Bone Marrow as Part of the Local Cuisine at Fort St. Joseph, a French Fur Trade Post in Southwest Michigan

Summary

Analyses of the large faunal assemblage from the eighteenth-century Fort St. Joseph site (20BE23) in Berrien County, Michigan, are becoming more concerned with the question of "food or furs?" With over 70% of the identified animal remains coming from white-tailed deer, we are trying to discern whether broken longbones are the result of removal of marrow for subsistence, or if they may have also been used to prepare hides. In contrast to late prehistoric and early historic Native American sites in the Midwest, the best quality marrow bones -- the metacarpals and metatarsals -- are underrepresented at Fort St. Joseph. This suggests that the lower leg skeletal portions were purposefully collected and taken elsewhere. If marrow and bone grease were processed as part of the local cuisine, why are deer metapodial fragments so rare in the habitation refuse? Were marrow bones being used in addition to brains as part of the hide tanning process away from the site area that has been excavated?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Some Like It Hot: Analytic Diversity and Complementarity in the Exploration of Past Cooking and Cuisine

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14305