Rachel V Briggs | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (original) (raw)

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Papers by Rachel V Briggs

List of Illustrations vii Introduction: Foodways Archaeology in the Southeast Tanya M. Peres and ... more List of Illustrations vii Introduction: Foodways Archaeology in the Southeast Tanya M. Peres and Aaron Deter-Wo!f 1 1. Social Subsistence: Integrating Analyses of Ceramic, Plant, and Animal Remains from Feltus Megan C. Kassabaum 11 2. Splitting the Bones: Marrow Extraction and Mississippian Period Foodways Tanya M. Peres 30 3. Turkey Foodways: The Intersection of Cultural, Social, and Economic Practices in the Mississippian Period Southeast Kelly L. Ledford and Tanya M. Peres 51 4. The Prehistory and History of Black Drink 1bomas E. Emerson 63 5. Archaeology of the Whiskey Foodway in Kentucky Nicolas Laracuente 81 6. Prehistoric Foodways from the Dust Cave Site

This chapter is a continuation of my research into the hominy foodway, exploring three major hist... more This chapter is a continuation of my research into the hominy foodway, exploring three major historical trajectories of this practice after European contact: the white or Euro-American hominy foodway, the African and African-American hominy foodway, and the Native hominy foodway. I argue that what differentiates these histories is the culinary practice (or lack thereof) of nixtamalization, a chemically enhancing as well as taste altering technique that was divorced from maize preparation in the Euro-American hominy history, but more commonly adopted by African communities accustomed to alkaline condiments. For a copy of the full chapter, please contact the author.

Although the Mississippian standard jar, a specific vessel form found in many parts of the Missis... more Although the Mississippian standard jar, a specific vessel form found in many parts of the Mississippian cultural world, has
long been recognized as a utilitarian cooking pot, the important connection between this ceramic form and maize has largely
been overlooked. By focusing on the Mississippian site of Moundville located in the Black Warrior valley of west-central
Alabama, I propose that the Mississippian standard jar was not simply a general cooking pot, but instead a specialized
culinary tool used to nixtamalize maize. As such, both the vessel and the plant were part of a cohesive ancestral hominy
foodway. This relationship is demonstrated in two ways: first, by articulating both the hominy foodway and the antecedent
nut foodway practiced between A.D. 1020–1260; and, second, by exploring changes in the morphology and use-alteration
patterns of the Moundville Mississippian standard jars recovered from contexts dating to the Moundville I-III phases (A.D.
1120–1520). The relationship between vessel and food demonstrated here suggests a practice- and taste-based model for the synergistic relationship long recognized between maize and the emergence of the Mississippian civic-ceremonial center
of Moundville.

Made from boiled maize kernels exposed to an alkaline solution, hominy has been regarded as one o... more Made from boiled maize kernels exposed to an alkaline solution, hominy has been regarded as one of a number of maize dishes within the culinary repertoire of the native cook. However, this article proposes that hominy was not a singular dish among many but the life-sustaining staple foodway for native groups in the Eastern Woodlands that served as the first steps for a number of resulting foods. Perpetuated well into the twentieth century by many groups, the importance of this foodway is not in its chemical alteration of maize, but also in the elements of sociality that envelop this foodway, which helped perpetuate the culinary, nixtamalizing practices involved long after they were no longer biologically essential. This sociality includes those domestic and community-wide practices that established a particular taste for lye and ash, important elements of the foodway, as well as the role of the hominy foodway within a broader social context.

In the 1930s, Dr. Walter B. Jones uncovered evidence at the Haney site, located near present-day ... more In the 1930s, Dr. Walter B. Jones uncovered evidence at the Haney site, located near present-day Moundville, Alabama, of a, eighteenth- or nineteenth-century, historic period Native settlement in the lower Black Warrior River valley. However, both the archaeological record and ethnohistory for the area indicate the lower portion of the Black Warrior valley was deplete of settlement during this time, serving instead as a highly contested buffer zone between the Choctaws and the Creeks. Through subsequent archaeological excavations and analysis of extant material from the 1930s, this article proposes that the site represented a well-known, resonant location within the historic Upper Creek world, which was primarily utilized during hunting and raiding expeditions.