Some Comments on the Archaeology of Slave Diets and the Importance of Taphonomy to Historical Faunal Analyses

Abstract

The archaeology of enslaved peoples carries great value as the material culture often represents the only documentation of their lives. Slave diet has been a major focus within the archaeology of enslaved Africans in North America, but a number of influential faunal analyses such as those from Cannon's Point, Georgia, and Monticello, Virginia, are problematic due to the limited use of taphonomic investigations. At these sites, patterns identified in the faunal remains were attributed to human behavior, but instead the patterns are more plausibly the result of methodological issues and destructive taphonomic processes acting on the bones post-depositionally. The importance of applying taphonomic research to historic faunal analyses is illustrated through a reanalysis of the fauna from the South African Castle of Good Hope's Granary which was originally attributed to slaves. In the end, this review of previous slave diet studies and reanalysis of the Granary faunal remains seeks to emphasize further integration of taphonomic and actualistic research into historical period zooarchaeology.