R. J. Sinensky

R-J-Sinensky

R. J. Sinensky

Graduate Student

Email: rsinensky@ucla.edu


View All

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.

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.

 

Degrees

Doctoral candidate, University of California Los Angeles (2017)
M.A. Anthropology, Northern Arizona University (2013)
B.A. Anthropology, The University of Arizona (2007)