R. J. Sinensky
Biography
Foodways, Cuisine, and Landscape Modification in Mobile Farming and Early Sedentary Societies
My research explores foodways — the ways that people produce, prepare, cook, consume, present, and share food. The foods that we eat in daily meals and rare holiday feasts are important aspects of our identities, and this was also the case in the ancient past. As people began living in larger groups and remaining in particular locations year-round — a process that occurred independently across the Americas, Africa, and Euraisa long before Europeans arrived in the Americas — cuisine became a critical aspect of the “social glue” that tied people together and allowed communities to differentiate themselves from others. My research explores how foodways and cuisine developed and changed when people first started living in villages, towns and cities, and how people modified local landscapes as larger concentrations of people began living together.
Research
Prehispanic archaeology of the US Southwest and northwestern Mexico; Indigenous archaeology; historical ecology; anthropogenic ecology; traditional ecological knowledge; land tenure; common property; common pool resources; niche construction; resilience; sustainability; socioenvironmental systems; mobility; mobile farmers; early agriculture; village formation; paleoethnobotany; ethnobotany; anthracology; ground stone analysis; chronometry; GIS, quantitative analysis; data visualization; Ancestral Pueblo; Kayenta; Tusayan; Hohokam; Mogollon; Mesoamerica; Late Archaic; Early Formative; cultural resource management; community archaeology
Publications
2018 Diversity-Disturbance Relationships in the Late Archaic Southwest: Implications for Farmer-Forager Foodways. American Antiquity 83(2):281-301. A peer-reviewed journal article coauthored with Alan Farahani.
2019 Early Pueblo Period Population Aggregation and Dispersal in the Petrified Forest Region, East Central Arizona. Kiva 85(1):49-80. A peer-reviewed journal article coauthored with Gregson Schachner.
2021 Large-Scale Patterns in the Agricultural Demographic Transition of Mesoamerica and Southwestern North America. American Antiquity. A peer-reviewed article coauthored with Richard G. Lesure, Gregson Schachner, Thomas A. Wake, and Katelyn J. Bishop.
2021 The Sustainability of Hopi Agriculture. In Becoming Hopi: A History, edited by Wesley Bernardini, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, Gregson Schachner, and Leigh Kuwanwiswima, pp. 113-132. A peer-reviewed book chapter coauthored with Gregson Schachner, Joel Nicholas, and R. Kyle Bocinsky. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
2021 Kiikiqö: Early Communities. In Becoming Hopi: A History, edited by Wesley Bernardini, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, Gregson Schachner, and Leigh Kuwanwiswima, pp. 161-199. A peer-reviewed book chapter coauthored with Gregson Schachner, Joel Nicholas, Kellam Throgmorton, Wesley Bernardini, and Katelyn J. Bishop. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
2021 Ground Stone Technology and Routine Food Processing at Paso de la Amada. In Excavations at Paso de la Amada, Mexico: Subsistence, Social Organization, and Inequality in an Initial Formative Community, edited by Richard G. Lesure. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, UCLA, Los Angeles.
Article: “Preview of Richard Lesure’s book on Paso de la Amada highlights contributions by UCLA collaborators”
2021 Subsistence Change at Paso de la Amada and the Development of Agrarian Societies in the Soconusco. In Excavations at Paso de la Amada, Mexico: Subsistence, Social Organization, and Inequality in an Initial Formative Community, edited by Richard G. Lesure. A peer-reviewed book chapter coauthored with Richard G. Lesure, Thomas A. Wake and Kristin Hoffmeister. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, UCLA, Los Angeles.
Article: “Preview of Richard Lesure’s book on Paso de la Amada highlights contributions by UCLA collaborators”
2021 The End of the Archaic in the Soconusco Region of Mesoamerica: A Tipping Point in the Local Trajectory Toward Agricultural Village Life. In Preceramic Mesoamerica, edited by Jon C. Lohse, Aleksander Borejsza, and Arthur C. Joyce. Routledge. Acoauthored book chapter with Richard G. Lesure and Thomas A. Wake.
Awards & Grants
Society for American Archaeology Fred Plog Memorial Fellowship, 2018
Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society Research Grant, 2018
Wenner Gren Foundation Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, 2017
PaleoWest Foundation Graduate Scholarship, 2017
