Building an Archaeological Record of Over Three Centuries of Turtle Use Across the Chesapeake Bay Region

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological and historical data speak to the importance of turtles in the Chesapeake Bay region, which includes the eastern portions of Maryland and Virginia and which serves as a home to nearly 20 species of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine turtles. Despite the many roles that turtles played in pre- and post-contact communities in the area, there has been no systematic effort to examine long-term temporal and/or geographic variability in past human use of turtles in the Chesapeake Bay region. In this poster, we address this critical research gap using zooarchaeological and stable isotope data from turtle remains recovered from a number of archaeological sites in Maryland and Virginia that span the 17th through late-19th centuries. We highlight trends in the use of individual turtle species through time, including reliance on freshwater pond turtles across multiple time periods and the importance of brackish water diamondback terrapins, especially in nineteenth-century sites. We also discuss insights into turtle harvesting practices and historical ecology of turtles in this dynamic region. Ultimately, we highlight not only how turtles were used in the Chesapeake Bay region but also consider how best to approach archaeological turtle analysis more broadly.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39637.0