DOI: 10.5061/dryad.ns1rn8q10
title: Data from: A fish-focused menu: An interdisciplinary reconstruction of Ancestral Tsleil-Waututh diets

description: The study of past subsistence offers archaeologists a lens through which
 we can understand relationships between people and their homelands.
 Tsleil-Waututh Nation is a Coast Salish Nation whose traditional and
 unceded territory centres on Tsleil-Wat, Burrard Inlet, British Columbia,
 Canada. Tsleil-Waututh people are fish specialists whose traditional diet
 focuses primarily on marine and tidal protein sources. In this research we
 draw on the archaeological record, Tsleil-Waututh oral histories,
 community knowledge, fisheries ecology, and historical records to build an
 estimated pre-contact diet that ancestral Tsleil-Waututh people obtained
 from Tsleil-Wat. Based on prior archaeological research, we assume a high
 protein diet that is primarily (90-100%) from marine and intertidal
 sources. The four pillars of sTsleil-Waututh pre-contact diets (salmon,
 herring, clams, and waterfowl) offer anchor points that ensure the diet is
 realistic, evidence-based, and representative of community knowledge. We
 consider the caloric needs of adults, children, elders, and those who are
 pregnant or lactating. Finally, we consider the variation in the edible
 yield from different animal species and their relationships in the food
 web. Together, these data and anchor points build an estimated pre-contact
 diet averaged across seasons, ages, and biological sex from approximately
 1000 CE up until early European contact in approximately 1792 CE. This
 work offers an empirically based reconstruction of Tsleil-Waututh lifeways
 and subsistence practices, which were based in a myriad of stewardship
 techniques, and that they were forced to halt due to colonial polices.
 This research offers a baseline that aids in understanding the pre-contact
 relationship between Tsleil-Waututh Nation and their territory.
description: All samples were analysed within the Ancient DNA and Proteins
 (ADαPT) Facility in the Department of Anthropology at the University of
 British Columbia. A total of 245 fish vertebrae were analysed using the
 method published in Buckley et al. 2009, modified as described in Richter
 et al. Briefly, ca. 10–30 mg of bone was subsampled and demineralized 0.6
 M HCl at 4°C. Samples were rinsed in 200 μL of 0.1 M NaOH to remove humic
 compound, then rinsed three times in the same volume of 50 mM ammonium
 bicarbonate solution (NH4HCO3) pH 8.0 (AmBic). Samples were gelatinized
 through incubation in 100 μL of AmBic at 65 °C for 1 h at 65, before being
 enzymatically digested overnight at 37 °C in 0.4 μg of trypsin. Digested
 samples were acidified to 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and purified
 using Pierce™ 100 μL C18 tips (ThermoFisher). One microliter of
 α-cyano-hydroxycinnamic acid (matrix) was added to 1 μL of collagen
 extract and spotted in triplicate with onto a 384 spot MALDI target plate
 alongside calibration standards. MALDI-TOF was conducted on a Bruker
 Ultraflex III mass spectrometer with a Nd:YAG smart beam laser, with a
 SNAP averaging algorithm used to obtain monoisotopic masses (C 4.9384, N
 1.3577, O 1.4773, S 0.0417, H 7.7583). Triplicate spectra were averaged
 and visually inspected using mMass software to identify diagnostic markers
 published in Richter et al. The raw MALDI spectra are uploaded
 here. 
description: # A fish-focused menu: an interdisciplinary reconstruction of Ancestral
 Tsleil-Waututh Diets
 **Manuscript:** [https://doi.org/10.1177/02780771241261235](https://doi.org/10.1177/02780771241261235) #### **Description of the data and file structure** **Data Collection:** The bone samples were demineralized in a weak acid solution (0.6M HCl); the sample was then centrifuged, and the supernatant was discarded. The samples were rinsed with 250 µL of 0.1M NaOH and then rinsed three times with 200 μl of 50 mMol ammonium bicarbonate, pH 8.0 (AmBic solution), and gelatinized by heating at 65º C in AmBic solution for 1 hour. The collagen was enzymatically cleaved with trypsin at 37˚C, and purified using 100 µl Pierce ™ C18 pipette tips. This zip file contains raw MALDI-TOF spectra for each of 52 archaeological animal bones sampled for ZooMS. Each sample was spotted in triplicate, along with calibration standards, onto a 384 spot Bruker MALDI ground steel target plate using 1 µL of sample and 1 µL of α-cyano-hydroxycinnamic acid matrix. The samples were run on a Bruker ultraflex III MALDI TOF/TOF mass spectrometer with a Nd:YAG smart beam laser University of York in York, UK, and a SNAP averaging algorithm was used to obtain monoisotopic masses (C 4.9384, N 1.3577, O 1.4773, S 0.0417, H 7.7583). **Data Filename Description:** Raw spectral data has been uploaded here for each sample in triplicate. The zip file entitle "Efford_et_al_raw_MALDI_data_files.zip" contains 171 text files (.txt). Each text file begins with the sample name (e.g., A832). Each raw spectrum is labelled with the sample name followed by the spot location on the MALDI Plate (e.g., A832_A1,A832_A4, A832_A9). A detailed description of the sample names and proveniences can be found on Supplementary Table 1 of the manuscript.