Feeding Teotihuacan: integrating approaches to studying food and foodways of the ancient metropolis

This special issue of the Journal of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences provides a broad overview of the foods and foodways at a premier example of urbanism in the pre-Hispanic New World, the ancient metropolis of Teotihuacan, Mexico. One of the grand challenges of reconstructing ancient urban foodways is determining the social, economic, political, and ideological factors that enabled the production, distribution, consumption, and discard of food. In this volume, we define foodways as a social process, reenacted via the daily interactions between individuals. By bringing together scholars of Teotihuacan that use diverse methods and scales of analysis, we are able to provide a synthetic review of Teotihuacan foodways by summarizing the findings of each of the contributors and contextualizing their results by embedding them within knowledge gained from the long history of investigation at the site.     

Multiproxy approach to the study of Medieval food habits in Tuscany (central Italy)

A multiproxy approach based on archaeobotanical, organic residue and isotopic analyses was carried out on materials from 12 Medieval archaeological sites in Tuscany (central Italy), in order to provide a diachronic overview of local diet in rural and urban sites from the mid-eighth to the fourteenth centuries AD. Archaeobotanical analyses were applied to 130,578 seeds/fruits, residue analyses involved 87 samples from cooking and storing vessels, whereas analyses of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes included 63 human bone samples and 26 animal specimens. The results indicate that from the mid-eighth century AD, crop production was of high quality similar, to that of the Roman Age. The main cultivations were naked wheats, barley and horse bean, a diversity that attests the technological skills reached by Tuscan peasants during the whole Middle Ages. Different cereals and pulse abundantly supplemented the diet. This strategy not only ensured peasants’ subsistence in the mid-eighth century AD, minimizing the risks of environmental adversities, but it also increased crop production – from the mid-ninth century AD on, for the revived markets and trade. Between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries AD, C4 plants had a dominant role in the peasants’ diet, when the wheat production was strictly collected first by the landlords and then by the cities for their own needs. Crop production was integrated by swine farming; animal meat consumption is well documented in rural and urban populations from the ninth century AD. Wine and olive oil, considered important elements of diet in Medieval Tuscany, have a very scarce presence, but they are recorded for later periods, mainly in urban areas and in higher social classes, such as the religious and aristocratic ones. In fact, only between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries AD was the great expansion of olive groves and vineyards recorded, when cities and urban populations claim to have access to these luxury foods.     

Entangled Histories: Translocal Textile Trades in Eastern Africa,c. 800 CE to the Early Twentieth Century

In the recent efflorescence of studies on ‘global’ textile trades, eastern Africa has been mostly conspicuous for its absence. This special volume of Textile History seeks to redress this situation by mapping many of the major historic textile trades of this vast area, and demonstrating their importance to the global story. The introduction provides the rationale for the volume, positions the textile trades of eastern Africa over the longue durée and connects them to wider geographical and conceptual frameworks, and presents its five essays, contextualising them within the unfolding history of the western Indian Ocean and its several ‘cloth zones’, while elucidating their potential contributions to the field.     

Framing Food Policy: The Case of Raw Milk

Policies governing the sale of raw milk—making the sales of raw milk more permissive—are gaining traction on the legislative agendas of dozens of states. This paper examines one contributor to this movement on the policy agenda: the role of competitive framing. By combining theoretical approaches from policy studies and political psychology theories of competitive framing, we offer evidence supporting the recent relative success of raw milk activists in several state legislatures. Using an Internet survey‐based experiment with a sample size of 1,630 respondents from seven Midwestern states, we show that a frame emphasizing consumer choice and food freedom is more effective than the frame that dominates among the policy establishment, that emphasizing public health risks. This is true in both one‐sided and competitive framing contexts. We further show that those previously aware of this issue were less influenced by the public health frame than those naïve to the issue. Our results suggest that the pro‐raw milk movement may be making strides on the state policy agenda because their frames are more resonant among the public. We also highlight the advantages gained from considering psychological and policy processes simultaneously to understand policy change.     

Garumele Revisited: Retracing Vanished Fired-Brick Elite Constructions and New Data on Settlement Foundation

Some of the most notable and largely endangered archaeological remains from the Lake Chad area consist of the ruins of fired-brick elite constructions connected to the Kanem-Borno Empire (ca. eighth–nineteenth century AD). In the course of the last 200 years, several of the elite structures known west of the lake were destroyed as a consequence of war, later having their fired-bricks looted for constructions elsewhere. One of the largest and most thoroughly plundered of those structures once stood within the walled settlement of Garumele, SW Niger Republic. In the scope of an experimental field study at that location and with a view to future work at related sites, we demonstrate that it is still possible to retrace the ground plans of Kanem-Borno fired-brick structures, even if these have been already completely pillaged. In addition, we present new chronological evidence suggesting that Garumele—as a walled urban settlement—was founded sometime between the mid-fifteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries, but most probably between the late sixteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries AD.     

From Aterian Notch to Aterian Tang: How to Make a Technological Invention

The Aterian lithic techno-complex that characterizes the late Middle Stone Age in North Africa is well known especially for its tanged or stemmed points. Recent techno-morphological and use-wear analyses have added new data to support the identification of the tang as the hafted portion of an artifact. They have also highlighted the presence of this attribute on tools other than projectile points, in contrast with the widespread idea that the tanged point is the Aterian fossile directeur. The design of this specific device, the tang, for hafting purposes is regarded as a great technical innovation that underlines a modern behavior. Our work provides new use-wear and experimental data, aiming at discussing the cognitive preconditions of this technical innovation that could have originated from a specific functional unit: the notch. Notches are quite abundant in the Aterian techno-complex. Our systematic study of this tool category from Aterian sites of the Jebel Gharbi allowed defining the notch per se as a techno-morpho-functional unit that was “applied” to different types of blanks, including “reused blanks,” which show a heavy patina on their surface. This functional unit has been used for various types of activities and can be found either alone on a blank or with multiple other units on the same blank, creating different tool morphologies. According to this interpretation, the tang could have been considered by Aterian populations as a new resulting variant of various possible combinations of notches, for defining and/or transforming the shape of a tool.     

Adaptations and Dispersals of Anatomically Modern Humans in the Changing Environments of North Africa: the Contribution of Microvertebrates

There is limited available data on the environmental context of the arrival of the first anatomically modern humans (AMH) in North Africa, and subsequent Paleolithic and Neolithic occupations within this region. Microvertebrates such as rodents, shrews, amphibians, and squamates are known to be good indicators of climate and landscape changes. They also represent continental paleoecological records that can be directly related to human occupations. Moreover, faunas and humans have been subjected to several dispersal waves through similar routes, and some rodents may present anthropophilous behavior. Therefore, by understanding the dispersal pattern and pathways of these microvertebrates, it is possible to propose scenarios for human dispersal events. In this study we took the rich microfaunal assemblages from the Témara region, Atlantic Morocco (El Harhoura 2 and El Mnasra Caves), and placed them within a broader synthesis, in order to highlight the role of microvertebrates in providing a better understanding of the human-environment relationship during the Late Quaternary in North Africa.     

The Pleistocene of Rabat (Morocco): Mollusks,Coastal Environments and Human Behavior

The Rabat-Témara region of the Moroccan Atlantic coast reveals a succession of Quaternary palaeobeaches. This coastal area is dotted with numerous prehistoric caves. The study of the Upper Pleistocene coastal landscape associated with these caves is of paramount importance in the knowledge of human population subsistence. During the Upper Pleistocene, the ocean level changes drastically influenced the coastal geomorphology as well as the fauna assemblages. The chrono-lithostratographical analysis of the coastal sedimentary formations allows the distinction of three sequences rich in marine fauna. These sequences date from MIS 11 to MIS 5. The identification of malacofauna species from these deposits revealed 39 species, along with Bryozoans, Crustaceans, and Echinoids. These assemblages show a constant fauna cortege highlighted by the dominance of the amphi-Atlantic species Stramonita haemastoma. This species shows an increase in the number of specimens in the uppermost part of marine deposits, probably in relation with a climate warming in the MIS 5. This fauna of both intertidal rocky substrates and sandy substratum indicates environmental conditions close to the present-day Rabat-Témara coastline. As in other coastal locations of Africa from MIS 5, the Middle Stone Age Homo sapiens population benefitted from a littoral environment rich in coastal resources. Comparison between thanatocenoses and archaeological records allows us to identify both species available for Middle Stone Age population and those preferred for human use.     

‘A Terrific Ogre’: The Role of the Devil in Victorian Popular Belief

The Devil played a vital role in Victorian popular belief. He was a multifaceted figure who could be humorous or terrifying, depending on the occasion. While he struggled for space with an array of supernatural figures, the Devil managed to maintain a presence in a wide variety of supernatural narratives and beliefs.