Rachel Burger

Food security, the measure of access to safe and sufficient food, is a critical global issue, not just because of its effects on health, but also because of the potentially negative consequences that food insecurity can have on mental and social well-being. Archaeology is uniquely situated to inform and articulate with global food security studies by focusing on past lived experiences of social and environmental conditions and events. The experiences of and responses to those conditions, in turn, inform present day policy and humanitarian efforts.

This study examines how residents of Sapa’owingeh, a Classic Period (A.D. 1350-1600) Tewa pueblo in the northern Rio Grande, experienced coalescence through the impacts of rapid population increase and social reorganization on animal use. Utilizing Tewa ethnographies and food security literature, I create models of social institutions and practices and employ common zooarchaeological methods. Faunal patterns reveal that Tewa practices and institutions were in effect from the beginning of occupation and peaked with population in the mid-1400s. This suggests that Tewa institutions possibly were present during the founding of the village and were elaborated over time. Food security varied and was lowest during the late period but was moderate when population was growing despite variable precipitation. As population declined, Tewa institutions appear to have diminished, resulting in high food insecurity despite climatic stability. This patterning indicates that favorable ecological conditions are not enough to ensure community cohesion. Social and religious mechanisms also are required to ensure equitable access to food in large villages.

Zooarchaeological research in the Northern Rio Grande shows that turkey husbandry became increasingly important to the Ancestral Pueblo during the Classic Period (AD 1350-1600). During this time, immigrant and local communities coalesced into increasingly larger villages and towns, with abundant evidence for turkey husbandry. Turkeys served as a critical resource for both subsistence and ritual uses. Through ethnographic and archaeological data and modern animal sciences research on turkey raising, we explore the role of intensive husbandry at certain Ancestral Pueblo sites within broader economic networks. These socio-ecological models are then tested against the archaeological record of Sapa’owingeh (LA306), a large Ancestral Pueblo community with extensive evidence for large scale turkey husbandry.

Bone whistles recovered from archaeological sites of the Chama Valley are recognized widely as markers of the ceremonial elaboration that accompanied aggregation into ancestral Pueblo settlements and set the Pueblo IV period (AD 1275-1600) apart from earlier occupations. Yet we know little about how these instruments were played and even less about their socio-cultural contexts and relationships to sound generation for performance or perhaps avian husbandry. Using perspectives derived from Music Archaeology, faunal analysis, and acoustic modeling, this paper challenges existing conventions that whistles were produced strictly from turkey bone and reconsiders the functional differences in the utilization of flutes with multiple tone holes versus whistles assumed to be bird calls. It will also consider Sapawe as a potential production center and the performance aspects of playing instruments that in turn may have influenced not just the dynamics of sound production but also those of supply and demand.

Bone flutes and whistles recovered from archaeological sites of the Chama Valley are recognized widely as markers of the ceremonial elaboration that accompanied the concentration of large populations in ancestral Pueblo settlements and set the Pueblo IV period  (AD 1275-1600) apart from earlier occupation in the Valley. And yet, we know very little about how these instruments were played and even less about the socio-cultural contexts of whistles and flutes and their relationship to sound generation for musical performance or, even perhaps, avian husbandry.  Using perspectives derived from theory in Music Archaeology, faunal analysis, and acoustic modeling, this poster challenges existing conventions that flutes from the site of Sapawe were produced strictly from turkey bone and reconsiders the functional differences in the utilization of flutes with multiple tone holes versus whistles assumed to be bird calls. We further consider the role of Sapawe as a potential center for flute and whistle production, and the performance aspects of playing flutes and whistles alone or in groups that in turn may have influenced not just the dynamics of sound production but also those of supply and demand.

Zooarchaeologists often assume that changes in the frequencies of cut marks are a proxy indicator of prey availability. The assumption is that as animals become scarce, people spend more time intensively processing prey and that this is reflected by an increase in the number of cut marks present on bone. In this paper, we test this idea against a series of bone assemblages generated by contemporary Paraguayan Aché foragers in an area with marked prey depression adjacent (or 1 days walk) to long-term residential villages. We compare different measures of cut mark frequencies from a sample of prey bones from temporary camps generated during a 10-day forest trek to procure prey not normally accessible in close proximity to residential villages. We expect cut mark frequencies to intensify in response to variation in prey availability as a function of increasing distances between temporary camps and long-term residential villages.