Toward a Social Archaeology of Food in Northern North America

Archaeology in northern North America has long focused on documenting and modelling hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies within a framework that views the procurement, processing, and consumption of food in terms of peoples’ adaptations to the natural environment. While important, it is clear from the ethnographic record of the region that "food" embodied and offered more to hunter-gatherers than mere sustenance. This session offers case studies that highlight cultural dimensions of northern foods in antiquity. Papers address the social construction of edible and inedible foods; the preparation and presentation of food--cuisine; the transformation of plants, animals, and non-human persons into food; the role of food in the crafting of identity, the construction of gender, and status; food in trade, feasting, and ceremonial activities; and social and ideological aspects of the procurement, processing, consumption, and discard of food.