Lowcountry Livestock Production: Eighteenth-Century Cattle Husbandry at Drayton Hall

Summary

            The Proprietors of colonial South Carolina had wanted the colonists to be "planters and not graziers."  However, the mild winters of South Carolina and the abundant range-lands were perfect for livestock production, and the livestock industry soon provided the financial foundation for many colonists to be planters as well as graziers.  Utilizing faunal evidence from eighteenth-century assemblages from Drayton Hall, this paper explores the changing cattle husbandry strategies employed in the South Carolina Lowcountry.  Butchery and kill-off data from Drayton Hall exhibit temporal differences suggestive of changes in livestock utilization at the site.  Additionally, an examination of pathologies present on cranial and lower limb elements indicates different husbandry strategies employed at different times at the site.  By understanding eighteenth-century Drayton Hall as a landscape comprised of multiple human and non-human interactions, one can appreciate fully the changing relationships between humans and cattle that went into Lowcountry livestock production.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2017   •
• Honoring Cowtown: Cattle Husbandry in Historical Zooarchaeology

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 132