Taking a Closer Look: Biomolecular Insights to Foodways among the Moche of North Coastal Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Culinary Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Cuisine is essential in the construction and maintenance of local and individual identity. At the Late Moche (600–900 CE) ceremonial center of Huaca Colorada on the north coast of Peru, a rich macrobotanical and zooarchaeological assemblage suggests a cuisine reflective of the region’s environmental diversity. Dominated by maize cultivation and camelid herding, these macroscopic lines of evidence attest to deeply rooted local foodways. Nevertheless, questions remain concerning how individual foods were combined and prepared in the formation of cuisine. Local communities in Jequetepeque Valley operated within interregional networks, connecting the valley with communities along the coast and into the highlands. Communities within these networks wove together internal and external influences across time and space in the creation of local identity. Considering cuisine as one expression of identity, our research seeks to reconstruct past recipes through the analysis of ancient proteins preserved in ancient cooking pots (ollas). We apply shotgun proteomics—a method of ancient protein analysis—for the identification of plant and animal food-derived proteins in pottery residues from Huaca Colorada. As a complement to other forms of analysis, including archaeobotany and zooarchaeology, proteomics can contribute to understandings of cuisine through interpretations of food preparation and cooking.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Culinary Archaeology   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36680.0