Dining in Detroit: Revisiting 19th Century Faunal Remains from the Renaissance Center Excavations

Summary

This poster presents preliminary analysis of the recently cleaned and catalogued faunal remains from one of the features of the Detroit Renaissance excavation as part of the Unearthing Detroit project at Wayne State University. Unearthing Detroit began as a project to "excavate" our own storage room Grosscup Museum collection. The faunal remains from a privy unit feature from Section J, Level 1 will be focus of analysis. The analysis includes cleaning and preservation methods, examining butchering techniques, and identifying fauna. The 1973 and 1974 salvage excavations left many assemblages without examination and interpretation. These excavations spanned 9 city blocks, most of which are presently apart of the Renaissance Center's foundation. From where our predecessor started, the faunal analysis we contribute aims to provide more data for understating dietary habits of 19th-century Detroiters. By analyzing the assemblage we will provide the quantitative and qualitative interpretations to further the previously generated study.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2015   •
• Poster Session 2

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 466