zooarchaeology and historical archaeology: a case study of the leland stanford mansion

Summary

Investigating the socioeconomic status of occupants in 19th century historical sites has long been a goal of archaeological investigations; more recently, analyses of the animal bones preserved in these sites (zooarchaeology) have been used to compliment conclusions drawn from other lines of evidence. Following in this tradition, we will use faunal remains to examine changes in socioeconomic status of the inhabitants of the Stanford Mansion in Sacramento, California. The Stanford Mansion was the epitome of luxury when it served as the Governor’s mansion in the late 1800s. However, after the house was graciously donated by Jane Stanford to the Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, it became an orphanage and subsequently a home for dependent high school girls. We hypothesize that the conversion of the Stanford Mansion from the Governor’s mansion to an orphanage and girls home will be evident in the animal bones, which will reflect meat cuts, excavated at the site. We except to see a decrease in the quality of butchered meat from older to younger archaeological layers, reflecting the transition of social strata that occurred at the mansion.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage