The Zooarchaeology of the Christiansted National Historic Site St. Croix, USVI

Summary

This is an abstract from the "To Move Forward We Must Look Back: The Slave Wrecks Project at 10 Years" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Christiansted National Historic Site, located in the town of Christiansted on St Croix, US Virgin Islands, was a Danish military compound that served as a major trading hub dealing in the trade of enslaved Africans. As such, the compound was home to both Danish soldiers and the enslaved Africans on whom they depended for survival. This research presents preliminary data from the analysis of faunal remains excavated from areas within the compound representing various contexts. Preliminarily, this study indicates a heavy reliance on young, domesticated animals in which representation of all skeletal portions of each of the domestic animals may suggest some livestock were likely kept within the compound. Marine resources such as fishes and shellfish are present in fewer frequencies than expected given the proximity to the coast and compared to other Danish colonial islands. Other nonlocal faunas including hutia, domestic rabbit, cat, cod, and preliminarily identified fallow deer are rare, but may be indicative of instances of meat provisioning, acquisition of supplemental protein sources by the enslaved community, and translocation of fauna from other islands.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• To Move Forward We Must Look Back: The Slave Wrecks Project at 10 Years   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32832