTerm> and microbiologist Richard <OpenstaxTerm>Bowman</OpenstaxTerm>, developed a technique to extract hibernating yeast microbes left behind on porous Egyptian ceramics. These yeast microbes were dated to 4,500 years ago. The first step in their experiment was to sequence the yeast’s genome (i.e., map each of its genetic markers), through which they determined that it was not genetically the same as modern yeast and that it was as old as they had originally thought. The researchers then fed the yeast einkorn flour, made from a kind of wheat that would have existed at the time the yeast was originally active. As Blackley reported, “The yeast woke up right away.... It was kind of remarkable” (Blackley, Love, and Bowman 2019). The resulting bread was fine grained and well risen, with a pungent odor of brown sugar. Using experimental techniques such as these, archaeologists are able to tap into smells, tastes, and textures that were part of ancient foodways and may no longer exist in our cuisine today.
</OpenstaxParagraph>

14.1.3 Ancient Foodways and Food Reconstructions

1 What Is Anthropology?

1.1 The Study of Humanity, or "Anthropology Is Vast"

1.1.1 The Heart of Anthropology: Central Narrative and Commitments

1.1.2 Central Commitment #1: Exploring Sociocultural Diversity

1.1.3 Central Commitment #2: Understanding How Societies Hold Together

1.1.4 Central Commitment #3: Examining the Interdependence of Humans and Nature

1.2 The Four-Field Approach: Four Approaches within the Guiding Narrative

1.2.1 Biological Anthropology

1.2.2 Archaeology

1.2.3 Cultural Anthropology

1.2.4 Linguistic Anthropology

1.2.5 How the Four Fields Work Together: The Example of Race

1.3 Overcoming Ethnocentrism

1.3.1 Enculturation and Ethnocentrism

1.3.2 Primitivism and Orientalism

1.4 Western Bias in Our Assumptions about Humanity

1.4.1 Primitivism and Orientalism in Popular Culture

1.4.2 The Bias of Backwardness

1.5 Holism, Anthropology’s Distinctive Approach

1.5.1 Society as an Integrated Whole

1.5.2 Sources of Contradiction, Conflict, and Change

1.6 Cross-Cultural Comparison and Cultural Relativism

1.6.1 Relativism Is Not “Anything Goes”

1.6.2 Morality, Activism, and Cultural Relativism

1.7 Reaching for an Insider’s Point of View

1.7.1 The Challenge of Representing Others

1.7.2 Collaborative Methods of Representation

1.7.3 Working across Cultures toward Common Goals

1.7.4 Suggested Readings

2 Methods: Cultural and Archaeological

2.1 Archaeological Research Methods

2.1.1 Archaeological Techniques

2.1.2 Archaeological Dating Methods

2.2 Conservation and Naturalism

2.2.1 Early Efforts

2.2.2 Salvage Anthropology

2.2.3 Museum Collections

2.2.4 Interpretation and Voice

2.3 Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.1 The Development of Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.2 Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography

2.4 Participant Observation and Interviewing

2.4.1 Participant Observation

2.4.2 Interviewing Informants

2.4.3 Ethical Considerations

2.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

2.5.1 Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Information

2.5.2 Modeling

2.5.3 The Science of Anthropology

2.6 Collections

2.6.1 Archives

2.6.2 Three-Dimensional Collections

2.6.3 Ownership

2.6.4 Suggested Readings

3 Culture Concept Theory: Theories of Cultural Change

3.1 The Homeyness of Culture

3.2 The Winkiness of Culture

3.3 The Elements of Culture

3.3.1 Culture Is What We Make

3.3.2 Culture Is What We Do

3.3.3 Culture Is What We Think

3.4 The Aggregates of Culture

3.4.1 Symbols

3.4.2 Ritual

3.4.3 Social Structure

3.5 Modes of Cultural Analysis

3.5.1 Evolution, Adaptation, and Historical Particularism

3.5.2 Functionalism

3.5.3 Structuralism

3.5.4 Ontology

3.6 The Paradoxes of Culture

3.6.1 Paradox 1: Culture Is Continuous, but It Changes

3.6.2 Paradox 2: Culture Is Bounded but Mobile

3.6.3 Paradox 3: Culture Is Consensual but Contested

3.6.4 Paradox 4: Culture Is Shared, but It Varies

3.6.5 Suggested Readings

4 Biological Evolution and Early Human Evidence

4.1 What Is Biological Anthropology?

4.1.1 Looking to the Deep Past

4.1.2 Exploring What It Means to Be Human

4.2 What’s in a Name? The Science of Taxonomy

4.2.1 Defining the Science of Taxonomy

4.2.2 Defining a Species

4.3 It’s All in the Genes! The Foundation of Evolution

4.3.1 The Units of Life

4.3.2 Gregor Mendel and the Laws of Heredity

4.3.3 Mendelian Inheritance in Humans

4.4 Evolution in Action: Past and Present

4.4.1 Early Evolutionists and the Fixity of Species

4.4.2 Charles Darwin’s Role in Changing Views of the Natural World

4.4.3 Understanding Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection

4.5 What Is a Primate?

4.5.1 What Is a Primate?

4.5.2 Primate Behavioral Variation

4.5.3 Explaining Primate Success

4.5.4 Primate Classification and Taxonomy

4.6 Origin of and Classification of Primates

4.6.1 Understanding Concepts of Time

4.6.2 Fossils and Dating Methods