Ye Pleasant Mount: 1989 1990 Excavations - Open site which ...

Fort Michilimackinac fit well with the Reitz and Honerkamp (1983) British Colonial
subsistence patterns they detected for the Georgia coast.
The subsistence patterns of historic Indians has been examined in a few
zooarcheological studies of primarily Cherokee sites in Tennessee. These studies have had
large faunal samples from the Overhill Cherokee sites of Toqua and Citico in the Little
Tennessee River Valley (Bogan 1980 and 1983). Results from these studies suggest a
reliance primarily on wild species, deer specifically. Cow and pig composed only 3.8 % of
the mammal species at the Toqua site. Bogan (1983) noted that at the Citico site the
Cherokee relied mainly on white-tailed deer and bear supplemented with turkey, turtles
and certain seasonal fish. After the introduction of domesticated animals the diet of the
Cherokee was dominated still by wild species, although pig and chicken were consumed on
a more regular basis. It was not until the Federal Period did domesticated species
substantially increase. The pig was the most dominant domesticated species followed by
chicken.
Gary Goodwin in his analysis of Cherokees ill TrallSitioll (1977) noted that
domesticated animals were adopted so rapidly that by the mid-1700s pigs and horses were
common in the Southern Appalachians. The pig was the most prevalent of the two,
however. This was because the pig was mostly self-sufficient and could be allowed to
forage for itself. Fattening of the pig took less time and land than for horses and cattle.
The adoption of cows, chickens, goats, and sheep came a little later. The increase in
domesticated animals coincided with a decrease in the native animal species population
(Goodwin 1977:J25, 134). European intervention and an overemphasis on hunting (mainly
for. deer skins but also other animal skins) resulted in the "disruption of ecological
processes" (Goodwin 1977:138). This eventually led to a shift toward a more sedentary
and agrarian society (Goodwin 1977:137).
Creek subsistence has not been studied and reported on to any extent. Carolyn
Rock's (1980) examination of the Abercrombie site on the Chattahoochee River in
Alabama is one of the only zooarcheological reports available on a Creek site. The site,
which is a protohistoric mound and village site, produced a large sample of well preserved
bone. Monetary constraints, however, allowed the examination of only a small sample.
There were no domesticates other than Callis {amiliaris, dog. Deer was the primary meat
in the diet. Fish, turtles and birds provided important supplementation to the met portion
of their diet.
Although the sample size at Mt. Pleasant is small, the strong presence of
domesticated mammals and birds suggest that most of the bone recovered from the site
was associated with the British occupation. The good bone preservation and the
apparently intact midden on the site offer excellent potential for studying the subsistence
patterns of a small outlying Colonial garrison and trading posts. The presence of Indian
occupations that predate and possible are contemporary with the British occupation is also
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