Reimagining Methods in Historical Zooarchaeology: Getting to the Meat of the Matter-Identifying Butchery Goals and Reconstructing Meat Cuts from Eighteenth Century Colonial Virginia

Summary

Faunal remains from archaeological sites are only the byproduct of meals, discarded after the meat has been stripped from them.  A detailed butchery analysis is one way of thinking of bones as vehicles for meat, making it possible to link what was removed for consumption with what is found archaeologically.  Seeking to reconstruct meat cuts is another way to get at not just what species or how much people were eating, but how that meat was conceived of, prepared, and served.  Butchery analysis and meat cut reconstructions can help bridge the gap between the archaeological record, documentary sources, and the meals people sat down to each day.  What and how people ate in the eighteenth-century Anglo-American world was more than the result of preference, social context, or environment; it is a concrete demonstration of how individuals made choices, communicated information, and reflected and affected their cultures.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Poster Submission 2016   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2016

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 964