Animal Husbandry Practices at the Musgrove Cowpens (9Ch137)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Musgrove Cowpens (9Ch137) was a rural cowpen and trading post established along the Savannah River by the Creek/English trader and interpreter Mary Musgrove (Coosaponakeesa). This location was an ideal trading location between Charleston and Savannah, and placed the post on an estuary, providing an environment rich with natural resources. Excavated by Southeastern Archaeology, Inc. in 2002, two faunal analyses (2008 and 2022) of material from two contemporaneous cellar features have highlighted aspects of Mary's ownership between 1732 and 1746. Expanding on an interdisciplinary National Science Foundation project on Charleston's cattle meat economy, this paper highlights the mortuary profiles derived from postcranial measurements of both cattle and deer individuals to indicate Musgrove's role in the deer-skin trade and cattle economy. Having such a rich faunal assemblage dated to Mary Musgrove's ownership provides essential insights into rural contributions to colonial economic systems, colonial impacts on environmental change, and potential shifts in animal-human relationships in the Lowcountry.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37479.0