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、行为和经济科学理事会提供博士后研究金，为最近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，并在本科和研究生培训之外拓宽他们的科学视野。博士后奖学金还旨在帮助新的科学家指导他们的研究工作，跨越传统的学科领域，并利用独特的研究资源，地点和设施，包括在国外的地点。这个博士后奖学金支持Erendira Quintana Morales博士，在Jeffrey Fleurs博士（莱斯大学）的指导下，通过比较与14 - 16世纪坦桑尼亚Songo Mnara镇不同社会地位的家庭相关的食物遗骸，调查日常膳食如何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（如每日膳食）作为社会流动战略的作用具有影响。这个项目的一个创新和重大贡献是展示了鱼作为一种美味和日常膳食的主食的作用，提供了吃鱼在一个鱼无处不在但往往未得到充分研究的社会中发挥分裂和统一力量的证据。该项目提供了宝贵的机会，通过培训和经验，分析和记录陶瓷和动物考古数据，他们可以开发独立的研究项目，研究技能转移到本科生。学生们也有机会通过参加一个社区外展计划，发展领导能力和沟通技巧的研究员？的研究。考古学模块是与当地一所低收入学校合作设计的，旨在提高少数民族在科学领域的参与度。这项研究考察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变化如何反映社会地位。具体措施，在分析鱼的遗体，如大小，分类多样性，元素分布，在样本之间进行比较，以揭示统计上显着的鱼类分布模式。斯瓦希里地区的标准陶瓷分析方法用于确定与不同社会地位相关的家庭的容器形式，大小，起源和装饰如何变化。鉴定陶瓷碎片上的脂质痕迹有助于重建特定容器中烹饪的食物，这是该方法在鱼类消费研究和该地区的开创性应用。总之，这三个研究组成部分--鱼遗骸分析、陶瓷分析和脂质分析--表明了不同的饮食和烹饪模式是如何与每天的不同食物相结合的。一个独特的，镇一级的角度出现在Songo Mnara短期占领期间的日常消费实践的空间模式。 这项研究强调了如何详细调查经常消费的食物，如沿海社区的鱼类，揭示了与过去的日常实践相关的社会互动和意义的构建，形成了社会的结构。该项目具有重要的国际合作，因此它是由NSF国际科学和工程办公室，以及社会，行为和经济科学理事会共同资助的。

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.