Abstract
This brief introduction contextualizes our approach to an archaeology of food and warfare through an abbreviated review of three broad theoretical perspectives by which scholars typically consider ancient war and conflict. What emerges from this review is a discussion of how archaeological scholarship on warfare could be improved through a more explicit articulation with a foodways perspective. Independently, the archaeologies of food and warfare have developed significantly over the past several decades. The volume aims to provide concrete linkages between these research topics through the examination of case studies worldwide. Topics considered within the book include the impacts of warfare on the daily food quest, warfare and nutritional health, ritual foodways and violence, the provisioning of warriors and armies, status-based changes in diet during times of war, logistical constraints on military campaigns, and violent competition over subsistence resources. The diversity of perspectives included in this volume may be a product of new ways of conceptualizing violence—not simply as an isolated component of a society, nor as an attribute of a particular societal type—but instead as a transformative process that is lived and irrevocably alters social, economic, and political organization and relationships.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Arkush, E. N. (2005). Colla fortified sites: Warfare and regional power in the late pre-Hispanic Titicaca Basin, Peru. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology. Los Angeles: University of California.
Arkush, E. N. (2012). Violence, indigeneity, and archaeological interpretation in the Central Andes. In R. J. Chacon & R. G. Mendoza (Eds.), The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare (pp. 289–310). New York: Springer.
Bamforth, D. B. (2006). Climate, chronology, and the course of war in Middle Missouri. In E. N. Arkush & M. W. Allen (Eds.), The archaeology of warfare: Prehistories of raiding and conquest (pp. 66–100). Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
Bauer, B. (2012). In R. J. Chacon & R. G. Mendoza (Eds.), The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare (pp. 269–288). New York: Springer.
Bartram, W. (1928). The travels of William Bartram. New York: Dover.
Bolin, R., Jackson, M., & Crist, A. (1998). Gender inequality, vulnerability, and disaster: Issues in theory and research. In E. Enarson & B. H. Morrow (Eds.), The gendered terrain of disaster: Through women’s eyes (pp. 27–43). Laboratory for Social and Behavioral Research, Miami: Florida International University.
Carneiro, R. (1970). A theory of the origin of the state. Science, 169(3947), 733–738.
Carneiro, R. (1981). The chiefdom as precursor to the state. In R. Cohen & E. Service (Eds.), The transition to statehood in the New World (pp. 205–223). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carneiro, R. (1990). Chiefdom-level warfare as exemplified in Fiji and the Cauca Valley. In J. Haas (Ed.), The anthropology of war (pp. 190–211). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chacon, R. J., & Mendoza, R. G. (Eds.). (2012). The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare. New York: Springer.
Chavarria, A., & Mendoza, R. G. (2012). Ancestral pueblos and modern diatribes: An interview with Anotonio Chavarria of Santa Clara Pueblo, Curator of Ethnology, Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico. In R. J. Chacon & R. G. Mendoza (Eds.), The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare (pp. 395–426). New York: Springer.
DeBoer, W. (1988). Subterranean storage and the organization of surplus: the view from eastern North America. Southeastern Archaeology, 7(1), 1–20.
Demarest, A. M., & Woodfill B. (2012). Sympathetic ethnocentrism, repression, and autorepression of Q'eqchi' Maya blood sacrifice. In R. Chacon & R. Mendoza (Ed.), The Ethics of Anthropology and Amerindian Research: Reporting on Environment Degradation and Warfare (pp. 117–145). New York: Springer.
Dickson, D. B. (1981). The Yanomamö of the Mississippi Valley? Some reflections on Larson (1972), Gibson (1974), and Mississippian period warfare in the Southeastern United States. American Antiquity, 46(4), 909–916.
Dietler, M., & Hayden, B. (Eds.). (2001). Feasts: Archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics, and power. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Drucker, P. (1967). The Potlatch. In G. Dalton (Ed.), Tribal and peasant economies: Readings in economic anthropology (pp. 1–93). New York: Natural History Press.
Dye, D. H. (2008). War paths, peace paths: An archaeology of cooperation and conflict in native eastern North America. Plymouth: Alta Mira Press.
Dye, D. H., & Keel, M. F. (2012). The portrayal of Native American violence and warfare: Who speaks for the past? In R. J. Chacon & R. G. Mendoza (Eds.), The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare (pp. 51–72). New York: Springer.
Ember, C. R., & Melvin, E. (1992). Resource unpredictability, mistrust, and war: A cross-cultural study. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 36(2), 242–262.
Ferguson, B. R. (1984). Introduction: studying war. In B. R. Ferguson (Ed.), Warfare, culture, and environment (pp. 1–81). Orlando: Academic Press.
Ferguson, B. R. (2000). The causes and origins of “primitive warfare”: On evolved motivations for war. Anthropological Quarterly, 73(3), 159–164.
Ferguson, B. R. (2001). Materialist, cultural, and biological theories on why Yanomami make war. Anthropological Theory, 1(1): 99–116.
Gat, A. (2000). The causes and origins of “primitive warfare”: Reply to Ferguson. Anthropological Quarterly, 73(3), 165–168.
Hastorf, C. A. (1991). Gender, space and food in prehistory. In M. Conkey & J. Gero (Eds.), Engendering archaeology (pp. 132–163). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Hudson, C. (1976). The southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Joutel, H. (1962/1714). A journal of La Salle’s last voyage. New York: Cornith Books.
Junker, L. L. (2001). The evolution of ritual feasting systems in prehispanic Philippine chiefdoms. In M. Dietler & B. Hayden (Eds.), Feasts: archaeological and ethnographic perspectives on food, politics, and power (pp. 267–310). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Keeley, L. H. (1996). War before civilization: The myth of the peaceful savage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mendoza, R. G., & Harder, S. R. (2012). Mythologies of conquest. In R. J. Chacon & R. G. Mendoza (Eds.), The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare (pp. 191–234). New York: Springer.
Milner, G. R. (1999). Warfare in prehistoric and early historic North America. Journal of Archaeological Research, 7(2), 105–151.
Ogburn, D. (2012). Overstating, downplaying, and denying indigneous conquest warfare in pre-Hispanic empires of the Andes. In R. J. Chacon & R. G. Mendoza (Eds.), The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare (pp. 269–288). New York: Springer.
Pauketat, T. R. (2009). Wars, rumors of wars, and the production of violence. In A. Nielsen & W. Walker (Eds.), Warfare in cultural context: Practice, agency and the archaeology of violence (pp. 244–262). Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Schmidt, C. W., & Lockhard Sharkey, R. A. (2012). Ethical and political ramifications of the reporting/non-reporting of Native American ritualized violence. In R. J. Chacon & R. G. Mendoza (Eds.), The ethics of anthropology and Amerindian research: Reporting on environmental degradation and warfare (pp. 27–36). New York: Springer.
Spielmann, K. (2002). Feasting, craft specialization, and the ritual mode of production in small-scale societies. American Anthropologist, 104(1), 195–207.
Tung, T. A. (2012). Violence, ritual, and the Wari Empire. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
VanDerwarker, A. M., & Detwiler, K. R. (2002). Gendered practice in cherokee foodways: A spatial analysis of plant remains from the Coweeta Creek site. Southeastern Archaeology, 21(1), 21–28.
Vayda, A. P. (1960). Maori warfare. Polynesian Society Monographs, No. 2. Auckland: A. H. and A.W. Reed Publishers.
Vayda, A. P. (1976). War in ecological perspective. New York: Plenum Press.
Walker, P. (1998). Wife beating, boxing, and broken noses: Skeletal evidence for the cultural patterning of violence. In D. L. Martin & D. W. Frayer (Eds.), Troubled times: Violence and warfare in the past (pp. 145–178). Amsterdam: Overseas Publishers Association.
Wrangham, R. (1999). Evolution of coalitionary killing. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 42, 1–30.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wilson, G.D., VanDerwarker, A.M. (2016). Toward an Archaeology of Food and Warfare. In: VanDerwarker, A., Wilson, G. (eds) The Archaeology of Food and Warfare. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18506-4_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18506-4_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-18505-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-18506-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)