Cibola breadstuff: foodways and social transformation in the Cibola region A.D. 1150-1400

Foodways in societies at every social scale are linked in complex ways to processes of social change. This dissertation explores the interrelationship between foodways and processes of rapid social transformation. Drawing on a wide range of archaeological and ethnographic data from the Cibola region, I examine the role of foodways in processes of population aggregation and community formation and address how changes in the scale and diversity of social life interacted with the scale and organization of food production and consumption practices. To address the interrelationships between foodways and social transformations, I employ a conceptual framework focused on two social dimensions of food: cuisine and commensality. This study comparatively examines cuisine and commensality through time by investigating a range of interrelated food activities including: food production, storage, preparation, cooking, consumption and discard.

While settlement patterns and other more obvious manifestations of aggregation have been studied frequently, by examining foodways during periods of aggregation and social reorganization this study provides new insights into the micro-scalar processes of social transformation, cuisine change, and economic intensification associated with increases in settlement size, density, and social diversity. I document how food production and preparation intensified in conjunction with increases in the size of settlements and the scale of communal commensal events. I argue that foodways were a critical aspect of the social work of establishing and maintaining large, dense communities in the 13th and 14th centuries. At the same time, widespread changes in commensal practices placed a larger burden on household surplus and labor and women were likely the most affected as maize flatbreads and other foods made with finely ground flour were adopted and became central to cuisine. As such, this study provides insights into how rapid social transformations in the late 13th and 14th centuries were experienced differently by individuals, particularly along gendered lines. Studies of foodways, and specifically the social dimensions of food, offer a promising and often underutilized source of information about past processes of population aggregation, social integration, and transformations in the political economies of small-scale societies the past.