Fins and Scales: A Zooarchaeological Exploration of Nationality, Religion, and Foodways in the Port Richmond Neighborhood of Philadelphia

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Archaeology of the Delaware River Waterfront Symposium of Philadelphia Neighborhoods" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In many ways we are what we eat. The daily practices of acquiring, preparing, and consuming food move beyond mere subsistence and take on meaning within the diverse ways we undertake them. These specific foodways vary across population, time, and space. Practices held in common can offer a point of shared experiences between people of different cultural backgrounds while differences in diet may accentuate or reify divisions between groups. In this way multicultural neighborhoods, like nineteenth-century Port Richmond, offer an opportunity to explore how the diets of immigrant families related to those of their neighbors. Here, faunal material recovered from the I-95/Girard Avenue Interchange Project in Port Richmond is analyzed by AECOM archaeologists and then where possible, subset into archaeological contexts tied to specific families. The comparison of these household assemblages offer a glimpse into how varying cultures of the people of Port Richmond influenced their diet.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Archaeology of the Delaware River Waterfront Symposium of Philadelphia Neighborhoods   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology