NSF Org:	SMA SBE Office of Multidisciplinary Activities
Recipient:	WILLIAM MARSH RICE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date:	May 11, 2015
Latest Amendment Date:	May 11, 2015
Award Number:	1514486
Award Instrument:	Standard Grant
Program Manager:	Josie S. Welkom SMA  SBE Office of Multidisciplinary Activities SBE  Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
Start Date:	June 1, 2015
End Date:	May 31, 2017 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount:	$192,662.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date:	$192,662.00
Funds Obligated to Date:	FY 2015 = $192,662.00
History of Investigator:	Erendira Quintana Morales (Principal Investigator) erendira.mqm@ucsc.edu Jeffrey Fleisher (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office:	William Marsh Rice University 6100 MAIN ST Houston TX  US  77005-1827 (713)348-4820
Sponsor Congressional District:	09
Primary Place of Performance:	William Marsh Rice University TX  US  77005-1827
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District:	09
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):	K51LECU1G8N3
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s):	IRFP-Inter Res Fellowship Prog, SPRF-Broadening Participation
Primary Program Source:	01001516DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):	5946, 5956, 5991
Program Element Code(s):	595600, 820800
Award Agency Code:	4900
Fund Agency Code:	4900
Assistance Listing Number(s):	47.075

ABSTRACT

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences offers postdoctoral research fellowships to provide opportunities for recent doctoral graduates to obtain additional training, to gain research experience under the sponsorship of established scientists, and to broaden their scientific horizons beyond their undergraduate and graduate training. Postdoctoral fellowships are further designed to assist new scientists to direct their research efforts across traditional disciplinary lines and to avail themselves of unique research resources, sites, and facilities, including at foreign locations. This postdoctoral fellowship supports Dr. Erendira Quintana Morales, under the mentorship of Dr. Jeffrey Fleisher (Rice University), to investigate how daily meals serve to express and negotiate social status by comparing food remains associated with households of varying social status in the 14th-16th century town of Songo Mnara, Tanzania. The results of this archaeological study have implications for our understanding of past social diversity and inequality and the role of everyday practices, such as daily meals, as strategies for social mobility. An innovative and significant contribution of this project is demonstrating the role of fish as both a delicacy and a staple of the daily meal, providing evidence of cases where eating fish exerts both dividing and unifying power in a society where fish are ubiquitous but often understudied. This project provides valuable opportunities to transfer research skills to undergraduate students through training and experience analyzing and recording ceramic and zooarchaeological data, from which they can develop independent research projects. Students also have the opportunity to develop leadership and communications skills by participating in a community outreach program developed out of the fellow?s research. This archaeology module is designed in partnership with a local low-income school to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in the sciences.

This research examines fish bone and ceramic fragments from a selection of households representing diverse levels of social standing to explore how variation in food consumption practices is indicative of social status. Specific measures in the analysis of fish remains, such as size, taxonomic diversity, and element distribution, are compared across the samples to reveal statistically significant patterns in fish distribution. Standard methods of ceramic analysis for the Swahili region are used to determine how vessel form, size, origin, and decoration vary across households associated with different social status. The identification of lipid traces on ceramic fragments serves to reconstruct what food was cooked in specific vessels, which is a pioneering application of this method in the study of fish consumption and in this region. Together, these three research components -- fish remains analysis, ceramic analysis, and lipid analysis -- indicate how different modes of eating and cooking were combined with different foods on a daily basis. A unique, town-level perspective emerges from the spatial patterning of daily consumption practices during the short occupation at Songo Mnara. This research highlights how a detailed investigation of regularly consumed food, such as fish in coastal communities, reveals the social interactions and constructions of meaning associated with past daily practices that form the fabric of a society. The project has significant international collaboration, therefore it is jointly funded by the NSF Office of International Science and Engineering, and the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

Eréndira M. Quintana Morales completed research for her project “Fish as a delicacy and a staple: Social status and the daily meal at the 14^th-16^th century town of Songo Mnara, Tanzania” supported by an NSF Postdoctoral Research Grant. During her funding period, she was based at Rice University, working in collaboration with Professor Jeffrey Fleisher. As an archaeologist, Eréndira was investigating the role of daily food in the social interaction of town residents, specifically how daily food shapes community identity and social differentiation. Her research focused on two commonly excavated artifacts of everyday food consumption: fragments of cooking and eating vessels and bony remains of animal foods.

During an extended visit to the University of York, Eréndira learned to analyze the residues of fats and oils preserved in pottery fragments.  Her research provided the first glimpse of what types of foods were cooked, stored, or served in the pottery from Songo Mnara, a pioneering application of these techniques on pottery from the eastern African coastal region. The combined analysis of pottery and bone fragments, along with lipid residue analysis, provided examples of both shared and variable patterns in the modes of food consumption at Songo Mnara, indicating ways that daily meals served to unite and divide town members.

Throughout her research, Eréndira gained valuable professional experience and training in archaeological methods. Her project created a variety of opportunities to transfer skills and engage with the public. Undergraduate students and international colleagues participated in data collection. In addition to presenting her research to academic and public audiences, she developed a teaching module based on her research, which she presented to a diverse group of high school students from the Houston area.

In the field of Anthropology, Eréndira’s study contributes a unique, town-level perspective of daily food consumption practices across a coastal urban landscape. More broadly, the results of her research have implications for our understanding of past social diversity and inequality and the role of everyday practices, such as daily meals, as strategies for social mobility. 

 

Last Modified: 08/31/2017
Modified by: Erendira M Quintana Morales

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