n.a. (1993). Health, sanitation, and foodways in historical archaeology. Historical Archaeology. Vol 27(2), pp. 1-111.

Title:

Health, sanitation, and foodways in historical archaeology

Issue:

Historical Archaeology

Series:

Historical Archaeology

Volume:

27 (2)

Page Start/End:

1 - 111

Biblio Note

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Publication Type:

Journal

Abstract:

Although drawing mostly on North American material, these revised and expanded versions of the conference papers present interdisciplinary approaches generally applicable to the study of health and subsistence in post-medieval urban societies. After `Health, sanitation and foodways in historical archaeology: introduction', by Joan H Geismar & Meta F Janowitz (1), John Duffy (2-5) writes `Health, sanitation and foodways in historical archaeology: commentary'. This paper bemoans increasing compartmentalisation and specialisation within the humanities but moves on to demonstrate how a combination of archaeological and documentary evidence has been used with success in the studies presented in subsequent papers. Meta F Janowitz (6-24) compares the foods and culinary artifacts of Europe with those of early American colonists in `Indian corn and Dutch pots: seventeenth century foodways in New Amsterdam/New York'. Contrasting the better documented British-American colonies with the Dutch colonies, the paper examines contemporary descriptions, paintings, excavated objects, and faunal material. `Commercial foods, 1740-1820', by Olive R Jones (25-41), combines a survey of food packaging from archaeological assemblages with evidence from contemporary English, Canadian, and American newspaper advertisements to demonstrate that many elements of consumerism were established in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Includes `Appendix A: newspapers and their advertisements' (41), detailing the documentary search methods. `Health and diet in 19th-century America: a food historian's point of view', by Alice Ross (42-56), is an historical study of nutrition, cookery, and food technology. John H Geismar (57-70) researches nineteenth-century attitudes to the disposal of human waste in `Where is Night Soil? Thoughts on an urban Privy'. Includes a study of the technology of sewage disposal and of the contents of some excavated New York privies, the latter indicating widespread flouting of statutory regulations. `The meaning of change in urban faunal deposits' is based on an examination, by Nan A Rothschild & Darlene Balkwill (71-89), of seventeenth- to nineteenth-century material from Manhattan. The paper highlights the difficulties inherent in the analysis of faunal material from historic sites and identifies the ways in which variations may arise through taphonomic, environmental, or cultural factors. it is suggested that taphonomic effects may be identified by bone density and that socio-economic differentiation can be determined by assessing the cost of foods from a deposit. Includes `Appendix A: methodology for correlation analysis and results' (86-9). Mary C Beaudry (90-105) demonstrates one example of how documentary and archaeological evidence may provide seemingly contradictory views of conditions of sanitation in `Public aesthetics versus personal experience: worker health and well-being in 19th-century Lowell, Massechucetts'. The concluding paper, by Stephen A Mrozowski (106-111) and entitled `Dialectics of historical archaeology in a post-processual world', is a critical appraisal of the preceding items, applauding their interdisciplinary approach and defending the study of ecology against its rejection by some post-processual theorists.

Issue Editor:

Joan H Geismar
Meta F Janowitz

Other Person/Org:

Jeremy M O Oetgen (Abstract author)

Year of Publication:

1993

Subjects / Periods:

Britishamerican Colonies (Auto Detected Subject)
Faunal Material (Auto Detected Subject)
Dutch Pots (Auto Detected Subject)
English Canadian (Auto Detected Subject)
MEDIEVAL (Historic England Periods)
Bone (Auto Detected Subject)

Source:

BIAB (The British Archaeological Bibliography (BAB))

Relations:

URI:	http://www.jstor.org/stable/25616234

Created Date:

20 Jan 2002