2006 Tinker Summer Research Report Shanti Morell-Hart Anthropology "Paleoethnobotanical Approaches to Foodways in the Northern Yucatan (ca. 100 BC- 450 AD)"

Archaeological site of Chunchucmil, Yucatan.

Research goals

Between May 12 and July 18, enabled by travel funding from the Center for Latin American Studies, I spent 3 weeks at the archaeological site of Naranjal, Quintana Roo, and 8 weeks at the archaeological site of Chunchucmil, Yucatan. This travel to Mexico was carried out under the auspices of the Yalahau Regional Human Ecology Project and the Pakbeh Regional Economy Project, with permission from the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia. My goal was to pursue data and reference materials related to my dissertation thesis.

My dissertation research focuses on foodways and society in the landscape of the Northern Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. I am specifically interested in late Preclassic and Early Classic occupations, between ca.100 BC and 450 AD. Through my multidisciplinary research I seek to acquire evidence of foodways through archaeological means, to recover botanical taxa thus far invisible to the archaeological gaze, and to explore the roles of these various plants in shaping or maintaining daily social practices and the Prehispanic Maya diet.

In the Maya area, plant-based food production and consumption have been explored, to a limited degree, through the use of ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological materials. However, many gaps remain in the interpretation of past Maya foodways, due to a reliance on assumptions derived either inductively from historical documents, or deductively from general sociological hypotheses. Archaeological work in the Maya area has tended to produce studies focused on agriculture and ritual, with little time spared for the other important aspects of foodways. These aspects include practices of everyday life related not just to the basic necessity of subsistence, but also to the richness of experience associated with tending, recovery, preparation, exchange, display, consumption, and disposal of food.

My dissertation hopes to expand knowledge of Prehispanic Maya foodways through paleoethnobotanical work at archaeological sites in the Northern Lowlands of Yucatan. In order to pursue questions about food-related activities within the immediate residential area, I utilize information gleaned from the spatial layout and construction of associated structures and features, as well as the ecological, hydrological, and geological context of the region, both currently and at various periods during the occupational history of the Northern Lowlands. To infer specific past daily practices surrounding food, I employ several paleoethnobotanical methodologies. My methods include the study of macrobotanical remains (such as seeds), microbotanical remains (such as phytoliths), and economic plant residues (such as starch grains). Additionally, artifacts such as grinding stones, ceramic vessels and sherds, and lithic tools and flakes will serve to inform uses and spatial distribution of materials employed by past Maya people in the production, processing, serving, and disposal of plant-based foods.

Collection of Botanical Specimens

In 2004 and 2005, partially funded by a CLAS Robert and Alice Bridges Summer Grant, I began to obtain samples of botanical materials not currently available in the reference collection of the Paleoethnobotany Laboratory at UCB, pursuing modern samples at the sites of T’isil and Naranjal in Quintana Roo. These materials have been curated at UCB, for use as comparative samples with archaeological botanical materials recovered from excavations. I have also procured botanical information from visits to the Centro de Investigacion Cientifica de Yucatan (CICY), in Merida. From these materials, I have produced a Mesoamerican Economic Plants database with photos and cultural information about various plant taxa. This database is employed in the analysis of paleoethnobotanical remains, to discuss the attributes of recovered plant taxa, their ecological niches, and potential associated practices. Additionally,at the Archaeobiology Laboratory of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, I was able to carry out research involving microbotanical approaches. This research included extraction of starch grains from carbonized plant tissues recovered from archaeological contexts at T’isil during the 2004 season. This research also involved the extraction of phytoliths and starch grains from modern plants collected during the 2004 and 2005 field seasons, to form part of the UCB reference collection.

A modern cook fire on an ancient style of hearth.

During the 2006 field season, I continued to gather botanical specimens for use in building the UCB paleoethnobotanical reference collection. These materials, as with those previously gathered, will enter the collections physically as macrobotanical and microbotanical specimens and digitally as photos and informational text in the Mesoamerican Economic Plants database.

Collection of Archaeological Data

While at the archaeological site of Chunchucmil, I also obtained permission to select and export ceramic sherds to undergo microbotanical analysis. These sherds were recovered from excavations at Chunchucmil during the 2005 and 2006 field seasons. I elected sherds based on their quality, the form of the vessel from which they came, and the portion of the vessel that they represent.

Microbotanical evidence, in the form of phytoliths and starch grains, will be recovered from these ceramic fragments. The ceramic sherds will be individually sonicated in distilled water to recover phytoliths and starch grains from within the pores of the clay (a technique successfully applied by Linda Perry at the Smithsonian Institution 2005-2006). These microbotanical remains will be viewed with a high-powered microscope under direct and polarized light, and compared with phytoliths and starch grains housed in the UCB reference collection or documented in descriptions and photographs. The quantity and smallest possible clade will be recorded for each botanical specimen, by ceramic sherd. The results will be tabulated and recorded in a database, and investigated through exploratory statistical applications. Although the range of botanical products likely varies from location to location (patios, platforms, pyramids, etc.), and thus so would vary the recoverable botanical remains, I here make the assumption that, in a very general sense, similar foods are served, cooked, and/or stored in similar vessels, regardless of provenance. That is, I am looking for gross differences between forms of vessels and uses of vessels, rather than fine differences between households.

This analysis will assess, first, the feasibility of recovering worthwhile microbotanical data from a variety of ceramic sherds. This information could be applied to ceramic sherds at other sites across the Yucatan, where conditions are similar, and other areas of Mesoamerica. Second, I will be evaluating the quantity and quality of microbotanical data recovered from ceramic sherds of different portions and qualities. This information could be applied analogously to similar sherds in other areas, in terms of setting up expectations of which ceramic sherds will yield the best results. Finally, I hope to associate particular botanical species with particular ceramic fragments. This information could be applied analogously to similar vessels in other areas, in terms of setting up expectations of which ceramic sherds will yield the remains of which species. This information could also yield a broad view of which foods are served, cooked, and stored in which vessel forms. Moreover, this information could calibrate current understandings of which foods correspond with which vessel forms (for example, storing beans in a cuenco, serving chiles in a cazuela, cooking maize in an olla, etc.).

Future work

The continued assembly of a botanical reference collection and the preliminary data recovered from microbotanical analyses will serve to further frame my thesis research. This research will eventually include a combination of macrobotanical, microbotanical, and artifact residue analyses of materials recovered from various archaeological loci. From these investigations I will draw comparisons between uses of serving and cookingware, areas of consumption and processing, and the distributions and uses of various plant taxa intra-site. In the course of these studies, I will examine the link between specific plants and the areas where residues of activities surrounding them remain, as well as the practices likely associated with the collection and processing of each plant species. I will be paying particular attention to similarities and differences in uses of various plant species across the site, by “higher” and “lower” status groups, in order to examine social differentiation through the medium of foodways.

This multidisciplinary study will examine the uses of various plants in the past, and the implications of these uses in daily practice and social life, from community-level social organization to the role of food plants in creating, maintaining, defining, and/or blurring status distinctions between community members. This work will contribute one of the first studies in the Maya area to look at foodways through paleoethnobotanical analyses, and indeed is one of only a handful of such studies produced thus far in the greater Mesoamerican area. In the course of my investigations, I seek to further active collaboration between ejido community members and the archaeological project, and to continue dialogue between U.S. and Mexican scholars, in order to produce a view of the ancient past that includes a wide diversity of voices.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to the Center for Latin American Studies, the Sigma Xi Society, and the Department of Anthropology for their financial support of my research. My thanks to Rosemary Joyce, Christine Hastorf, and Bill Hanks for their perpetual help in developing my research plans and mental faculties. My thanks to Scott Hutson and Bruce Dahlin for their support and the opportunity to work with them and their project this year. My thanks to the Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia (I.N.A.H.) and the communities of Chunchucmil, Kochol, and Naranjal for their support and permission to pursue investigations at various locations. My thanks to Claudio, Benancia, Honorio, Geni, Shannon, Stephanie, Andy, Elise, Victoria, Chris, Shannon, Rodrigo, Manuel, Jose Santos, and many others, for their guidance and in-field support in every capacity.

The research and excavation team.