Pronghorn and Pine Nuts in the Privy: Foodways of St. Michael’s Mission on the Navajo Nation
Author(s): Kelsey Gruntorad; Megan S. Laurich; Rachael E. O'Hara; Emily Dale; Chrissina Burke
Year: 2020
Summary
This is a poster submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.
Near present-day Window Rock, Arizona, St. Michael’s Mission, established in 1898, was the first permanent Catholic mission to the Navajo. A surface survey and excavation of the privy in 1976 unearthed artifacts from the 1910s to 1960s. In 2019, the Northern Arizona University Historical Archaeology Lab re-catalogued and analyzed those artifacts. The fauna and flora, including both wild and domesticated species, found in the privy allowed us to identify what the friars, employees, and Navajo residents of St. Michael’s Mission ate and how they acquired food stuffs. Additionally, our research reveals the potential trade relationships between St. Michael’s Mission and the local Navajo communities. This poster contributes to the limited zooarchaeological research of historical missions in the Southwest and explores a subsistence perspective in contact period archaeology.
Cite this Record
Pronghorn and Pine Nuts in the Privy: Foodways of St. Michael’s Mission on the Navajo Nation. Kelsey Gruntorad, Megan S. Laurich, Rachael E. O'Hara, Emily Dale, Chrissina Burke. 2020 ( tDAR id: 457370)
This Resource is Part of the Following Collections
Keywords
General
Foodways
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mission
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Zooarchaeology
Geographic Keywords
United States of America
Temporal Keywords
20th Century
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 312