Fish as a delicacy and a staple: Social status and the daily meal at the 14th to 16th century town of Songo Mnara, Tanzania

社会、行为和经济科学局提供博士后研究奖学金，为新近毕业的博士毕业生提供获得额外培训的机会，在知名科学家的赞助下获得研究经验，并在本科生和研究生培训之外拓宽他们的科学视野。博士后奖学金的进一步设计是为了帮助新科学家引导他们的研究努力跨越传统的学科界限，并利用独特的研究资源、地点和设施，包括在国外。该博士后奖学金支持Erendira Quintana Morales博士，在Jeffrey Fleisher(莱斯大学)博士的指导下，通过比较14-16世纪坦桑尼亚Songo Mnara镇不同社会地位家庭的食物残留，研究日常膳食如何有助于表达和谈判社会地位。这项考古研究的结果对我们理解过去的社会多样性和不平等以及日常做法的作用，如日常用餐，作为社会流动的战略具有重要意义。该项目的一个创新和重大贡献是展示了鱼作为日常膳食的美味和主食的作用，提供了证据，证明在一个鱼无处不在但往往缺乏研究的社会中，吃鱼既发挥了分裂的力量，又发挥了团结的力量。这个项目提供了宝贵的机会，通过培训和经验分析和记录陶器和动物考古数据向本科生传授研究技能，他们可以从中发展独立的研究项目。学生们还有机会通过参加S研究员的研究开发的社区推广项目来培养领导力和沟通技能。这一考古单元是与当地一所低收入学校合作设计的，目的是增加未被充分代表的少数民族在科学领域的参与。这项研究检查了来自代表不同社会地位的家庭的鱼骨和陶瓷碎片，以探索食物消费习惯的差异如何表明社会地位。对鱼类遗骸分析中的具体测量，如大小、分类多样性和元素分布，在样本之间进行比较，以揭示鱼类分布的统计上显著的模式。斯瓦希里地区陶瓷分析的标准方法被用来确定器皿的形状、大小、来源和装饰在不同社会地位的家庭中是如何变化的。陶瓷碎片上的脂肪痕迹的识别有助于重建在特定容器中烹调的食物，这是该方法在鱼类消费研究和该地区的应用中的开创性应用。总而言之，这三个研究部分--鱼骸分析、陶瓷分析和脂肪分析--表明了不同的饮食和烹饪方式是如何与不同的食物相结合的。在Songo Mnara短暂占领期间，从日常消费实践的空间模式中出现了一个独特的城镇层面的视角。这项研究突出了对经常消费的食物的详细调查，如沿海社区的鱼类，揭示了与过去形成社会结构的日常做法相关的社会互动和意义的构建。该项目有重要的国际合作，因此由美国国家科学基金会国际科学与工程办公室和社会、行为和经济科学局共同资助。

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship supports Dr. Erendira Quintana Morales, under the mentorship of Dr. Jeffrey Fleisher (Rice University), to investigate how daily meals serve to express and negotiate social status by comparing food remains associated with households of varying social status in the 14th-16th century town of Songo Mnara, Tanzania. The results of this archaeological study have implications for our understanding of past social diversity and inequality and the role of everyday practices, such as daily meals, as strategies for social mobility. An innovative and significant contribution of this project is demonstrating the role of fish as both a delicacy and a staple of the daily meal, providing evidence of cases where eating fish exerts both dividing and unifying power in a society where fish are ubiquitous but often understudied. This project provides valuable opportunities to transfer research skills to undergraduate students through training and experience analyzing and recording ceramic and zooarchaeological data, from which they can develop independent research projects. Students also have the opportunity to develop leadership and communications skills by participating in a community outreach program developed out of the fellow?s research. This archaeology module is designed in partnership with a local low-income school to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in the sciences.This research examines fish bone and ceramic fragments from a selection of households representing diverse levels of social standing to explore how variation in food consumption practices is indicative of social status. Specific measures in the analysis of fish remains, such as size, taxonomic diversity, and element distribution, are compared across the samples to reveal statistically significant patterns in fish distribution. Standard methods of ceramic analysis for the Swahili region are used to determine how vessel form, size, origin, and decoration vary across households associated with different social status. The identification of lipid traces on ceramic fragments serves to reconstruct what food was cooked in specific vessels, which is a pioneering application of this method in the study of fish consumption and in this region. Together, these three research components -- fish remains analysis, ceramic analysis, and lipid analysis -- indicate how different modes of eating and cooking were combined with different foods on a daily basis. A unique, town-level perspective emerges from the spatial patterning of daily consumption practices during the short occupation at Songo Mnara. This research highlights how a detailed investigation of regularly consumed food, such as fish in coastal communities, reveals the social interactions and constructions of meaning associated with past daily practices that form the fabric of a society. The project has significant international collaboration, therefore it is jointly funded by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering, and the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.