What’s Hot in Beringia? Cooking during the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition in Central Alaska

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The subsistence traditions of the early Americans residing in Beringia have played a key role in debates surrounding the spread of people across the continent. Hunting and related technologies have garnered the most attention in these debates, which relied heavily on prey-choice and projectile point data. But how did hunted or collected resources become food? Considering variation in processing and cooking techniques in Beringia may yield clues to the subsistence considerations of the early Americans, as well as early American cultures of cooking. Based on an initial analysis of a large late Pleistocene rock-filled hearth, its charcoal, associated fauna, and fatty residues, we argue that food processing styles may be just as important to reconstructing past cultures of early Americans as hunting.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Hearths, Earth Ovens, and the Carbohydrate Revolution: Indigenous Subsistence Strategies and Cooking during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene in North America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35581.0