Steamed or Boiled: Identity and Value in Food Preparation

How do daily meals resemble larger feast gatherings? In many cultures every act associated with food is filled with meaning and sanctity. Feasts usually feed more people than daily household meals, and by their scale, gain centrifugal meanings. These ritual foods for the deities, ancestors and large groups do not often look like daily meals in the Andean region. One of the goals of the Taraco Archaeological Project (TAP) is to study the past foodways in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia. Evidence of unusual ingredients suggests that experimentation with exotic foods occurred in ritual settings on a community level, reflecting centripetal constructions in these larger meals

Identity and Value in Food Preparation

How do daily meals resemble larger feast gatherings? In many cultures every act associated with food is filled with meaning and sanctity. Feasts usually feed more people than daily household meals, and by their scale, gain centrifugal meanings. These ritual foods for the deities, ancestors, and large groups do not oten look like daily meals in the Andean region. One of the goals of the Taraco Archaeological Project (TAP) is to study the past foodways in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia. Evidence of unusual ingredients suggests that experimentation with exotic foods occurred in ritual settings on a community level, reflecting centripetal constructions in these larger meals

The social and political sides of food surplus

This article looks at how surplus is not only an economic reality but a state of mind, created by and reflecting the social and political relations of a group, by considering examples of historic and prehistoric food surplus. The state of one’s surplus is not just what one stores, but also how others see it and think about it. Individuals are not alone, but always think of their surplus within a larger network of social and political interactions with others who are also storing food as well as within the rules for access. These networks have been considered safety nets by archaeologists, but often, as with many situations today, the populace does not have access to the safety net. Two case studies illustrate the dynamics and differences of this constructed side of food surplus

Quinoa, potatoes, and llamas fueled emergent social complexity in the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andes

The Lake Titicaca basin was one of the major centers for cultural development in the ancient world. This lacustrine environment is unique in the high, dry Andean altiplano, and its aquatic and terrestrial resources are thought to have contributed to the florescence of complex societies in this region. Nevertheless, it remains unclear to what extent local aquatic resources, particularly fish, and the introduced crop, maize, which can be grown in regions along the lakeshores, contributed to facilitating sustained food production and population growth, which underpinned increasing social political complexity starting in the Formative Period (1400 BCE to 500 CE) and culminating with the Tiwanaku state (500 to 1100 CE). Here, we present direct dietary evidence from stable isotope analysis of human skeletal remains spanning over two millennia, together with faunal and floral reference materials, to reconstruct foodways and ecological interactions in southern Lake Titicaca over time. Bulk stable isotope analysis, coupled with compound-specific amino acid stable isotope analysis, allows better discrimination between resources consumed across aquatic and terrestrial environments. Together, this evidence demonstrates that human diets predominantly relied on C(3) plants, particularly quinoa and tubers, along with terrestrial animals, notably domestic camelids. Surprisingly, fish were not a significant source of animal protein, but a slight increase in C(4) plant consumption verifies the increasing importance of maize in the Middle Horizon. These results underscore the primary role of local terrestrial food resources in securing a nutritious diet that allowed for sustained population growth, even in the face of documented climate and political change across these periods

How Christians Reconcile Their Personal Political Views and the Teachings of Their Faith: Projection as a Means of Dissonance Reduction

The present study explores the dramatic projection of one\u27s own views onto those of Jesus among conservative and liberal American Christians. In a large-scale survey, the relevant views that each group attributed to a contemporary Jesus differed almost as much as their own views. Despite such dissonance-reducing projection, however, conservatives acknowledged the relevant discrepancy with regard to fellowship issues (e.g., taxation to reduce economic inequality and treatment of immigrants) and liberals acknowledged the relevant discrepancy with regard to morality issues (e.g., abortion and gay marriage). However, conservatives also claimed that a contemporary Jesus would be even more conservative than themselves on the former issues whereas liberals claimed that Jesus would be even more liberal than themselves on the latter issues. Further reducing potential dissonance, liberal and conservative Christians differed markedly in the types of issues they claimed to be more central to their faith. A concluding discussion considers the relationship between individual motivational processes and more social processes that may underlie the present findings, as well as implications for contemporary social and political conflict

Temporal inflection points in decorated pottery: a bayesian refinement of the late formative chronology in the Southern Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia

The Late Formative period immediately precedes the emergence of Tiwanaku, one of the earliest South American states, yet it is one of the most poorly understood periods in the southern Lake Titicaca Basin (Bolivia). In this article, we refine the ceramic chronology of this period with large sets of dates from eight sites, focusing on temporal inflection points in decorated ceramic styles. These points, estimated here by Bayesian models, index specific moments of change: (1) cal AD 120 (60-170, 95% probability): the first deposition of Kalasasaya red-rimmed and zonally incised styles; (2) cal AD 240 (190-340, 95% probability): a tentative estimate of the final deposition of Kalasasaya zonally incised vessels; (3) cal AD 420 (380-470, 95% probability): the final deposition of Kalasasaya red-rimmed vessels; and (4) cal AD 590 (500-660, 95% probability): the first deposition of Tiwanaku Redwares. These four modeled boundaries anchor an updated Late Formative chronology, which includes the Initial Late Formative phase, a newly identified decorative hiatus between the Middle and Late Formative periods. The models place Qeya and transitional vessels between inflection points 3 and 4 based on regionally consistent stratigraphic sequences. This more precise chronology will enable researchers to explore the trajectories of other contemporary shifts during this crucial period in Lake Titicaca Basin's prehistory.Fil: Marsh, Erik Johnson. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Laboratorio de Paleoecología Humana; ArgentinaFil: Roddick, Andrew P.. Mc Master University; CanadáFil: Bruno, Maria C.. Dickinson College; Estados UnidosFil: Smith, Scott C.. Franklin & Marshall College; Estados UnidosFil: Janusek, John W.. Vanderbilt University; Estados UnidosFil: Hastorf, Christine A.. University of California at Berkeley; Estados Unido

Preliminary archaeoentomological analyses of permafrost-preserved cultural layers from the pre-contact Yup’ik Eskimo site of Nunalleq, Alaska : implications, potential and methodological considerations

Acknowledgements Site excavation and samples collection were conducted by archaeologists from the University of Aberdeen, with the help of archaeologists and student excavators from the University of Aberdeen University of Alaska Fairbanks and Bryn Mawr College, Kuskokwim Campus, College of Rural Alaska and residents of Quinhagak and Mekoryuk. This study is funded through AHRC grant to the project ‘Understanding Cultural Resilience and Climate Change on the Bering Sea through Yup’ik Ecological Knowledge, Lifeways, Learning and Archaeology’ to Rick Knecht, Kate Britton and Charlotta Hillderal (University of Aberdeen; AH/K006029/1). Thanks are due to Qanirtuuq Inc. and Quinhagak, Alaska for sampling permissions and to entomologists working at the CNC in Ottawa for allowing access to reference collections of beetles, lice and fleas. Yves Bousquet, Ales Smetana and Anthony E. Davies are specially acknowledged for their help with the identification of coleopteran specimens. Finally, we would also like to thank Scott Elias for useful comments on the original manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Toward a Relational Humanism

Humanist conceptions of the person evolve across history. Whereas humanism has served a pivotal role in the caregiving professions, its individualist emphasis now stands as an impediment to its future. Proposed is a relational reconceptualization of the person, placing relational as opposed to individual well-being at the forefront of humanists\u27 concerns