Deer, Shells and a Pony: Faunal Evidence from the Abraham Preble Garrison in York, Maine

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This paper presents the resutls of research conducted using the faunal assemblage recovered from the Abraham Preble Site (ME 497-209) in York, Maine. The Preble's established a homestead on the site in the 1640s, with the location serving as a garrison, a tavern a family residence and an inn during its subsequent centuries of use. A Phase III Data Recovery in 2021-2022 yielded thousands of faunal specimens from multiple features. Identified wild species range from deer to fish, while domesticated animals present within the assemblage include the butchered remains from pigs, cows and a pony. Archaeologs collected the artifacts from cellarholes and pit features. The authors performed a suite of statistical and comparative analyses to identify changes in resource consumption through time, and to establish whether the Preble assemblage is unique among similar seventeenth-century fortified sites in New England.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SHA 2023 General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow