Town and Gown: Foodways in Antebellum Chapel Hill, NC
Author(s): Ashley Peles
Year: 2016
Summary
Chartered in 1789 and enrolling students in 1795, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is one of three schools that claims the title of oldest public university in the United States. Despite this storied history, relatively little is known about the lives of antebellum university and Chapel Hill residents, particularly archaeologically. In October 2011, contractors excavated a trench around the Battle, Vance, and Pettigrew buildings at UNC. In the process, they exposed archaeological remains along the east Side of Vance Hall. Of particular interest was the discovery of a stone-lined drain designed by UNC Professor Elisha Mitchell and built by slaves in the early 1840s. At the time, this feature was located along a boundary between public university property and a privately owned residential complex. As such, the faunal remains discarded in this drain provide a unique perspective on the foodways of a burgeoning Chapel Hill community.
Cite this Record
Town and Gown: Foodways in Antebellum Chapel Hill, NC. Ashley Peles. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Washington, D.C. 2016 ( tDAR id: 434436)
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Keywords
General
antebellum south
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North Carolina archaeology
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Zooarchaeology
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
Early 19th Century
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 400