A fish-focused menu: An interdisciplinary reconstruction of Ancestral Tsleil-Waututh diets

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 knowle..., 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 along..., , # 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 ...