Ethnoarchaeology of Subsistence Behaviors within a Rural African American Community: Implications for Interpreting Vertebrate Faunal Data from Slave Quarters Areas of Antebellum Plantation Sites

Abstract

Ethnoarchaeological observations of the subsistence activities practiced by an African American community in rural southern Mississippi were used to interpret the subsistence behaviors of African Americans within the slave quarters area at Saragossa Plantation, Natchez, Mississippi. Ethnoarchaeological data collected within the community included observations of modifications to bones (during butchery, secondary processing, cooking, and postdisposal activities) and the spatial distribution of subsistence behaviors and bone refuse that resulted from these activities. These data were compared to the faunal assemblages recovered from two former cabins occupied by enslaved African Americans at Saragossa Plantation, which resulted in the identification of several subsistence behaviors at these locations. The current study indicates that data obtained through ethnoarchaeological research provides archaeologists with a powerful tool that, when combined with other lines of evidence such as historical documents, can be used to reconstruct the subsistence behaviors of enslaved African Americans at antebellum plantation sites across the Southeast.