The Archaeology of Food and Warfare ― Food Insecurity in Prehistory

The archaeologies of food and warfare have independently developed over the past several decades. This 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 book highlights this transformative process by presenting a cross-cultural perspective on the connection between war and food through the inclusion of case studies from several continents. ?

Amber M. VanDerwarker (Ph.D. 2003, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill) is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has been involved in field and laboratory work in Mexico, eastern North America, and Peru. Her research encompasses a variety of methods, regions, and themes that revolve around the relationship between humans and food in the New World, especially in the periods bracketing the shift to agriculture.

Gregory D. Wilson, Ph.D. (2005, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research is concerned with issues of social inequality, identity politics, and violence in pre-Columbian North and South America, which he investigates through a household and community-centered archaeology, emphasizing methodologically rigorous analyses of large and diverse datasets.