Homestead-Era (ca. 1887-1942) Subsistence on the Pajarito Plateau, New Mexico

Summary

Beginning in the 1880s, Hispanic- and Euro-American homesteaders expanded onto the Pajarito Plateau in northern New Mexico. While journals and documentary accounts from visitors and descendants provide insight into the everyday livelihood of these farmers and ranchers, few studies have investigated their shared experience based on examination of physical remains. In this zooarchaeological analysis we identify and quantify the animal remains from several homesteader cabin sites at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Our approach focuses on investigating how these early western homesteaders subsisted, especially when positioned in an environment which potentially provided abundant wild game resources. Given that most homesteaders kept and husbanded domesticated animals and farmed crops, we use faunal remains to examine expectations about the types of animals, types of skeletal elements and abundance of remains that occur in these communal family residence sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Poster Submission 2018   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 568