Ritual Foods Compared with Daily Diet at Tenahaha in the Cotahuasi Valley during the Andean Middle Horizon

Summary

People in the past actively chose which foods were used in different contexts. Here we compare plant remains with human skeletal remains to understand dietary practices at Tenahaha in the Cotahuasi Valley (AD 850-1050). Tenahaha was built during the Middle Horizon as a communal space to take advantage of new social interaction spheres, stimulated in part by the Wari state. Tenahaha includes burial areas as well as food storage and preparation zones. Macrobotanical remains were found in public rather than private locations, indicating communal production of food and drink. Quinoa, tubers, and molle were ubiquitous at the site, along with maize, with chicha made of maize/molle produced and consumed there. These remains suggest a ritual or communal diet heavy in C3 foods, although taphonomy and food processing will also be considered as mediating factors. In comparison, stable isotope analysis of individuals buried at the site compare favorably to the elite inhabitants of the Wari secondary city of Conchopata, who ate a diet dominated by C4 plants (maize) and meat (maize foddered camelids). Taphonomic concerns should not be ruled out, but communal use of foods with deeper histories than maize suggests active differentiation between daily and ritual diet at Tenahaha.

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): 22616