Inside Ancient Kitchens: New Directions in the Study of Daily Meals and Feasts

7: Feeding the Fire: Food and Craft Production in the Middle Sican Period (AD 950-1050)

161 Feeding the Fire Food and Craft Production in the Middle Sicán Period (AD 950–1050) david J. goldstein and izumi Shimada Previous publications synthesize the nature of multi-craft interaction and its implications for the organization and operation of interacting technologies and craftspersons at Huaca Sialupe on the North Coast of Peru during the Middle Sicán period (AD 950–1050: Goldstein 2007; Goldstein, Shimada, and Wagner 2007; Shimada and Wagner 2007; Shimada et al. 2003). Here we address craft production from the perspective of domestic economy and subsistence resources. Often discussions of artifact fabrication ignore the fact that people need to produce food to sustain the workshop whether production is year-round or seasonal. Specifically, we use a paleoethnobotanical approach to interpret the archaeobotanical remains from Middle Sicán metal and ceramic production contexts in relation to identified food-production loci at Huaca Sialupe. We build on our previous work covering Huaca Sialupe (Goldstein 2007; Goldstein, Shimada, and Wagner 2007; Shimada and Wagner 2007; Shimada et al. 2003) to interpret the implications of the variety of subsistence remains and non-ceramic and non-metal production features at Mounds I and II during the Middle Sicán. 7 162 david J. goldStein and izumi Shimada Theoretical Considerations Suprahousehold food production represented by hearth loci, networks of hearths or households, and/or formalized storage facilities provided meals to a group of extended kin or other affines with frequency. This manner of food production is different from that of the modern Western nuclear family, which typically provides a primary meal on a daily basis to a restricted set of related individuals. Suprahousehold cooking necessitates the intersection of several axes of the domestic economy, for example, fuel gathering, subsistence resource apportioning, and domestic labor allocation (de Certeau, Giard, and Mayol 1998; Wolf 1997). Elsewhere we have modeled these three economic behaviors for artifact production at Sialupe based on the material remains (Shimada and Montenegro 2002; Shimada and Wagner 2007) and use this chapter to incorporate food production into our conception of the operation of the site. In a general archaeological sense, the organic remains from cooking hearths represent the gathered fuels used for food production. We know that the physical requirements for cooking are distinct from fires used for other production activities, like ceramic and metal production. Thus, apart from looking at the structural elements of the features, the close examination of the fuel remains permits us to refine our understanding of resource use at the site (Chabal et al. 1999; Newsom 1993). On the other hand, through the comparison of the archaeobotanical remains from the different production features, we can demonstrate important social links between the activities of cooking and the other production activities at the site (Lennstrom and Hastorf 1995). Even though we can distinguish between craft production and cooking activities archaeologically, the processes that create these features are probably best understood through an integrated approach to production and social activity at the site overall. This approach has been useful in understanding commensal activities and the connection between social power interchanges and food production . For instance, Dietler and Herbich (2001) argue that suprahousehold food production is essential in the performance of commensal rituals that are central to social solidarity. To this end, they highlight the importance of locating suprahousehold food production in the archaeological record. We argue here that the daily practice of suprahousehold food production is also critical to social activity more generally, especially so when it is critical to sustaining craft-production activities. This social role of food in modern Andean society requires archaeologists to examine food production and kitchen-related features in the pre-Hispanic period. Previous scholars note the role of food in contemporary and historic Andean society (Gillin 1973 [1947]; Ramiréz 1996; Rostworowski de Diez Canseco 1989; Schaedel 1988; Weismantel 1992). From these works, we know that food in the Andes often seals labor agreements and is more generally a 163 Feeding the Fire component of reciprocal labor arrangements at individual, household, and community levels (e.g., faena, minga, mita [Lara 1997]); it also maintains kingroup affinities, renews ties with the deceased (including “ancestors”), and supports the cosmological cycle associated with an animate landscape. We believe that this social connection between domestic and political spheres of life was part of the reality of people’s lives in the past as well. This has been demonstrated at a number of archaeological sites...