Insights into Acadian Husbandry Practices: A Zooarchaeological Perspective

Summary

In the tidal marshlands of Nova Scotia, Acadian settlers were able to keep large herds of livestock, feeding them on readily available salt-marsh hay. Censuses from the 17th and 18th centuries indicate that many families were raising much more animals than what they needed for their subsistence. Acadian farmers could sell their cattle, for example, to New England merchants or to the colonists and soldiers at Louisbourg, in exchange for money or necessities. Integrated with historical sources and broader archaeological data, zooarchaeological analyses can provide more details on the husbandry practices of Acadian settlers. Specifically, this paper will discuss the results of different kinds of faunal analyses: body part representation, age and sexing, osteometrics, and cementochronology. The faunal collections analysed come from the Melanson Settlement (1664-1755) and the Belleisle site (1679-1755), both extensively researched by archaeologists in the mid-1980s and in the past ten years.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeologies of Acadia: From Homeland to Diaspora   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-49,06