Main description:

Biocultural and archaeological research on food, past and present, often relies on very specific, precise, methods for data collection and analysis. These are presented here in a broad-based review. Individual chapters provide opportunities to think through the adoption of methods by reviewing the history of their use along with a discussion of research conducted using those methods. A case study from the author's own work is included in each chapter to illustrate why the methods were adopted in that particular case along with abundant additional resources to further develop and explore those methods.

Contents:

INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH ETHICS

Introduction and Research Design

Janet Chrzan

Research Ethics in Food Studies

Sharon Devine and John Brett

PART I: NUTRITIONAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Chapter 1. Design in Biocultural Studies of Food and Nutritional Anthropology

Darna Dufour and Barbara Piperata

Chapter 2. Nutritional Anthropometry and Body Composition

Leslie Sue Lieberman

Chapter 3. Measuring energy expenditure in daily living: Established methods and new directions

Mark Jenike

Chapter 4. Dietary Analyses

Andrea Wiley

Chapter 5. Ethnography as a tool for formative research and evaluation in public health nutrition: illustrations from the world of infant and young child feeding

Sera Young and Emily Tuthill

Chapter 6. Primate Nutrition and Foodways

Jessica Rothman and Caley Johnson

Chapter 7. Food Episodes/Social Events: Measuring the Nutritional and Social Value of Commensality

Janet Chrzan

PART II: ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY OF FOOD AND FOOD HABITS

Chapter 8. Archeological Food and Nutrition Research

Patti Wright

Chapter 9. Researching Plant Food Remains from Archeological Contexts: Macroscopic, Microscopic, Chemical and Molecular Approaches

Patti Wright

Chapter 10. Methods for Reconstructing Diet

Bethany Turner and Sarah Livengood

Chapter 11. Nutritional Stress in Past Human Groups

Alan Goodman

Chapter 12. Research on Direct Food Remains

Katherine Moore

Chapter 13. If there is food, we will eat: an evolutionary and global perspective on human diet and nutrition

Janet Monge

Chapter 14. Experimental Archaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, and the Application of Archaeological Data to Contemporary Households and Communities

Karen Metheny