THE FARMERS IN THE DEL: MAIZE AND MINSI-LENAPE FOODWAYS IN THE MINISINK NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK (2000 BCE– CE 1675)
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Graduate group
Discipline
Life Sciences
Subject
Foodways
Legacy Data and Collections
Lenapehoking
Maize Agriculture
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Abstract
Maize was the staple crop of the Lenape across Lenapehoking when European colonizers first arrived in the region, as was the case with many Indigenous groups across Eastern North America. However, maize is not native to the region and for much of their history the Minsi-Lenape practiced largely hunter-gatherer lifeways focused on mast nuts, other wild plants, and animals. In this dissertation, I assess how the Minsi-Lenape made maize their staple food over the course of the Middle and Late Woodland (ca. CE 0–1675). Archaeological discussions of similar transitions have often focused on trying to understand why these shifts occurred without first documenting how they occurred. I argue that to truly understand agricultural transitions, we need study them as locally and historically situated processes. Further, I argue that agricultural transitions cannot only be studied as changes to production or consumption, but rather such studies must encompass all practices associated with foodways including processing, storage, cooking, and disposal. Additionally, to fully understand changes to foodway practices, I argue we must emphasize how they are both reinforced and altered as people went through their daily existence. To take these considerations into account, I argue that many agricultural transitions are better conceptualized as staplization, or the process of how a food became a culinary staple. To assess how the Minsi-Lenape made maize their staple food I use data from previously excavated archaeological legacy collections and archives from the Minisink National Historic Landmark. I argue these data sources represent an underutilized resource in archaeology. The use of legacy data is also vital for the future sustainability of the discipline. After detailing my theoretical arguments for the use of legacy material and studying foodway changes through the lens of daily life, I provide a detailed overview of the 12,000-year history of Minsi-Lenape lifeways and the history of excavations of the Minisink NHLM. Using data from archaeological features, ceramics, and paleoethnobotanical remains I reconstruct how Minsi-Lenape daily foodway practices changed through time. In the final chapters, I emphasize how the central role daily practices played in both resistance to and eventually making maize the staple crop of the Minsi-Lenape. I also discuss how a focus on daily life complicates our understandings of why similar transitions occurred and return to the issue of using legacy data and discuss the benefits of such projects.