In late November of previous years, we have explored the traditional
feast of Thanksgiving through a discussion of early
American tableware and the analysis of foodways in both prehistoric
and historic
contexts. To revisit the theme of feasts, this year we will focus on some of
the earliest evidence of ritual feasting in the archaeological record from eastern
Pennsylvania and the greater Middle Atlantic region.
It is possible to infer from existing examples of egalitarian
hunter-gather societies that the very first Pennsylvanians had rich ceremonial
traditions to celebrate food abundance and to find security in social bonds
during times of scarcity. Paleoindians arrived as early as 16,500 years ago
following migratory herds of caribou, moose and elk in small family bands of 10
to 20 people. The archaeological record
does not lend itself easily to the interpretation of complex social dynamics in
situations of low population density and poor site preservation. Ice age
climate conditions swept away, rather than encapsulated Paleoindian sites near
lowland waterways. Further, the most ideal locations for resource exploitation
by the very first bands of humans in upland settings, continued to be revisited
by many different groups over time. Very little soil deposition in these
environments over time has greatly diminished the ability of today’s archaeologist
to distinguish distinct patterns of activity among any two prehistoric cultural
groups because there has not been much vertical or horizontal spatial
separation between what these early groups left behind.
With those limitations in mind, ritual feasting is a
cross-cultural phenomenon and adaptative strategy found in both egalitarian and
non-egalitarian societies to build relationships and relieve tension. However,
archaeological conditions necessary to begin seeing patterns that could be
considered feasting generally require higher population density and
environmental conditions that favor stratigraphic site preservation.
Ethnographic studies also support the conclusion that
surplus or alliance feasting as a form of social adaptation is not employed
until cultural groups begin to organize on a transegalitarian level. Egalitarian
societies of the past and present—like most prehistoric groups that lived in
Pennsylvanian prior to European contact in the 16th century—live in
social systems where all individuals have relatively the same status, with
equal access to resources and few differences in wealth. There are a few
distinct roles held by individuals in these societies, such as shaman or healer
and headman or woman, and elders are often held in esteem, but these roles
garner few tangible benefits and influence is limited within local family
groups. As defined by the anthropologist Brian Hayden, transegalitarian social
structures develop when groups begin to socially and politically organize
themselves beyond extended family bonds of kinship. Charismatic leaders emerge
and begin to exert influence beyond their local sphere, yet social organization
remains decentralized. The political structures of cultural groups described as
complex hunter-gatherers and early horticulturalists whom are organized on the
order of macrobands—several usually-related extended family groups that live in
seasonal camp sites— for most of the year or as tribes—cultural groups with
defined leaders—can be described as transegalitarian.
It is not until the Late Archaic, about 4300-6000 years ago
that one could argue for the first evidence of macroband level ritual feasting in
the region at a series of related sites, the Abbot Farm Complex on the New
Jersey side of the Delaware river. Here, archaeological investigations uncovered
occupations of over one hundred men, women and children representing several
different family groups gathering together to exploit seasonal resources, trade
and exchange resources and ideas, and likely hold religious ceremonies and
feasts to celebrate life events such as births, coming of age, marriage and
death.
 |
| Abbott Farm Complex, Louis Berger & Associates, Inc. (1996) |
By the Late Archaic climatic conditions had stabilized into
a relative warm and wet climate and so had the courses of the major river
valleys. The Abbott Farm Complex is situated at the fall line, a unique
ecological niche between the brackish estuary waters of the Delmarva coastal
zone and freshwater riverine resources of the Delaware Valley. Rich in a
diversity of natural resources and on a course of water easily navigated by
dugout canoe, it was a favorable site for the gathering of large groups of
people in both the spring, during fish spawning runs, and the fall, following
bird migrations when tree nuts were ready for harvest. Food resources were
readily available to support the large gatherings of people and it also served
as a convenient junction for the trade and exchange of ideas and goods—a crossroads between north and south, eastern
coastal and western piedmont resources.
 |
| Seasonal Productivity of Wetlands and Upland Resources, Louis Berger & Associates, Inc. (1996) |
Late Archaic settlement patterns at Abbott Farm demonstrate some
of the first evidence of seasonal gathering into macrobands that could support
large scale communal feasting due to food abundance. In both the Susquehanna
and Delaware Valleys a similar widespread settlement pattern that began at
Abbott Farm emerges regionally from about 4,300 to 2,700 years ago. Conversely, environmental data would suggest
this regional change in social structure was partially necessitated by greater
food scarcity and instability rather than a higher resource carrying capacity as
inherent at Abbott Farm. Called the Transitional Period or the Terminal Archaic,
it is a time of transition between Archaic hunter-gatherer to more sedentary
horticultural lifeways in Pennsylvania. This cultural period coincides with a
climatic episode called the Sub-Boreal, when the weather was warm, but dryer
than today. Food resources and distribution would have been less predictable
due to increased drought conditions, flooding and erosion.
There is a marked shift in settlement patterns not unlike
the Abbott Farm model that demonstrates a focus on creating food surplus in the
spring and fall. Bands continued to follow an annual cycle, gathering resources
in lowland and uplands settings on a seasonal round. However, camps were larger
and occupied for longer periods of time by groups as large as 10 to 12 families
in the spring during fish migrations as well as bird migrations and nut
harvests in the fall. At floodplainsites, massive fire cracked rock features, either concentrated in large
clusters up to 10 feet in diameter or scattered over large areas near the
water’s edge are the likely by-products of mass roasting pits and stone-boiling
on a large scale. This is a marked increase in resource procurement activities
from Archaic settlements in similar locations. The introduction of seed plants
of the Eastern Agricultural Complex (chenopodium, little barley, knotweed, and lambs
quarter) in addition to squash, which first appears during the Late Archaic,
also denotes further investment of time, energy and longer occupation of sites.
At least some band members would have to
remain near garden plots to plant, tend and harvest in the late spring through the
summer months.
Another change during the Transitional Period is movement of
and preference for South Mountain metarhyolite from Adams County, jasper from
the Hardyston formation in Lehigh County and the Bald Eagle formation in Centre
County, argillite from New Jersey, and steatite from the border of Lancaster
and Chester Counties throughout the Northeast as toolstone. Distinct broadspear
projectile point forms and later fishtail projectile points, made almost
exclusively from these lithic sources are widely adopted in the region. This demonstrates
larger spheres of interactions and expanding social networks during the
Transitional Period in the Susquehanna and Delaware Valleys than during the
Archaic. The earliest evidence of burial ceremonialism related to Pennsylvania
broadspear and fishtail cultural complexes are also found in New York and New
Jersey in the form of cremation burials with grave goods. Burial ceremonialism
connotes a belief in an afterlife, potential recognition of special status for
individuals and the need to distinguish family and band members from non-family
band members. As social spheres increase the need to distinguish those that
belong to a group from others also increases. Special status burials also
demonstrate influence of certain individuals beyond their death, and
potentially beyond kinship relationships.
The first non-perishable portable vessels made of steatite or soapstone are also diagnostic of this period. As an object, they perhaps
best epitomize the cultural changes that are occurring during this time. They
were utilized at sites hundreds of miles from their quarry source and ranged greatly
in size. Some are large and likely used in direct cooking methods to more
efficiently process foods than indirect boiling methods used with baskets made
of bark, cordage or animal skins. While
smaller vessels, some with decorative motifs as seen in this example from the
Zimmermann site (36Pi14), may have had a ceremonial purpose, could have been
used in ritual feasts to delineate band affiliations, and/or played important
roles as part of elaborate gift exchanges systems between bands at these seasonal
gatherings.
Large seasonal settlements in the spring and fall
demonstrating intensive food-surplus production, the regional movement and
preference for select toolstone and projectile point technology, and the
adoption of steatite vessels for both cooking and non-utilitarian functions are
all social adaptations that were likely reinforced and perpetuated by the
ritual act of alliance feasting. To
organize the food and resource surplus needed to create these feasts,
charismatic leaders would have begun to emerge at this time. Beyond the social
needs of building community through shared religious practice, intermarriage
and celebration or commemoration of major life events, feasting played an
important role to promote trade and exchange networks between families for
goods and lithic resources that may be outside of smaller bands winter and
summer seasonal rounds and provide greater food security in unfavorable or
unpredictable conditions during the Transitional Period.
We hope you and yours have many opportunities to gather with
loved ones and feast this holiday season. We’d like to thank our many
volunteers whom expand our microband of staff members into a macroband capable
of exchanging information with the greater community and preserve our past for
our future.
References and Further Reading:
Carr,
Kurt W., and Roger W. Moeller
2015 First
Pennsylvanians: The Archaeology of Native Americans in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Hayden,
Brian
1996 “Feasting in prehistoric and traditional
societies”. In P. Wiessner and W. Schiefenhovel (eds.): Food and the status
quest. Berghahn Books. Providence: 127-147.
2009 The proof is in
the pudding: Feasting and the origins of domestication. Current Anthropology 50(5):597-601.
Hayden Brian, and S.
Villeneuve
2011 A century of feasting studies. Annual Review of Anthropology 40(1):433-449.
Hirst, K. Kris
2018 Feasting:
The Archaeology and History of Celebrating Food. ThoughtCo. October 1, 2018. https://www.thoughtco.com/feasting-archaeology-and-history-170940.
Louis Berger and
Associates
1996 Area D Site (28Me1-D) Data Recovery. Trenton Complex Archaeology, Report 9.
Wholey, Heather
2016 Trans-egalitarian
Society in the Transitional Archaic. Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting,
Orlando, FL. Foragers in Middle Atlantic Prehistory.
For more information, visit PAarchaeology.state.pa.us or the Hall of Anthropology and Archaeology at The State Museum of Pennsylvania .
