SAA 2025 Electronic Symposium

You are invited to submit an abstract for an upcoming Electronic Symposium at the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, to be held in Denver, Colorado, from April 23-27, 2025. For this Electronic Symposium, we encourage the submission of original work by archaeologists, historians, Classicists, and other scholars who address methodologies, theories, historical trajectories, cross-cultural comparisons, and controversies surrounding ancient material culture and past foodways. Proposed abstracts, titles, and names and email addresses of all co-authors should be submitted to [email protected] no later than September 4. Please see the abstract and details below.

Title:
The Archaeology of Food and Foodways: New Aims, Directions, and Methodologies

Abstract:
This Electronic Symposium presents a cross-section of emerging trends and new perspectives on the archaeology of food and foodways. Ancient food studies comprise a field of inquiry that touches on all specializations in archaeology, including artifacts, biochemical and microbotanical residue analysis, archaeobotany, zooarchaeology, isotope analysis, studies of features and activity areas, experimental archaeology, and ethnographic research. Significant advances in environmental archaeology and archaeological science have enabled us to view and study human relationships with food in more depth and detail than ever before. Meanwhile, novel interpretive approaches have rendered new foodways visible, and changed our understandings of food, a substance deeply imbued with cultural, economic, spiritual, and political significance. Scaffolding from this work, scholars and culinary specialists alike have applied archaeological findings to such domains as public policy (e.g., agricultural sustainability), culinary arts (e.g., the revitalization of food traditions), and dietary regimes (e.g., the decolonization of diets). In this symposium, we explore diverse perspectives on ancient foodways, from a number of geographical regions, material analyses, and interpretive approaches.

Electronic Symposium Details:
Recognizing the highly varied nature of food research and the ways in which it can be presented, submissions for the Electronic Symposium may be formatted in one of several ways: research articles (standard research presentation), thematic essays (more theoretically- inclined pieces), applied archaeological findings (geared toward those outside of academia, such as public policy makers and chefs, who make use of archaeological research), OR photo essays (usually experimental or ethnoarchaeological in nature). We encourage submissions that cross disciplinary boundaries and are theoretically informed. Participants in the symposium will have the opportunity to submit their papers for publication in Archaeology of Food and Foodways, the journal co-edited by the three symposium organizers.

Of particular interest:
Several key areas, though submissions need not be limited to these themes:

Methodological developments including:
-the increasing use of LIDAR to identify agricultural fields and model agricultural products and production
-the increasing use of proteomics, metabolomics, lipids, isotopes, and aDNA to identify food residues
-new experimental approaches (fermentation, etc.)

Emerging theoretical engagements including:
-more applied approaches related to food revitalization, diet decolonization, and reasserting food sovereignty
-increasing attention to the ontological turn
-more attunement to Traditional Ecological Knowledge
-increasing engagement with food heritage