The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

One of the virtues of doing archaeology in Oaxaca is that we get to enjoy Oaxaca’s world-renowned cuisine. Mexico’s cuisine was the first to receive UNESCO’s culinary heritage status and, among the culinary traditions of Mexico, the one from Oaxaca reigns supreme among gourmands. This bilingual session will focus on recent finds and ongoing research that investigates the development of the Oaxacan prehispanic diet and the history of the region’s cuisine. The topic of food can be studied through different approaches: as an adaptation to our physical and social environments, as a response to our material needs and a reflection of our social complexity, or as foodways, which are symbolically charged and meaningful practices that reinforce social ties, cultural identity, and beliefs. Session participants, using any combination of these approaches, are generating data stemming from diverse methodologies, from paleoethnobotanical and zooarchaeological studies to the study of cooking implements and vessels, from stable isotope studies of human remains to the study of ethnohistorical records and linguistic evidence. By bringing together a wide range of perspectives, methodologies, and scholars the session will contribute to our growing understanding of how this rich food tradition came into existence.

Other Keywords
Subsistence and Foodways • Paleoethnobotany • Formative • Highland Mesoamerica: Postclassic • Zooarchaeology • Household Archaeology • Colonialism • Geoarchaeology • Subsistence • Mortuary Analysis

Geographic Keywords
United Mexican States (Country) • Oaxaca (State / Territory) • North America (Continent) • Mesoamerica: Oaxaca or Southern Highlands

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-12 of 12)

  • Documents (12)
Documents
  • Archaic Period MRG-6 and the Deep Culinary Roots of Oaxacan Cuisine (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Shanti Morell-Hart. Éloi Bérubé.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rich cuisine of contemporary Oaxaca sprouted from deep roots. Archaic Period plant remains recovered from the MRG-6 rockshelter enhance prior work at Guila Naquitz and grant us insight into some of the managed and wild food plants still used in contemporary Oaxacan dishes. Over 70 different botanical taxa were identified from samples excavated at...

  • Constituting the Divine: Coastal Cuisine and Public Places in the Formative-period Lower Río Verde Valley (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Barber. Arthur Joyce. Petra Cunningham-Smith. Shanti Morell-Hart.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Food was central to the constitution of sacred public spaces during the Formative period in the lower Río Verde valley on Oaxaca’s Pacific coast. Public facilities at small sites and at the region’s largest precolumbian architectural complex, the Río Viejo acropolis, were the location not only of collective food consumption but also of food...

  • Cuisine Choices in Mundane and Ceremonial Contexts at a Late Classic Palace Compound in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ronald Faulseit. Heather Lapham.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Late Classic (CE 500 – 900), elite families in the Oaxaca Valley maintained and reinforced their elevated status through calendrical rites, where they acted as intermediaries between the community and supernatural entities associated with the agricultural cycle. These rituals served as the key components of broader festivals that likely involved...

  • Food from the Barranca: A 13,000-Year Perspective from the Yuzanú Drainage of the Mixteca Alta (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Aleksander Borejsza. Arthur Joyce. Jonathan Lohse.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Barrancas are marginal spaces in the cultural ecology and cultural perceptions of modern-day inhabitants and visitors of the Mixteca Alta. They tend to be little-contested commons where the poor graze their animals, hunt, gather fuelwood and occasional culinary curiosities. They rarely figure in the villagers' get-rich schemes or outsiders' research...

  • Foodways and Diet in the Prehispanic Mixteca Alta : Ceramic and Isotope Analyses in the Specific Case of the Tomb 1 Burial in Nduatiucu (San Felipe Ixtapa, Teposcolula) (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jennifer Saumur.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation examines the archaeological possibilities for investigating prehispanic foodways and diet. We do this through the analysis of a burial recovered in Tomb 1 at Nduatiucu, in the Teposcolula valley in the Mixteca Alta. The burial first excavated in the 1970s by Winter et al. (1975) and later re-assessed and radiocarbon dated by Saumur...

  • Foodways and Human-Animal Relations at Early Formative Etlatongo: An Ontology of Differentiation (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Blomster. Victor Salazar Chavez.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The origins of Oaxacan cuisines can be found in the later half of the Early Formative period, a time of emerging socio-political complexity. The incorporation of maize as a dietary staple and less reliance on wild plants and animals were part of a profound change in subsistence practices and conceptions of food in much of Mesoamerica. We argue that...

  • Foregrounding Food: Mixtec Cuisine, Identity, and Household Ritual at Late Postclassic Tututepec, Oaxaca (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Marc Levine. Kathryn Puseman.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper highlights the results of a recent analysis of macrobotanical remains from commoner households at the Late Postclassic (AD 1100-1522) Mixtec capital of Tututepec. The paleoethnobotanical data is considered in light of archaeological evidence, as well as ethnographic and ethnohistoric data, to investigate the nature of household food...

  • The Impact of Diet and Dental Health among the Mixtec Urban Societies from the Formative Period of Oaxaca, Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alicia Gonzales. Shunashi Soledad Victoria Bustamante. Jeffrey Blomster. Veronica Perez Rodriguez. Ricardo Higelin Ponce de León.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We present the results of a preliminary study that investigates the impact of increased social complexity on the dental health of two Mixteca Alta populations, one from the Middle Formative (850 – 400 BC.) component of the site of Etlatongo and the other from the Late to Terminal Formative (400 BC. – AD. 300) urban center of Cerro Jazmín. Our research...

  • Nourishing the Ancestors among the Zapotecs, Valley of Oaxaca (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Markens. Cira Martínez López.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. From 500 BCE onwards, religion in the Valley of Oaxaca was organized in part as an ancestor cult as materialized by the appearance of household tombs in the archaeological record. Heads of households were laid to rest for a number of generations with offerings consisting most often of ceramic vessels, which in domestic contexts were used to serve food...

  • The Oaxacan Cuisine at Achiutla during the Early Colonial Period: A Story of Resilience (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Éloi Bérubé. Jamie Forde.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Using paleoethnobotany, this paper examines the Mixtecs’ reaction to the arrival of Spanish at Achiutla, located in the Mixteca Alta. Faced with many challenges during the Early Colonial Period (1521–1600 AD), we examine how Mixtecs’ inhabitants of Achiutla negotiated the arrival of new, introduced foods in the region. To do so, we compare the plant...

  • Preserving Oaxacan Foodways in the Face of Conquest: The Seed Bank at Cerro del Convento (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Stacie King. Shanti Morell-Hart.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rich culinary traditions of Oaxaca were both enhanced through and catastrophically disrupted by Spanish incursions during the Colonial Period. However, in spite of many radical transformations in cooking techniques and ingredients, indigenous people of Oaxaca persisted in their use of certain foods and practices. This persistence sometimes required...

  • Tools for Change: Food Preparation Techniques during State Formation at the Tilcajete Sites (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lacey Carpenter. Jonathan Paige.

    This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cooking and eating are practices with cultural significance beyond sustenance. Understanding foodways during times of sociopolitical transformation can provide a window into how people foster, resist, and mediate social change in daily life. The context in which food is produced, prepared, consumed, and shared provides insight into people’s changing...