Paleonutrition

6. Case Studies

chapter 6 Case Studies This chapter presents five case studies on paleonutrition and related issues. Three of these case studies come from North America, including the Great Basin, the American Southwest, and the northern Coachella Valley of California. Two come from Africa, one from east Africa and one from northern Sudan. The topics of these case studies cover a wide range of research, including some of the personal research of the authors. One of the studies, of contemporary east African foragers, illustrates the applicability of the study of contemporary groups to the study of prehistoric populations. Case Study 1, “Pinus monophylla and Great Basin Subsistence Models ,” is a reanalysis of previous data on pinyon, with a different interpretation on the value of pinyon to prehistoric peoples in the Great Basin. Case Study 2, “East African Highland Foragers,” demonstrates the importance of the combination of hunting and honey collecting among east African highland groups, primarily the Okiek. In Case Study 3, “Children ’s Health in the Prehistoric Southwest,” a slightly different approach is taken. In this study, the authors first synthesize the previous research on the topic of children’s health in the Southwest and then provide an analysis of the data that is first seen in this volume. Case Study 4, “Complementary Paleonutritional Data Sets: An Example from Medieval Christian Nubia,” highlights dietary stress during the Medieval Christian period (ca. A.D. 550 to 1450) in northern Sudan (once known as Upper Nubia), as evidenced in mummies recovered during archaeological excavations. The final case study, No. 5, “An Evolving Understanding of Paleodiet in the Northern Coachella Valley, California,” is a comparison of models related to diet among the prehistoric and ethnographic Cahuilla in the Coachella Valley of California, and how paleodiet and other factors may have contributed to settlement shifts. It is hoped that these case studies will stimulate future such analyses among archaeologists (and related professionals) and aspiring students in 172 paleonutrition the field. Such studies could also lead to additional reanalyses of previous research, possibly leading to new interpretations of old ideas based on more recent information. The future of paleonutritional research is an open door inviting all interested scholars to enter. Case Study 1: Pinus monophylla and Great Basin Subsistence Models In formulating models of human adaptation, it is important that the environmental parameters be understood and that accurate information be employed. This case study illustrates the use of information regarding the behavior of one species of pinyon to model the behavior of another. This study led to a miscalculation of the availability and productivity of the species in question and an underestimation of the value of pinyon in Great Basin subsistence systems (see Sutton 1984). In a landmark study, David H. Thomas (1971, 1973) formulated a model (called Basin I) of prehistoric central Great Basin subsistence and settlement patterns based on ethnographic data gathered by Julian Steward (e.g., 1937, 1938) and others. Thomas concluded that from about 5,500 B.P. to the time of historic contact, the archaeological record of the Reese River Valley in central Nevada reflected the same basic land-use system that characterized the ethnographic period. To create Basin I, Thomas modeled the availability and productivity of the suite of resources utilized by the ethnographic Western Shoshone. The exploitation of single-leaf pinyon (Pinus monophylla ) was an integral part of that adaptation, and the ethnographic pattern of its use was a key element in the archaeological predictions derived from the model. Similar models, also employing pinyon, have been used in other subsistence studies in the Great Basin (e.g., Bettinger 1975; Thomas 1983) and, at least partly as a result of these models, pinyon has gained the reputation of having been an erratic and unpredictable aboriginal food source. To understand how pinyon was used by the prehistoric inhabitants of the Great Basin, it was necessary to understand the behavior of pinyon. The species of pinyon that grows in the central Great case studies 173 Habitat and Description The range of P. monophylla (fig. 6.1) is confined primarily to the central and southwestern Great Basin, including western Utah; northeastern, central, and southern Nevada; the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada; and interior southern California (Sargent 1922; Mirov 1967). The species is adapted to semi-arid desert mountains ranging in elevation from about 1,500 to 2,300 meters (Britton 1908; Mirov 1967). The range of P. edulis (fig. 6...