Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T22:15:49.909Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Archaeological Signature of Stews or Grease Rendering in the Historic Period

Experimental Chopping of Long Bones and Small Fragment Sizes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2017

Adam R. Heinrich
Adam R. Heinrich*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Anthropology, Monmouth University, 400 Cedar Avenue, West Long Branch, NJ 07764 ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Small bone fragments have often been interpreted as the residues of stews or grease extraction. In international historical archaeological research, stew interpretations have often focused on enslaved or underclass groups or on those who had limited access to sufficient amounts of food or faced nutritional deficiencies. These analyses have widely been uncritical, and the small fragment sizes can be better explained as the products of taphonomic processes such as weathering, trampling, and carnivore scavenging. This work presents results from experimentally chopped long bones from cows, sheep, goats, and pigs that identify butchery and fracture patterns that can be used to evaluate past stew interpretations and provide comparative models for future analyses.

Los fragmentos pequeños de huesos muchas veces se han interpretado como residuos de estofados o como producto de la remoción de grasas. En las investigaciones internacionales realizadas por la arqueología histórica, la interpretación de los estofados se ha sobre cargado de imágenes relacionadas con grupos esclavizados o marginales, o con aquellos que tenían un acceso limitado e insuficiente a ciertos alimentos, o que padecían deficiencias nutricionales. Estos análisis no han sido lo suficientemente críticos y el tamaño pequeño de los fragmentos óseos se puede explicar como el resultado de procesos tafonómicos, tales como la intemperización, la compactación y la depredación. Este trabajo presenta los resultados experimentales de los cortes realizados a los huesos largos de vacas, borregos, cabras y puercos que evidencian destazamiento y patrones de fractura que pueden usarse para evaluar las interpretaciones pasadas en torno a los estofados y que proveen, además, modelos comparativos para la realización de análisis futuros.

Type
Research Article
Information
Advances in Archaeological Practice , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , February 2014 , pp. 1 - 12
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Arkush, Brooke S. 2011 Native Responses to European Intrusion: Cultural Persistence and Agency among Mission Neophytes in Spanish Colonial Northern California. Historical Archaeology 45(4):62–90.Google Scholar
Ball, Charles 1859 Fifty Years in Chains, or, the Life of an American Slave. H. Dayton, New York.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, Anna K. 1978 Taphonomic and Ecologic Information from Bone Weathering. Paleobiology 4:150–162.Google Scholar
Behrensmeyer, Anna K., Gordon, K. D., and Yanagi, G. T. 1986 Trampling as a Cause of Bone Surface Damage and Pseudo-Cutmarks. Nature 319:768–771.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1978 Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1981 Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1989 Debating Archaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R., and Bertram, Jack 1977 Bone Frequencies—And Attritional Processes. In For Theory Building in Archaeology: Essays on Faunal Remains, Aquatic Resources, Spatial Analysis, and Systemic Modeling, edited by Binford, Lewis R., pp. 77–157. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Blumenschine, Robert J., and Marean, Curtis W. 1993 A Carnivore’s View of Archaeological Bone Assemblages. In From Bones to Behavior: Ethnoarchaeological and Experimental Contributions to the Interpretation of Faunal Remains, edited by Hudson, Jean, pp. 273–300. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois.Google Scholar
Blumenschine, Robert J., Marean, Curtis W., and Capaldo, Salvatore 1996 Blind Tests of Inter-Analyst Correspondence and Accuracy in the Identification of Cut Marks, Percussion Marks, and Carnivore Tooth Marks on Bone Surfaces. Journal of Archaeological Science 23:493–507.Google Scholar
Blumenschine, Robert J., and Selvaggio, Marie M. 1988 Percussion Marks on Bone Surfaces as a New Diagnostic of Hominid Behaviour. Nature 333:763–765.Google Scholar
Brain, C. K. 1981 The Hunters or the Hunted: An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.Google Scholar
Capaldo, Salvatore, and Blumenschine, Robert J. 1994 A Quantitative Diagnosis of Notches Made by Hammerstone Percussion and Carnivore Gnawing on Bovid Long Bones. American Antiquity 59:724–748.Google Scholar
Cheever, Dayle M. 1983 Discussion and Preliminary Results of a Faunal Analysis on Large Mammal Remains from the Presidio of San Diego. Casual Papers: Cultural Resource Management 1(2):70–76.Google Scholar
Church, Robert R., and Lee Lyman, R. 2003 Small Fragments Make Small Differences in Efficiency when Rendering Grease from Fractured Artiodactyl Bones by Boiling. Journal of Archaeological Science 30:1077–1084.Google Scholar
Coetzee, Renata 1977 The South African Culinary Tradition: The Origin of South Africa’s Culinary Arts during the 17th and 18th Centuries, and 167 Authentic Recipes of this Period. C. Struik, Cape Town, South Africa.Google Scholar
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation 2002 Enslaved African American Foodways. Electronic document, http://research.history.org/Archaeological_Research/MHPage/AAFoodways.htm, accessed November 23, 2012.Google Scholar
Covey, Herbert C., and Eisnach, Dwight 2009 What the Slaves Ate: Recollections of African American Foods and Foodways from the Slave Narratives. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Crader, Diana 1984 The Zooarchaeology of the Storehouse and the Dry Well at Monticello. American Antiquity 49:542–558.Google Scholar
Crader, Diana 1989 Faunal Remains from Slave Quarter Sites at Monticello, Charlottesville, Virginia. Archaeozoologia III:229–236.Google Scholar
Crader, Diana 1990 Slave Diet at Monticello. American Antiquity 55:690?717.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, Kelly J., Novak, Shannon A., Robbins, Gwen, Schablitsky, Julie M., Richard Scott, G., and Tasa, Guy L. 2010 “Men, Women, and Children Starving:” Archaeology of the Donner Family Camp. American Antiquity 75:627–656.Google Scholar
Dominguez-Rodrigo, M., de Juana, S., Galan, A. B., and Rodriguez, M. 2009 A New Protocol to Differentiate Trampling Marks from Butchery Cut Marks. Journal of Archaeological Science 36:2643–2654.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ECHO Space 2008 Making Bone Grease or Puiñiq. Electronic document, http://www.echospace.org/articles/363/sections/1007.html, accessed December 23, 2013.Google Scholar
Ellis, Meredith A. B., Merritt, Christopher W., Novak, Shannon A., and Dixon, Kelly J. 2011 The Signature of Starvation: A Comparison of Bone Processing of a Chinese Encampment in Montana and the Donner Party Camp in California. Historical Archaeology 45:97–112.Google Scholar
Fiorillo, Anthony R. 1989 An Experimental Study of Trampling: Implications for the Fossil Record. Bone Modification 2:61–71.Google Scholar
Franklin, Maria 2001 The Archaeological Dimensions of Soul Food: Interpreting Race, Culture, and Afro-Virginian Identity. In Race and the Archaeology of Identity, edited by Orser, Charles E. Jr. pp. 88–107. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.Google Scholar
Galan, A. B., Rodriguez, M., de Juana, S., Dominguez-Rodrigo, M. 2009 A New Experimental Study on Percussion Marks and Notches and Their Bearing on the Interpretation of Hammerstone-Broken Faunal Assemblages. Journal of Archaeological Science 36:776–784.Google Scholar
Garlinghouse, Thomas S. 2009 Preliminary Analysis of Faunal Remains from Mission Period Features at Santa Clara. Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology 22:1–5.Google Scholar
Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane 1991 Bones Are Not Enough: Analogues, Knowledge, and Interpretive Strategies in Zooarchaeology. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 10:215–254.Google Scholar
Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane 1993 Gaps in Zooarchaeological Analyses of Butchery: Is Gender an Issue? In From Bones to Behavior: Ethnoarchaeological Contributions to the Interpretations of Faunal Remains, edited by Hudson, Jean, pp. 181–199. Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Illinois.Google Scholar
Halkett, James 1840 On the Adulteration of Bone-Dust. The Farmer’s Magazine 2(5):344–345.Google Scholar
Hall, Martin 1990 Towards an Archaeology of Slavery in the Cape: The Castle- Cape Town. Manuscript on file, Historical Archaeology Research Group, University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Hall, Martin 1992 Small Things and the Mobile Conflictual Fusion of Power, Fear, and Desire. In The Art and Mystery of Historical Archaeology: Essays in Honor of James Deetz, edited by Yentsch, Anne Elizabeth and Beaudry, Mary C., pp. 373–399. CRC Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Harris, Jessica B. 1998 The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent. Simon and Schuster, New York.Google Scholar
Harris, Jessica B. 2012 High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America. Bloomsbury, New York.Google Scholar
Haynes, Gary 1991 Mammoths, Mastodons, and Elephants: Biology, Behavior, and the Fossil Record. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Heinrich, Adam R. 2010 A Zooarchaeological Investigation into the Meat Industry Established at the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch East India Company in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Heinrich, Adam R. 2011 Faunal Analysis of the Well and Yard Deposits at West Main Street and Vosseller Avenue, South Bound Brook, New Jersey. Report submitted to Hunter Research, Inc., Trenton, New Jersey. Copies available from Historic Preservation Office, Trenton, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Heinrich, Adam R. 2012 Some Comments on the Archaeology of Slave Diets and the Importance of Taphonomy to Historical Faunal Analyses. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 1:9–40.Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian 1979 Economic and Social Stress and Material Culture Patterning. American Antiquity 44:446–454.Google Scholar
Horton, Beth 2004 Faunal Analysis for the Main Barracks, Officer’s Commissary, and Guardhouse. In The Most Advantageous Situation in the Highlands: An Archaeological Study of Fort Montgomery State Historic Site. Cultural Resource Survey Program, Series 2, edited by Fisher, Charles L., pp. 145–153. New York State Museum, Albany, New York.Google Scholar
Landon, David B. 2005 Zooarchaeology and Historical Archaeology: Progress and Prospects. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12:1–36.Google Scholar
Leechman, Douglas 1951 Bone Grease. American Antiquity 16:355–356.Google Scholar
Lupo, Karen D. 1995 Hadza Bone Assemblages and Hyena Attrition: An Ethnographic Example of the Influence of Cooking and Mode of Discard on the Intensity of Scavenger Ravaging. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 14:288–314.Google Scholar
Lyman, R. Lee 1994 Vertebrate Taphonomy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom.Google Scholar
Lynn, Kalan S., and Fairgrieve, Scott I. 2009 Microscopic Indicators of Axe and Hatchet Trauma in Fleshed and Defleshed Mammalian Long Bones. Journal of Forensic Science 54:793–797.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKee, Larry W. 1987 Delineating Ethnicity from the Garbage of Early Virginians: Faunal Remains from the Kingsmill Plantation Slave Quarter. American Archaeology 6:31–39.Google Scholar
Marean, Curtis W., and Spencer, Lillian M. 1991 Impact of Carnivore Ravaging on Zooarchaeological Measures of Element Abundance. American Antiquity 56:645–658.Google Scholar
Munson, Patrick J., and Garniewicz, Rexford C. 2003 Age-Mediated Survivorship of Ungulate Mandibles and Teeth in Canid-Ravaged Faunal Assemblages. Journal of Archaeological Science 30:405–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, T., Voorhies, M. R., and Corner, R. G. 1980 Spiral Fractures and Bone Pseudotools at Paleontological Sites. American Antiquity 45:483–489.Google Scholar
Olsen, Sandra L., and Shipman, Pat 1988 Surface Modification of Bone: Trampling versus Butchery. Journal of Archaeological Science 15:535–553.Google Scholar
Otto, John Solomon 1977 Artifact and Status Differences—A Comparison of Ceramics from Planter, Overseer, and Slave Sites on an Antebellum Plantation. In Research Strategies in Historical Archaeology, edited by South, Stanley, pp. 91–118. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Otto, John Solomon 1984 Cannon’s Point Plantation, 1794–1860; Living Conditions and Status Patterns in the Old South. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Pickering, Travis Rayne, and Egeland, Charles P. 2006 Experimental Patterns of Hammerstone Percussion Damage on Bones: Implications for Inferences of Carcass Processing by Humans. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:459–469.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potts, Richard, and Pat, Shipman 1981 Cutmarks Made by Stone Tools on Bones from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Nature 291:577–580.Google Scholar
Samford, Patricia 1996 The Archaeology of African American Slavery and Material Culture. The William and Mary Quarterly 53:87–114.Google Scholar
Singleton, Theresa A. 1995 The Archaeology of Slavery in North America. Annual Review of Anthropology 24:119–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stokes, P. R. G. 2000 The Butcher, the Cook, and the Archaeologist. In Taphonomy and Interpretation: Symposia of the Association for Environmental Archaeology, edited by Huntly, J. P. and Stallibrass, S., pp. 65–70. Oxbow Books, Oxford.Google Scholar
Thackeray, Francis 1989 Report on Analysis of Mammalian Fauna from Excavations at the Castle (CA88, F1 and F2). Manuscript on file, Historical Archaeology Research Group, University of Cape Town.Google Scholar
Triggs, John R. 2004 The Mississauga at the Head-of-the-Lake: Examining Responses to Cultural Upheaval at the Close of the Fur Trade. Northeast Historical Archaeology 33:153–176.Google Scholar
Tucker, Bree K., Hutchinson, Dale L., Gilliland, M. F. G., Charles, Thomas M., Daniel, Hal J., and Wolfe, Linda D. 2001 Microscopic Characteristics of Hacking Trauma. Journal of Forensic Science 46:234–240.Google Scholar
Vanderhoeven, Alain, and Ervynck, Anton 2007 Not in My Backward: The Industry of Secondary Animal Products within the Roman Civitas Capital of Tongeren, Belgium. In Roman Finds: Context and Theory, edited by Hingley, Richard and Willis, Steven, pp. 156–175. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Vehik, Susan C. 1977 Bone Fragments and Bone Grease Manufacturing: A Review of Their Archaeological Use and Potential. Plains Anthropologist 22:169–182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yellen, John E. 1977 Cultural Patterning in Faunal Remains: Evidence from the !Kung Bushmen. In Experimental Archaeology, edited by Ingersoll, D., Yellen, John E., and MacDonald, W., pp. 271–331. Columbia University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Zierden, Martha A., and Reitz, Elizabeth J. 2009 Animal Use and the Urban Landscape in Colonial Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Journal of International Historical Archaeology 13:327–365.Google Scholar