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

Bone from French and British Refuse Pits

The number of both identified and unidentifiable mammal, bird and fish bones from the French and British features at Fort Michilimackinac is shown in Table 1. In all instances, bone preservation was excellent so that fragile fish bone was as well preserved as dense mammal bone. The fragmented condition of much of the bone accounts for that part of the sample which could not be identified beyond class. Tables 2 and 3 are lists of the identified species represented in the pits of the French and British period structures respectively. The French sample contained 317 identified bones representing 8 species of mammals, 23 species of birds and 5 species of fish. The slightly larger British sample of 363 identified bones represented less diversity with 8 species of mammals, 16 species of birds and 4 species of fish.

Table 1: Identified and Unidentifiable Bone From French and British Storage Pits at Fort Michilimackinac

Table 2: Species Identified From French Period Features

Table 3: Species Identified from British Period Features

All but one of the species identified from the bones in Fort Michilimackinac refuse pits have been reported from the Straits of Mackinac area within quite recent times. Only the redhead duck (Aythya americana) no longer occurs in the Upper Great Lakes region. This species does, however, occasionally breed as far south as southeastern Michigan and Wisconsin (Peterson 1958). The great frequency with which the bones of this duck appear in the refuse pits at Fort Michilimackinac seems to indicate that it formerly had a much wider range. The retraction in the range of the redhead is no doubt due primarily to modern hunting pressure.

The occurrence of one fish, the burbot (Lota lota), seems worthy of comment since its presence indicates something of a fishing technique employed by the French. In the Upper Great Lakes the burbot occurs only in deep cold water (Hubbs and Lagler 1958). Since the aboriginal fishery of the Straits was basically a shallow water harpoon and net fishery (Cleland 1966), the burbot was probably caught by the French fishing in deep water with iron hooks like those from Fort Michilimackinac.

Feature No. 212, a refuse pit in a British basement, contained a cowrie shell (Cypraea moneta), a marine mollusc native to the Indian and Pacific oceans. The "money cowrie," as this species is commonly called, was a widely used trade item and has been frequently reported from many areas of the world where it does not occur as a native species (Jackson 1917). A good example was the use of this cowrie by the Ojibwa as part of the ritual paraphernalia of the Grand Medicine Society. Ojibwa tradition relates that these shells were given to the Ojibwa by their folk hero Mi'nabo'zho (Hoffman 1891). A less colourful but more plausible origin is the Hudson's Bay Company, which used great quantities of these shells in trade for fur. The Fort Michilimackinac specimen is presumably a discarded trade item.

Three quite different methods can be used to demonstrate quantitative differences between the French and British bone samples. These are frequency of species represented by bone count, frequency of individual animals representing each species and the amount of meat provided by each species.

Figure 1 is a graphic illustration of the most common method used in analysing faunal remains from archaeological sites, the frequency of bones representing particular classes of animals. This figure indicates that the French killed fewer mammals and birds than the British, but that they caught more fish. Sheer numbers of bones, therefore, seem to indicate that fish were a much more important source of food during the French period than during the British period and that conversely, mammals became more important in the latter period than they were when the French occupied the site.

1 Comparison of Percentages of Total Numbers of Bones

One may also compare the variety of species exploited by the occupants of Michilimackinac during these periods. Referring again to Tables 2 and 3, we see that although the French sample was smaller than the British in terms of numbers of bones, the French sample was larger in the number of individuals as well as the variety of species represented. Thus, the French were exploiting a wider variety of animal resources.

Figure 2 is an illustration of the percentages of the kinds of species representing each class of food species. This figure indicates that both the French and British seem to have been exploiting a wide variety of birds. The French, however, were killing proportionately more kinds of mammals, while the British were catching a greater variety of fish.

2 Comparison of Percentages of Numbers of Species Represented by Bone Refuse

A third and more meaningful method of comparing the food remains of these occupations is in terms of the amount of meat which would be provided by the animals represented by the bone refuse. This method has the advantage of balancing out the bias which arises as the result of different bone frequencies and body weights of animals used for food. White (1953) developed a technique for making such calculations. His method consists of the multiplication of the pounds of usable meat obtainable from an average sized individual of a particular species by the minimum number of individuals of that species which are represented in the bone refuse. The use of White's technique, with some minor modification, resulted in the construction of Figure 3 (see also Appendices A, B, and C). Here we see that meat derived from mammals comprised the substantial part of meat consumed by both French and British. Birds and fish, on the other hand, actually contributed very little meat to the diet of either group. This point is, of course, extremely important and it would have been overlooked had only a simple bone count and/or a species list been used as the method of analysis. Aside from the information which would have been lost by using bone counts alone, it is very possible that the use of this method would have generated erroneous conclusions concerning the relative importance of animal species represented at Fort Michilimackinac. By using bone count alone, one would be forced to conclude that fish were an important source of food during the French occupation when in fact fish contributed less than ten per cent of all animal food. Similarly, if we used species counts alone, it would have been reasonable to conclude that birds were a primary factor in the subsistence systems of Fort Michilimackinac; in fact, fowl contributed less than four per cent of the meat acquired by the French and two per cent of the meat obtained by the British.

3 Comparison of Percentages of Pounds of Meat Estimated from Bone Refuse

This criticism is not meant to imply that counting the number of species of birds represented in an archaeological site is not a useful piece of information. Such a figure may be indicative of rather important subsistence practices. Even though calculations based on pounds of meat may be the most meaningful for discussion of the over-all subsistence system, such figures are subject to misinterpretation. We must always remember that these calculations give no weight to other non-animal foods in the total diet. Presumably plant foods constituted the dietary staple in most Late Woodland and historic sites.

Before discussing the cultural variables which must have been largely responsible for the differences in the kinds of species utilized by the occupants of Fort Michilimackinac, it is necessary to present a more detailed accounting of the importance of various food species within the broad classes thus far discussed. Table 4 shows the proportion of meat derived from animals of various game categories. We have already observed that mammals provided 86.9 and 92.8 per cent of the meat from French and British occupations, respectively. Within this important food class, Table 4 shows that the amount of small game used by the French was of about the same proportion as the amount used by the British. Moreover, it is apparent that the French utilized much more big game than the British, who in turn used substantially more domestic animal foods than the French. Although fowl was never an important food source, it is interesting to note that the quantities of meat produced from various categories of wild fowl were consistently greater during the French period. The same statement may be made about the use of fish.

Table 4: Per Cent of Pounds of Meat Provided by Various Classes of Animals