Term
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Definition
"Food Quest"
-Analysis of strategies used to find, capture, extract, process, trade, and consume foods
-Usually many different ways to accomplish the "food quest", why were some strategies chosen and not theirs?
Meals vs. Diet |
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Term
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Definition
Direct evidence of what people were eating at a particular time and place
Evidence of meals:
ID -Historical accounts
-Depictions in various media
-Preserved foodstuffs
D -Stomach contents (in well-preserved remains)
-Coprolites (fossil dung)
-Direct evidence of what an animal was eating
-Evidence of body size |
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Term
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Definition
Pattern of consumption over a period of time
-Indirect evidence of diets
-Food extraction technologies
-Stone and metal projectiles, digging tools, plant and animal fiber nets
-Food processing technologies
-Stone tools, grinding equipment, boiling equipment
-Food storage technologies
-Storage bags, gourds, pits, ceramic vessels
-Drying and salting technology
-Direct evidence
-Isotopic studies
-Bones and teeth
-Malnutrition: stature, rickets
-Microscopic features: abrasions and wear on teeth that indicate foods in diet
-Tooth decay and loss: often associated with increase in starches and sugars in diet from the advent of agriculture.
Is diet sum of all meals? Theoretically, yes. |
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Term
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Definition
Bones (and other materials) preserve isotopic "signatures" of foods eaten
-13C/12C ratio in bone indicates whether individuals ate domesticated grasses (C4 plant) or other carbon sources not related to grasses (C3 plant, marine resources)
-15N/14N in bone: used to assess "trophic level": ratio tends to get higher the farther up the trophic pyramid one is. (vegetarian or carnivore,that kind of trophic level) |
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Term
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Definition
Roots, seeds, fruits, leaves, stems, branches, wood.
Burnt is better, preserved a lot better. |
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Term
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Definition
-Pollen
-Phytoliths (plant opals): minute parts of dead plant cells
-Diatoms (unicellular algae with silica cell walls): algae
-Pulverized charcoal- good indication of if people are present. |
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Term
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Definition
-Vertebrates: small mammals, birds, reptiles
-Small mammals particularly responsive to climate change
-Invertebrates: marine mollusks, worms, insects |
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Term
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Definition
Their remains most likely to have been deposited in an archaeological context through human or animal action.
Bones from animals killed by people cannot reflect full range of fauna b/c picked by people.
Can reflect sudden extinctions, by climactic shift or people... though cause is unknown. |
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