Variation in Animal Predation and Processing Strategies at the Bridge River Winter Pithouse Village (EeRl4) Thru Time: A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Subsistence Change

Summary

Late Holocene occupants of Housepit 54 at Bridge River participated in complex strategies of food acquisition that were much more varied than the oft-cited reliance on storable anadromous fish resources practiced throughout much of the Pacific and inland/riverine Northwest of North America. While acquisition and storage of fish, particularly salmon, was (and is) a vital part of aboriginal subsistence, permeating many aspects of Native life, seasonal and spatial variations in animal procurement were common and increased thru time as environmental conditions and village demographics changed. Indigenous people inhabiting the Bridge River Village sought a variety of terrestrial mammals as food sources, as well as birds, ubiquitous fish, and an extensive array of wild plants. The faunal assemblage from Housepit 54 suggests strong evidence for widespread utilization of a variety of animals, including canids (most probably domesticated dogs), whose consumption is apparent in the earliest occupation floors of the house and continues throughout the life of the house. This study emphasizes the zooarchaeological assemblage as a whole, as well as by discrete living floors and activity areas, in order to assess how subsistence changes played out on a near-generational scale in response to various conditions, including village demographics and ecological change.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Housepit 54 Project at Bridge River, British Columbia: Archaeological Perspectives on Demography, Cultural Inheritance, and Household History   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage