Consumer behaviour and foodways in colonial Mexico: archaeological case studies comparing Puebla and Cholula

Abstract

This study addresses the issue of consumer behaviour and foodways between two ethnic groups, the Indigenous and the Spaniards, during early Colonial Mexico and the Postclassic period. My research interest concentrates on how socio-economic differences influenced the consumer behaviour and foodways between these two ethnic groups. For my objective, I compared material culture excavated in trash middens associated with Spaniards in the city of Puebla and Indigenous groups in the city of Cholula. The research relies on form-function analysis of ceramics, acquisition of goods, analysis of animal bones, unpublished historical documents consulted in the archives of Puebla, ethnohistoric data and ethnographic information. This study offers different explanations for the archaeological trends revealed by the material analysis based on social status, income, wealth, and ethnicity, all predicated on the hypothesis that social as well as economic elements influenced consumer behaviour and foodways in the Spaniards of Puebla and Indians of Cholula.