The Intangible Dimensions of Food in the Caribbean Ancient and Recent Past

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Intangible Dimensions of Food in the Caribbean Ancient and Recent Past," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The analysis of food remains has been key to understanding the lifeways of the Caribbean’s earliest inhabitants. Drawing primarily on economic and behavioral ecology models, these studies have focused on subsistence strategies, carrying capacity, resource over-exploitation, extinctions, diet and health, and related questions such as the translocation of species. Food is integral to non-economic, social and cultural processes, though, and some anthropologists and food historians would argue that food is culture. The purpose of this forum is to discuss food-related issues such as identity and cuisine, performance, cultural taboos, status and social differentiation (i.e. the relationship between cuisine and social position), the symbolic meanings of some foods, creolization or transculturation, resistance and many others processes in the Caribbean’s ancient and recent pasts. It is our hope that this conversation will challenge us to start looking at our food data in new terms.