Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Food as a Defining Cultural Factor

科学家们对古人吃什么喝什么很好奇。佛罗里达大学的考古学家正在通过分析陶器和石磨工具中的有机化学残留物和淀粉颗粒，调查古代玛雅人消费的食物和饮料。这些分析具有创新性，因为它们有助于识别古代玛雅人的“食谱”，而不是单一的成分。它们提供了对个人使用不同工具和器皿组合、加工和供应食物和饮料的成分和方法的选择的洞察。这项研究的重点是文化转型时期，以更好地理解社会和环境变化时期人与食物的关系。玛雅食谱在时间、空间和社区成员之间的差异使人们能够理解人与人、他们的食物以及他们的环境和社会环境之间的关系。食物在文化中的作用对于理解个人身份的表达和对不断变化的社会和环境环境的反应至关重要。因此，这项研究与理解任何地方、任何时间、包括今天的人类文化都是相关的。这项研究结合了几项方法学上的进步：1)对博物馆管理的和最近发现的考古文物进行残留物分析，以评估保存和恢复技术；2)在预期的古代玛雅成分阵列中增加新的化学和微型植物学特征；3)使用方法来阐明食物组合和加工步骤，而不仅仅是成分。这些方法正在影响许多科学学科，并促进考古学家、地球化学家和分析化学家之间的合作。这项研究具有重要的教育意义，因为多名研究生正在学习如何从考古背景中收集、提取和准备用于分析的有机化学残留物和淀粉颗粒。这项研究将使用回收的食物残留物来鉴定在伯利兹和危地马拉的几个接触前玛雅人遗址的与食物相关的文物上发现的成分组合。重点是早期(公元前300年-公元250年)和晚期(公元前800-1100年)玛雅文化转型的时代，以及不同生态区的地方(沿海、内陆和河流)。使用的技术包括液-质联用、气相色谱-质谱联用和用显微镜分析淀粉粒。这是玛雅地区的第一个研究项目，利用残留物分析来确定玛雅“食谱”的连锁操作(操作顺序)，并探索食品成分与食品相关人工制品和食品生产和消费不同阶段活动之间的相关性。残留物将与文物的风格和推断功能(由从事多个考古项目的分析师确定)以及它们被发现的背景(遗址位置、年代、功能和社会地位)相关，以深入了解食品、与食品相关的工具和器皿以及使用它们的人之间的关系。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Scientists are curious about what ancient people ate and drank. Archaeologists at the University of Florida are investigating the foods and beverages consumed by the ancient Maya, by analyzing organic chemical residues and starch grains in pottery vessels and on stone grinding tools. These analyses are innovative in that they help identify ancient Maya "recipes" rather than single ingredients. They provide insights into the individual's choices of ingredients and methods of combining, processing, and serving foods and drinks, using different tools and vessels. This study is focused on periods of cultural transition, to better understand the relationship between people and food during times of social and environmental change. Differences in Maya recipes through time, across space, and among community members enable understanding of the relationships among people, their foods, and their environmental and social circumstances. The role of food in culture is vital to understanding expressions of personal identity and responses to changing social and environmental circumstances. Thus, this study is relevant to understanding of human cultures in all places and at all times, including today. This study incorporates several methodological advancements by: 1) conducting residue analysis on museum-curated and recently recovered archaeological artifacts to assess preservation and recovery techniques, 2) adding new chemical and micro-botanical signatures to the array of expected ancient Maya ingredients, and 3) using methods to elucidate food combinations and processing steps rather than just ingredients. These approaches are influencing many scientific disciplines, and fostering collaboration among archaeologists, geochemists, and analytical chemists. This research has an important educational component, because multiple graduate students are learning how to collect, extract and prepare organic chemical residues and starch grains from archaeological contexts for analysis. This study will use recovered food residues to identify combinations of ingredients found on food-related artifacts from several pre-contact Maya sites in Belize and Guatemala. The focus is on times of Maya cultural transition, both early (300 BC-250 AD) and late (800-1100 AD), and on places in different ecological zones (coastal, inland, and riverine). Techniques used include liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, and starch grain analysis by microscopy. This is the first research project in the Maya region to identify the chaine operatoire (operational sequence) of Maya "recipes" using residue analysis and to explore correlations between food ingredients and food-related artifacts and activities at different stages of food production and consumption. Residues will be correlated to style and inferred function of the artifacts (determined by analysts working on multiple archaeological projects), and the context in which they were found (site location, age, function, and social status), to provide insights into the relations among foods, food-related tools and vessels, and the people who used them.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.