Carolina's Cattle: Eighteenth-Century Livestock Production at Drayton Hall

Summary

Utilizing faunal evidence from two assemblages from Drayton Hall, this paper explores the changing cattle husbandry strategies employed in the eighteenth-century South Carolina Lowcountry. Before colonists had perfected rice production in the region, they worked with the varied terrains and natural resources of the Lowcountry to create a very successful livestock industry in the early eighteenth century. Cattle remains from the Pre-Drayton assemblage (circa 1730s) reflect this thriving livestock industry, indicating that cattle were raised at the site for market in a largely free-range system. In contrast, cattle remains from the South Flanker Well assemblage (circa 1770s) suggest cattle being raised in a more hands-on manner, with some individuals likely serving as draught oxen. Through analyses of general species distributions, kill-off patterns in cattle, and pathologies present on the cattle cranial and lower limb elements at Drayton Hall, one can appreciate the changing relationships between humans and cattle in the eighteenth-century Carolina Lowcountry.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14643