Pequot Subsistence Practices during the Seventeenth Century: A Zooarchaeological Analysis of the Calluna Hill Site (59-73), Groton, CT

Summary

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

Previous studies have provided a baseline for Indigenous subsistence practices in southern New England both before and after European colonization, but there are few archaeological sites that can speak to subsistence during the early years of colonialism in the seventeenth century. This project uses zooarchaeological analysis and a comparative analytical framework to examine the faunal remains from Calluna Hill, a seventeenth-century Pequot habitation site in Groton, Connecticut, to better understand Pequot subsistence practices and persistence throughout the seventeenth century. Traditional zooarchaeological lines of inquiry were used to identify a list of species, skeletal elements, taphonomy, and depositional processes present at the site. The study further examined the results using intra- and inter-site comparison to show the presence, nature, and distribution of faunal remains throughout Calluna Hill and to contextualize the findings in a broader regional discourse. The results provide insight into Pequot subsistence, hunting, butchery, processing, disposal practices, and human-animal relationships during a time of cultural stress and conflict with Europeans and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of Pequot identity, social dynamics, and the broader impact of European colonialism on Indigenous people and their homelands.

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): 40245.0