The Archaeology of Food and Social Inequality in the Andes

A comparative examination of food practices is useful for assessing the nature of diverse forms of social inequality. This article examines three key contexts in which to evaluate the relationship between social differentiation and food practices in the Andes: early complex societies, pre-Columbian states and nonstate complex societies, and colonial societies. A review of these distinct contexts suggests that social and subsistence change may follow different rhythms and that food-related differentiation, just like other forms of social differentiation, is neither consistently augmented in a scalar fashion in relation to “degrees” of social complexity, nor is it in all cases a direct indicator of economic inequality.