Eleventh International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

This paper uses food as a window onto local impacts of sociopolitical collapse in the ancient Andes. Moche collapse, around 800 AD, coincided with a series of changes in the archaeological record of the Jequetepeque Valley including a clear break in household culinary practice. Households in the post-Moche Late Intermediate Period employed a new culinary toolkit that would prove remarkably resistant to change over the next six centuries. However, we have no evidence for widespread population replacement, significant environmental change, or new agricultural products at this time. How, then, should we understand this shift in food culture that accompanied collapse? This paper uses archaeological data from two communities in the Jequetepeque Valley to reconstruct post-Moche culinary practice, and to investigate continuity and change from earlier Moche kitchens. First, I use a chaîne opératoire framework to sketch out culinary practice in Moche and Late Intermediate Period households using archaeological evidence for ingredients, equipment, and activities. Then, I highlight points of change and continuity, and their potential relationship to household economies and social life. Ultimately, this culinary perspective sheds light on ancient cultural identity, social relations, and daily practice as they were reconstituted in a post-Moche world, and provides evidence for strong links between culture, identity, and cuisine in the past that might prove useful in understanding resilience in the face of political instability and climate change in the present.