Dirt to Desk: Macrobotanical Analyses From Fort St. Joseph (20BE23) and The Lyne Site (20BE10)

Part of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological project

Author(s): David Martinez

Year: 2009

Summary

Fort St. Joseph, a seventeenth- to eighteenth-century archaeological site in southwestern Michigan, and the adjacent Lyne site provide a recent and ongoing example of historical archaeology posing questions about the notion of culture contact during French colonialism. Effective research questions, increasingly systematic procedures, and a balance between historical and archaeological material have served to solidify and situate the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project’s contributions to anthropology. Archaeobotanical data analysis of the 2007 flotation remains from Fort St. Joseph (20BE23) and the Lyne site (20BE10), coupled with the 2002 macrobotanical findings from Fort St. Joseph, provides the project with better understanding of the food consumption patterns of both Native and Colonial occupants of the two sites. Archaeobotanical data from these and other colonial era sites shed light on processes of dietary acculturation and the strengths and weaknesses of the archaeological record of subsistence from Historic sites. Prior notions of unidirectional acculturative forces and Indigenous agency are discussed, along with shifts to the inclusion of non-Native plant resources by either Native or Colonial groups. Macrobotanical results for the two sites are viewed against expectations provided by world systems theory and acculturation theory.

Cite this Record

Dirt to Desk: Macrobotanical Analyses From Fort St. Joseph (20BE23) and The Lyne Site (20BE10). David Martinez. 2009 ( tDAR id: 366728) ; doi:10.6067/XCV88914SW

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

Keywords

Culture
British Colonial • Euroamerican • French Colonial • Historic • Historic Native American • Miami • Potawatomi

Material
Building Materials • Ceramic • Dating Sample • Fauna • Fire Cracked Rock • Glass • Ground Stone • Macrobotanical • Metal • Shell • Wood

Site Name
Fort St. Joseph

Site Type
Archaeological Feature • Domestic Structure or Architectural Complex • Domestic Structures • Hearth • Historic Structure • Hunting / Trapping • Midden • Non-Domestic Structures • Palisade • Pit • Post Hole / Post Mold • Resource Extraction / Production / Transportation Structure or Features • Rock Alignment • Settlements • Structure • Trash Midden

Investigation Types
Data Recovery / Excavation • Ethnohistoric Research • Geophysical Survey • Historic Background Research • Reconnaissance / Survey • Research Design / Data Recovery Plan • Site Evaluation / Testing

General
Fur Trade • garrison • Jesuit • Macrobotanical Analysis • Macrobotanical Remains • mission • Public Archaeology • Trading Post

Geographic Keywords
Great Lakes • Pays d'en Haut

Temporal Keywords
Colonial Period

Temporal Coverage

Calendar Date: 1691 to 1781

Spatial Coverage

min long: -86.285; min lat: 41.794 ; max long: -86.238; max lat: 41.827 ;

Individual & Institutional Roles

Principal Investigator(s): Michael Nassaney

File Information

  Name Size Creation Date Date Uploaded Access
dirt-to-desk-macrobotanical-analyses-from-fort-st-joseph-20be2... 1.37mb Nov 15, 2011 5:00:30 PM Public