Search

Humans use dietary resources in many ways, employing varied subsistence strategies in response to local environmental fluctuations and innovative technologies. Documenting these patterns of resource use is an important part of our understanding of past societies and human relationships with the landscape, animals, and each other. In this paper, we present results from stable isotope analysis of 66 individuals buried on the Copacabana Peninsula, Bolivia, compared to a baseline of 28 modern floral and faunal samples, and explore individual and population access to certain types of food over time (3000 BCE–CE 1700). The data show that access to C4 and lacustrine resources shifted slightly over time, especially during the Early Intermediate Period (CE 1–500). We argue that Copacabana peoples used diverse subsistence strategies to navigate fluctuating environmental and social conditions. This was not a teleological nor one-way process; rather, people made choices about food in response to environmental patterns, shifting subsistence strategies, differential ritual use of maize, or, most likely, a combination of all of the above.

The south Florida Calusa are noted for their complex social organization coupled with their forager-fisher subsistence strategy. Social and political complexity have often been attributed to a reliable resource base, most frequently agricultural products such as maize (Zea mays), and surplus stored foods. Recent reconsiderations of complexity for coastal populations, however, have questioned the stability of coastal resources citing ample evidence of periods of fluctuating instability. They have in turn emphasized the importance of other cultural mechanisms, such as resource exchange, in fulfilling subsistence needs during times of uncertainty. In this paper, we consider the complex food web of the central and south Florida Gulf Coast. We combine data on the zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical remains from the archaeological sites with those from stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios of archaeological human bone, and modern and archaeological plants and animals. These multiple lines of evidence confirm that marine-based protein and terrestrial C3 plants provided a large and reliable portion of the diet in southwestern Florida as early as 4000 years ago and up to European contact.

The arrival of Europeans in the New World had profound and long-lasting results for the native peoples. The record for the impact of this fundamental change in culture, society, and biology of Native Americans is well documented historically. This paper reviews the biological impact of the arrival of Europeans on native populations via the study of pre- and postcontact skeletal remains in Spanish Florida, the region today represented by coastal Georgia and northern Florida. The postcontact skeletal series, mostly drawn from Roman Catholic mission sites, are among the most comprehensive in the Americas, providing a compelling picture of adaptation and stress in this setting. Study of paleopathology, dental and skeletal indicators of physiological stress, stable isotope (carbon and nitrogen) analysis, tooth microwear, and skeletal morphology (cross-sectional geometry) reveals major alterations in quality of life and lifestyle. The bioarchaeological record indicates a general deterioration in health, declining dietary diversity and nutritional quality, and increasing workload in the contact period. The impact of contact in Spanish Florida appears to have been more dramatic in comparison with other regions, which likely reflects the different nature of contact relations in this setting versus other areas (e.g., New England, New France). The bioarchaeological record represents an important information source for understanding the dynamics of biocultural change resulting from colonization and conquest.

Alepotrypa Cave, one of the richest and best preserved Neolithic sites in Greece, was occupied by early farmers from ca. 5000 to 3200 BC. Study of human remains from this site contributes important information to the bioarchaeological record for this period. The remains are from the cave's Ossuary II, a secondary deposit containing the disarticulated remains of at least 20 individuals, including adults and sub-adults. A high frequency of porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia suggests the presence of chronic iron deficiency anaemia. A combination of two possible factors could explain this situation, including reliance on an iron-deficient cereal diet, and presence of high pathogen and parasitic loads resulting from poor hygiene and contamination of the communal water source. These lesions may also be related to some type of inflammatory process. Some 31% of individuals display healed cranial depressed fractures, indicating evidence of violent (non-lethal) confrontations. Stable isotope analysis reveals a predominantly terrestrial C3 diet, with little evidence of marine food consumption, despite close proximity to coastal resources. The presence of various domesticated plants suggests that these C3 foods may have been agricultural. Moreover, a high frequency of dental caries is consistent with a diet involving significant carbohydrate consumption. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Dietary reconstruction using carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes from archaeological human bone samples from coastal Georgia and northern and Gulf Coast Florida dating between 400 B.C. and A.D. 1700 serves to illustrate the complexity of the agricultural transition in that region. Isotope analysis of 185 collagen samples drawn from early prehistoric, late prehistoric, and contact-period mortuary sites encompasses two major adaptive shifts in the region, namely the adoption of maize agriculture in late prehistory and the increased emphasis on maize during the mission period. Prior to European contact—and especially before the establishment of Spanish missions among the Guale, Yamasee, Timucua, and Apalachee tribal groups—diet was strongly influenced by local environmental factors. Before contact, coastal and inland populations had different patterns of food consumption, as did populations living in Georgia and Florida. Coastal populations consumed more marine and less terrestrial foods than inland populations. In general, maize was adopted during the eleventh century A.D. by virtually all Georgia populations. However, with the exception of the Lake Jackson site, a major Mississippian center in northern Florida, Florida populations show little use of maize before contact. Following European contact, maize became wide-spread, regardless of location or habitat within the broad region of Spanish Florida. Missionization appears to have been an important factor in the convergence of native diets toward agriculture and away from foraging. This increased emphasis on maize contributed to a decline in quality of life for native populations.

This paper presents an analysis of human remains from Tatham Mound, a dual-component mortuary site from central Gulf Coast Florida. The human remains from Tatham are significant because they come from a limited time period during the initial contact with Europeans at AD 1525-1550. Dietary reconstruction demonstrates that at the time of European contact, maize was not a predominant dietary item. Low frequencies for several dental and skeletal pathological indicators are consistent with relatively good health as compared to other Southeastern late prehistoric and protohistoric populations. Despite the limited time period represented by the mound population, critical interactions occurred between Native Americans and Spaniards, as indicated by skeletal elements severed by metal weapons. The Tatham population is significant because it is one of the earliest studied populations contacted by Europeans in North America, and the only one with well-documented sharp-force trauma that represents intergroup hostility.

Archaeologists approach the reconstruction of prehistoric subsistence and ecology using macrobotanical, palynological, phytolith, and faunal evidence, along with functional studies of utilitarian tools and iconographic analyses of ceremonial artifacts. When a dependable subsistence staple such as storable maize or processed manioc flour is identified, this has further implications for population dynamics and social complexity. Inquiries about prehistoric settlement and subsistence patterns in the tropics often focus on the inclusion of maize as a dietary component, and when, if ever, it became a dietary staple (that is, a sustaining or principal food source). A series of interrelated questions about prehistoric maize are pertinent: When and where were its origins? Was it only a minor dietary component, or was it relied upon as a subsistence staple? Is its consumption linked to patterns of poor health or disease? Was it differentially consumed by certain social classes or age/sex categories? Are particular patterns of settlement associated with agricultural subsistence? In complex environments like the American tropics, where species diversity is high and subsistence alternatives can be many, multiple lines of evidence are necessary to answer questions of subsistence, settlement, and agricultural origins. The stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in archaeological human remains can be one line of evidence used to provide additional information about these topics.

The use of stable carbon isotopes for diet reconstruction is predicated on the assumption that you are what you eat. In other words, the carbon isotopic composition of animal tissues is assumed to be a direct and constant function of the diet. Is this assumption valid? Precise dietary reconstruction requires as accurate knowledge of the isotopic composition of locally available dietary resources, as well as an adequate understanding of the effects of nutrition, environment, and physiology on the diet-tissue function (van der Merwe 1982, 1989; Chisholm 1989; Norr 1990; Matson and Chisholm 1991; Tieszen 1991; Ambrose 1992). There is a systematic but poorly defined difference between the isotopic composition of the consumer tissues and that of the diet (an enrichment factor, expressed as Δ diet-tissue). Given the isotopic composition of a specific tissue, that of the diet or of other tissues may be calculated if the Δ diet-tissue difference factors are known. The dietary proportions of isotopically distinct food resources (e.g., C3 vs C4, or C3 vs marine) have thus been calculated from the δ 13C value of bone collagen (Δ13Cd-co) and bone apatite carbonate (Δ13Cd-ca). Deviations from actual or assumed average δ 13C values for dietary endmembers, and incorrect values for diet-to-tissue isotopic relationships, will lead to errors in the estimation of consumption of specific classes of resources. Experiments and observations designed to determine the diet-to-collagen stable isotope functions (Δ13Cd-co) however, have provided widely different values.