Animal bones from the Cross Street Back Lot privy

Abstract

The faunal assemblages from the Central Artery project offer a wonderful opportunity to investigate diet, economic choice, and husbandry in early New England. But finely stratified deposits, such as the Cross Street Back Lot privy, also allow detailed comparisons that provide evidence of variability that can be glossed over when discussing regional subsistence patterns. Some of this variability, and how it can be seen or not seen, is studied using the traditional tools of modern zooarchaeology, and integrated, using the careful controls provided by the stratification, with artifactual and environmental evidence.