Daily Provisions: Tracing a Longue Durée of Feeding Archaeological Workers and Paths of Sustenance for the Future

Abstract

Providing sustenance for archaeological workers has been a logistical and social challenge from the earliest stages of the discipline. Food preparation involved a constellation of workers, from gardeners to ingredient purchasers, and from cooks and chefs, who were often teams of locals who catered to and fought against preferences around taste, sustenance, and nutrition for a regionally and internationally diverse group of people. By analyzing food provision lists, material culture, and archival correspondence pertaining to excavations of Coahuila, Mexico (1947) and Piedras Negras, Guatemala (1931–1946), I seek to trace a regional cross section of mid-twentieth-century food preparation for archaeological workers. I chose to analyze these sites because of the robustness of the archival record and the similarities of their time periods. When taken together, they can provide a more detailed account of North American archaeologists working between the 1930s and 1940s south of the US border, yielding insight into this era of archaeological labor management. Food preparation and dining habits are ways in which hierarchical and segregated labor management manifest in archaeology. By juxtaposing these examples with contemporary archaeological sources, I argue that we can radically question the inheritance of quotidian structures of archaeological practice.