The Elements of Bone: A Look into Fremont Diet at Wolf Village

Summary

Fremont diet is an aspect of Great Basin archaeology that has long fascinated Fremont scholars. Excavations which occurred at Wolf Village, a Fremont site in Goshen, Utah, have yielded a large amount of faunal remains which can help archaeologists to identify the types of animals used in Fremont diet. Excavations at the northern most knoll of the site uncovered a large bell-shaped pit filled with a high quantity of faunal remains. The high concentration of bone provided a significant amount of data to analyze, to determine the types of animals being utilized by the Fremont at this site. Dr. Joel Janetski has previously discussed Fremont diet at Five Finger Ridge. He theorized that there was a tendency to discard "low utility" elements of bones that contained less meat than elements such as long bones. At Five Finger Ridge there was a presence of low utility elements of small artiodactyls, such as mandibles and foot bones. Similar high and low utility elements were recovered from the bell-shaped pit at Wolf Village, which probably served as a kill/butchering area due to the presence of these low utility portions.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage