Sacred or Mundane? Use of Comparative Zooarchaeology to Interpret Feature Significance at Kingsley Plantation, Jacksonville, Florida

Amber J Grafft-Weiss

Sacred or Mundane? Use of Comparative Zooarchaeology to Interpret Feature Significance at Kingsley Plantation, Jacksonville, Florida

Year: 2017

Summary

Field schools offered by the University of Florida between 2006 and 2013 yielded exceptional potential to understand the lifeways of enslaved Africans who lived and labored at Kingsley Plantation, located on Fort George Island in Jacksonville, Florida (1814-1839). In 2013, excavations included a high-density deposit discovered in front of a slave cabin. It resembled an ordinary trash pit in some ways, but also contained some objects that have been associated with ritual or religious activity in other contexts across the plantation. Comparison with another nearby trash pit, beginning with a sample of the faunal remains recovered from each, will facilitate determination of whether this feature represents something sacred or mundane (or had changing meaning). Zooarchaeological analysis holds particular potential to draw comparison or contrast; in additional to subsistence-related activity, some faunal remains at the Kingsley cabins (including a chicken burial) use of animals for ritual purposes.

Cite this Record

Sacred or Mundane? Use of Comparative Zooarchaeology to Interpret Feature Significance at Kingsley Plantation, Jacksonville, Florida. Amber J Grafft-Weiss. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Fort Worth, TX. 2017 ( tDAR id: 435403)