Identifying high-status foods in the archeological record

► Aspects of any given food system inform, and are informed by, a variety of social, economic, religious, historical, ecological, cultural, and political processes. ► Elite foods (or, indeed, socially valued foods) tend to be those foods (or groups of foods) which are (a) scarce, (b) overly abundant, (c) diverse, (d) labor-intensive in acquisition or preparation, (e) periodically occurring, (f) exotic (non-local) in origin, (g) tasty, or (h) symbolically potent. ► Using these criteria elite food can be identified using archeological data, even when lacking ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence. ► Possible elite foods were singled out at the Ceremonial Center of Tibes, Puerto Rico using these criteria, many of them small contributors to the general diet of the population.