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Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage, Volume 1, Number 1,
Spring 2012, pp. 9–40. Copyright ©2012 Left Coast Press, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Some Comments on the Archaeology
of Slave Diets and the Importance
of Taphonomy to Historical Faunal
Analyses
Adam R. Heinrich
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 inves-
tigations. At these sites, patterns identified in the faunal remains were
attributed to human behavior, but instead the patterns are more plausi-
bly the result of methodological issues and destructive taphonomic pro-
cesses 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 tapho-
nomic and actualistic research into historical period zooarchaeology.