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 1220—a 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.