The Atlantic Frontier: Foodways and the Materialities of TransAtlantic Interactions.

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "The Atlantic Frontier: Foodways and the Materialities of TransAtlantic Interactions." at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Over the past 500 years, the Atlantic Ocean has played a pivotal role in facilitating cultural, political, and economic exchange. Rather than serving as a dividing phenomenon, the Atlantic connects communities. Focusing on the cultural interactions that pillared the economics and politics of the period, this session will explore foodways and their material manifestations as a lens for understanding the quotidian relationships and their power dynamics. Through an examination of food wares, glass, faunal and floral remains, smoking pipes, and other food-related materials, we will discuss how coastal communities, forts, and hinterlands on both sides of the Atlantic navigated contacts during the Atlantic trade period, colonial era, and postcolonial age. This session will address whether these groups dominated, survived, actively resisted, or became entangled in these interactions, and detail the implications for gender roles, class differentiation, and other cultural issues within these transcontinental interfaces. This interdisciplinary exploration will shed light on cultural exchange's complex and multifaceted nature across the Atlantic.