South Grove Midden Butchery Summary

South Grove Midden Butchery Summary Nov. 18, 2012 Dessa Lightfoot

This is a preliminary summary of work that has been conducted on the South Grove Midden faunal assemblage. As of November 2012 all laboratory analysis has been completed, and a butchery analysis has been performed of the eighteenth-century domestic livestock from the South Grove Midden at Mount Vernon. A complete butchery analysis will be included in the final faunal report.

The South Grove Assemblage This butchery study was conducted on the eighteenth-century faunal materials from the South Grove Midden at Mount Vernon. The study focused on the domestic livestock from Phases I, II, and III, specifically cattle, sheep/goats (which are included together under a single species because they are generally indistinguishable skeletally), and pigs. These species were selected because they generally contribute the most to meats consumed throughout Anglo-American sites in the eighteenth century (Walsh, Martin, and Bowen 1997), a pattern which is continued at Mount Vernon. For Phases I- III, domestic mammals overall contributed 285.9 kg of meat (as determine by biomass) to the diet, while wild mammals contributed only 9.15 kg of meat. Assemblages from Phases I and II were selected for further analysis because they had statistically significant sample sizes (Phase I combined NISP of cattle, sheep/goat and pig n=769, Phase II combined NISP of cattle, sheep/goat and pig n=1116). Phase III was recorded and analyzed following the same protocol but will not be discussed in this document because the assemblage size was too small (Phase IIII combined NISP of cattle, sheep/goat and pig n=139) to be able to draw any conclusions. The results of the Phase III butchery analysis will be included in the final report.

Methodology

Butchery analysis on the South Grove assemblage was performed using the guidelines described by Gilmore (1999) and Landon (1996), and following the criteria used at the Colonial Williamsburg Zooarchaeology Laboratory currently. Bone were examined for fragmentation, human and non-human modification (bone chewing, burning, weathering), and butchery marks. These features were recorded schematically on individual bone diagrams. Butchery marks were identified based on the butchery mark categories as established by Crader (1990). Crader identifies five categories of butchery marks, scrapes, cuts, chops, shears, and saw marks, and these marks can correspond to particular stages of butchery. Once butchery marks were recorded individually, composite schematic drawings were created of both butchery and fragmentation to examine patterning that could be potentially revealing of stages of butchery (something Landon tentatively identified in his research in Boston, 1996), or butchery goals (which Gilmore identified in his comparison between English and Spanish Colonial faunal assemblages.) The goal with these schematics is to seek to reconstruct the cuts of meat represented by the faunal materials from the South Grove Midden. Currently, the fragmentation and butchery information has been complied and is presented below.

Phase I-1735-1758

Phase I: 1735-1758 MNIs Phase I: 1735-1758 NISP Cattle (AD) 6 Cattle (AD) 178 Cattle (IM) 1 Cattle (IM) 11 Sheep/Goat1 (AD) 6 Sheep/Goat1 184 Sheep/Goat1 (IM) 0 Pig2 381 Pig (AD) 2 8 1Combines mature and immature Ovis aries, 2 Ovis aries/Capra hircus, Pig (IM) 1 and cf. Ovis aries/Capra hircus 1 Combines Ovis aries and Ovis aries/Capra 2Combines mature and immature Sus scrofa and hircus cf. Sus scrofa 2Combines Sus scrofa and cf. Sus scrofa

Phase I Butchery and Fragmentation

The schematics below and Phase II are composite drawings representing what portions of elements were present in the faunal assemblage in yellow, hack marks in red, and knife marks in blue. To make possible patterns more visible, all elements are depicted on the left side of the schematic, regardless of what side of the animal the element actually came from (siding was preformed and is recorded for each individual bone schematic, and was used to calculate MNIs). Mature and immature elements are represented on separate schematics, as mature and immature animals may be butchered and prepared differently. Phase I Cattle Phase I Sheep/Goat Phase I Pig

Phase II: 1759-1775

Phase II: 1759-1775 NISP Phase II: 1759-1775 MNIs Cattle (AD) 266 Cattle (AD) 5 Cattle (IM) 6 1Combines Cattle (IM) 1 1 Ovis aries and Sheep/Goat 232 1 Sheep/Goat (AD) 9 Ovis Pig2 596 Sheep/Goat1 (IM) 1 aries/Capra 1Combines mature and immature Ovis aries, Pig (AD) 2 13 hircus Ovis aries/Capra hircus, 2Combines Sus and cf. Ovis aries/Capra hircus 2 Pig (IM) 2 scrofa and cf. 2Combines mature and immature Sus scrofa and Sus scrofa cf. Sus scrofa

Phase II Butchery and Fragmentation As in Phase I, the schematics below are composite drawings representing what portions of elements were present in the faunal assemblage in yellow, hack marks in red, and knife marks in blue. To make possible patterns more visible, all elements are depicted on the left side of the schematic, regardless of what side of the animal the element actually came from (siding was preformed and is recorded for each individual bone schematic, and was used to calculate MNIs). Mature and immature elements are represented on separate schematics, as mature and immature animals may be butchered and prepared differently. Phase II Cattle Phase II Sheep/Goat Phase II Pig Works Cited

Walsh, Lorena S., Ann Smart Martin, and Joanne Bowen 1997 Provisioning Early American Towns. The Chesapeake: A Multidisciplinary Case Study. Final Performance Report. National Endowment for the Humanities. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

Crader, Diana C 1990 Slave Diet at Monticello. In American Antiquity, v. 55, n.4, p. 690-717

Gilmore, Richard Grant III 1999 Putting Flesh on the Bones: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Butchery Analysis in Historical Archaeology. Unpublished MA Thesis. College of William and Mary, Department of Anthropology.

Landon, David 1996 Feeding Colonial Boston: A Zooarchaeological Study. In Historical Archaeology 30, n. 1, p. 1-153.