Fremont Paleocuisine: Reconstructing Recipes from Rectal Remnants

Summary

The role of maize agriculture among the Fremont has been debated for decades. Archaeologists have organized dietary evidence from these widely dispersed communities, including faunal and floral debris, dental calculus studies,and experimental farming and foraging, to examine farming in the high desert. The Fremont farming/foraging frontier provides a framework to explore agriculture along the margins and the importance of diversified subsistence strategies across a network of rural communities.

Aside from the broad patterns of diet derived from skeletal stable isotope data, direct dietary evidence from Fremont communities remains scarce. Researchers have studied only a small number of Fremont coprolites from widely scattered sites. The coprolite record of neighboring Ancestral Puebloan communities is well-documented and contains specimens from maize-dependent nucleated pueblos and earlier dispersed farming villages. This coprolite data, along with specimens deposited by Archaic foragers across the Great Basin and northern Colorado Plateau, situates the Fremont data along a regional spectrum from foraging to agriculture. Framing each coprolite as a menu of consecutive meals yields insight into nuanced aspects of diet, including preparation and cooking techniques as well as deconstructed recipes. Ingredient lists derived from each specimen allow glimpses into the flavor combinations and basic techniques of Fremont paleocuisine.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22391