Refocusing the Role of Food-Grinding Tools as Correlates for Subsistence Strategies in the U.S. Southwest

Abstract

Food-grinding tools in both the New World and the Old World have long been used as subsistence indicators. Previously, variations in tool size and material texture were presumed to have been related to processing differences between wild and domestic foods. However, recent research conclusions from both the U.S. Southwest and the Levant indicate that tool morphology is more closely related to differing processing strategies than to the food procurement system. Ethnographic accounts of food preparation techniques and tool design experiments provide a foundation for new methods of assessing prehistoric food processing techniques. Food-processing techniques from eight distinct cultural groups in the U.S. Southwest provide examples of how foods might have been incorporated into the prehistoric diet. Experiments with prehistoric food-grinding tool types demonstrate their effectiveness for reducing assorted seeds and maize kernels and helping to identify criteria for a technological analysis of grinding tool types. Archaeological assemblages from selected sites in the U.S. Southwest are evaluated with these criteria and used to discuss the relationship between grinding technology and the introduction of and increasing dependency on agriculture. It is proposed that developments in food-grinding technology are related to processing strategies for incorporating flour into prehistoric diets.