Paleonutrition

5. Interpretation and Integration

chapter 5 Interpretation and Integration many of the archaeological data currently available on past human behavior are related to food acquisition and consumption. These data include ecofacts (e.g., seeds, bones), artifacts (e.g., procurement and processing tools), architectural remains (e.g., storage features), and settlement patterns (e.g., the distribution of food procurement sites across the landscape). As such, diet is one of the more obvious aspects of human behavior observable in the archaeological record and thus lends itself more readily than others to investigation. The interpretation and integration of dietary data vary in complexity from lists of resources to models of behavior, with the latter ultimately being more informative about questions related to paleonutrition. A number of approaches have been undertaken in attempts to correlate human behavior with diet, nutrition, and/or subsistence within particular populations. These include ecological perspectives, gender studies, ethnicity, sociopolitical organization, resource intensification, and biological reconstructions. In this chapter we describe these different approaches and provide specific examples of some of these studies. This discussion is not intended to constitute an all-inclusive list of such approaches; rather, it provides a sampling of the possibilities that exist for examining issues of diet and nutrition among prehistoric populations. Ecological Perspectives Ecology is the study of the interaction of an organism with its environment . Human ecology is the study of the interaction of humans with their environment. Cultural ecology, a subdiscipline of human ecology, is the study of the interaction of culture on human adaptations (see Sutton and Anderson 2010). Given that many of the data available in the archaeological record are dietary, a number of theoretical approaches based on ecology are used to interpret the past. Among these approaches interpretation and integration 157 are evolutionary ecology and evolutionary archaeology, both of which apply biological selection theory to the study of archaeological data. Within archaeology, however, there has been considerable debate about how closely the strict biological model of selection can be applied to the study of past cultures (e.g., Spencer 1997; Boone and Smith 1998; Lyman and O’Brien 1998; Neff 2000; Flannery 2002). Culture is a powerful force in adaptation, and any evolutionary explanation must include the role of culture, such as behavior, decision-making, and sociopolitical factors. Mechanisms of change include invention, diffusion, social and political upheavals, and migrations and diasporas. Evolutionary Ecology Evolutionary ecology begins with the supposition that societies function like organisms and that varying cultural practices, including diet, are traits upon which selection acts (see Smith and Winterhalder 1992; Winterhalder and Smith 1992). Cumulative selection pressures then act on societies and complexes, depending on the outcome of their choice of practices (e.g., Richerson and Boyd 1992). The approach used most often in evolutionary ecology is optimization , primarily through the application of some model of optimal diet (e.g., Maynard Smith 1978; Stephens and Krebs 1986). Such models are used to explain some aspects of behavior related to the utilization of resources (Jochim 1983:157) and are generally derived from optimal foraging theory, which emphasizes net efficiency (a least-cost hypothesis) and minimization of risk as its guiding principles. Optimization models were originally developed by economists, borrowed by biologists to predict the behavior of animals in relation to their diet and feeding strategies , and then applied to humans by anthropologists (see Winterhalder 1981; Smith 1983). Most optimization studies have been conducted on hunter-gatherer groups rather than agriculturalists, apparently because hunter-gatherers are supposed to behave like other animals, foraging for their food and wandering about the landscape (Ingold 1987:11). Conversely, agriculturalists are food-producing landholders who are viewed as somehow set apart from nature, making the application of optimization models less attractive (but see Gregg 1988). 158 paleonutrition All optimization models have four basic components (Gardner 1992:18). Each requires (1) an actor (e.g., people) to choose among the different alternatives, (2) a currency (e.g., calories or protein) by which the payoff on the decisions can be measured, (3) a variety of available resources from which to choose, and (4) a set of constraints, factors that limit the alternatives and payoffs. The primary optimization models used are (1) diet breadth (e.g., Simms 1984, 1985), (2) patch choice (e.g., Smith 1983), (3) central place foraging (e.g., Bettinger 1991), (4) linear programming (e.g., Gardner 1992), and (5) focal-diffuse (e.g., Cleland 1976). Optimization models contain two inherent problems: The environmental...