Tools for Change: Food Preparation Techniques during State Formation at the Tilcajete Sites

Summary

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 practical concerns as well as the social and symbolic significance of foodways and eating. In this paper, we examine food preparation in household contexts during the Middle and Late phases of the Formative period in Oaxaca, Mexico (500-100 B.C.). This was a time of significant sociopolitical change in connection with the founding of Monte Albán and the emergence and growth of the state.

We investigate households from the Tilcajete polity in the southern Valley of Oaxaca. Excavations at two consecutive occupations have demonstrated changes to domestic architecture that suggest an increase in household size. In this study, we compare food preparation features and implements including groundstone tools, ceramic cooking vessels, and hearths from both occupations. We evaluate patterns in household food preparation tools to determine whether people continued to reference traditional cooking techniques or created new styles of food preparation in response to shifting household composition and broader societal change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Archaeology of Oaxacan Cuisine

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24900