Canadian Historic Sites: Occasional Papers in Archaeology and History No. 3
Comparison of the Faunal Remains from French and British Refuse Pits at Fort Michilimackinac: A Study in Changing Subsistence Patterns
by Charles E. Cleland
Introduction
By the late 17th century, after nearly half a century
of profitable fur trading activities in the Upper Great Lakes region,
French merchants, traders and missionaries realized that control of the
Straits of Mackinac between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron was the key to
the control of the entire northwestern frontier. To this end they
established small palisaded forts, first on the north side of the
Straits and later, in about 1715, on the south shore near what is now
Mackinaw City, Michigan. The French controlled the latter fort, which
they called Michilimackinac, until 1760, when it was surrendered to
the British. In September of 1761, Fort Michilimackinac was garrisoned
by 40 troops of the 60th Regiment and thus the Straits of Mackinac fell
under British domination. During the next 20 years the original
stockade was enlarged and many French structures were removed to
facilitate the construction of British military installations. The
British finally abandoned the site in 1780, when they moved the fort to
a more strategic position on nearby Mackinac Island. The original site
of Fort Michilimackinac was not reoccupied in succeeding years, and the
remaining foundations were in fact protected from destruction by
accumulations of beach sands.
Excavations at the site of Fort Michilimackinac by
the Museum of Michigan State University in cooperation with the Mackinac
Island Park Commission have produced an abundance of both architectural
and artifactual information (Maxwell and Binford 1961). One of the most
informative classes of features discovered in these excavations was
refuse pits constructed under the storage basements of houses dating
from both the French and British occupations. In 1961 and again in
1962,1 was asked to identify quantities of animal bone which
represented food remains from these refuse pits. Although animal bone was
recovered in great quantity from nearly all areas of the site, this
analysis was restricted to samples of bone from clearly datable
features. The sample from the French occupation was obtained from the
following features:
Feature No. 70, MS2 1220a storage
basement below a French house ca. 1720-34
Feature No. 71,
MS2 1221 a storage basement below a French house ca.
1740
Feature No. 72, MS2 a small bell bottom storage
pit ca. 1740
Feature No. 75, MS2 1229 a French
storage pit ca. 1740
Bone representing the British occupation was obtained
from five refuse pits below British period houses of the following
provenance:
Feature No. 206, MS2 1822-27, square
220L30
Feature No. 212, MS2 1907-08, square
230L110
Feature No. 213, MS2 206, square 240L130
Feature No. 215, MS2 1959, square 230L150
Feature No. 216, MS2 1944-46, square 240L110
A comprehensive study of the food remains from the
Juntunen site on Bois Blanc Island in the Straits of Mackinac by Cleland
(1966) provides material for a comparison between the aboriginal
subsistence patterns of the Straits area and those of the French and
British occupations at Michilimackinac. This site was intermittently
occupied between A.D. 800 and A.D. 1300.
This situation presents an ideal opportunity for a
study of the changes in subsistence patterns which took place in the
Straits of Mackinac area from about A.D. 1300 to A.D. 1780. Such a
study, however, requires some assumptions concerning the two basic
variables which determine the configuration of any subsistence system
the natural availability of food sources in the area under
consideration and the cultural factors which govern the utilization of
potential food resources.
Although Baerreis and Bryson (1965) have demonstrated
minor climatic change for the period encompassed by this study, climatic
changes of such small magnitude did not produce substantial changes in
the fauna of the Straits of Mackinac area (Cleland 1966). Although the
same kinds of animals are represented in different proportions in the
food refuse of each of the occupations, the fact that they are
represented or are indirectly represented by other species
commonly associated with them in a single faunal
assemblage, points to a rather high degree of ecological stability.
If, then, we are dealing with a relatively stable
natural environment, difference in the kinds and frequencies of animals
used as food sources must be attributable to differential selection.
Differential selection, of course, influences the local availability of
species which are being systematically exploited. Whatever the case, we
are here observing a cultural phenomenon and not a natural one.
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