Towards a Social Paleoethnobotany of Urbanization: Integrating Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Data to Explore Foodways at La Blanca, Guatemala

Summary

This paper uses macrobotanical and microbotanical remains to investigate the impacts of developing sociopolitical complexity on the foodways of Middle Preclassic inhabitants of the Pacific coast of Guatemala. I use these datasets to explore how urbanization affected food-related practices of residents of La Blanca (900-600 BCE). Macrobotanical remains from house floors facilitate comparisons between elite and commoner foodways, while starch grains and phytoliths extracted from grinding equipment, domestic cooking wares, and large vessels used for communal meals directly identify foods prepared for various occasions. This study critically contributes to our understanding of how early urbanization impacted the daily lives of ancient inhabitants of the Southern Maya Region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21649