Archaeological Investigations at Yourhaney Plantation (38GE18)

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS AT YOURHANEY PLANTATION177ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL ANALYSISAnalysis of faunal remains recovered from the features at Yauhannah Bluff revealed a moderatevariety of species. In the Historic Period features, there was a combination of both domestic andwild animal remains. This may indicate that hunting, fishing, and shell-fishing were used tosupplement the diet of people living at the site. The presence of cranial and postcranial elementsfrom the domestic species suggested that the inhabitants were raising, slaughtering, consuming,and discarding livestock at the site instead of having preserved cuts of these animals brought in.Hunting was apparently focused on the surrounding woodland and, due to the assortment of gameseen, was conducted on an encounter basis.Historic Period fishing activities were carried out in a main river channel and possible backwatersuch as a swamp or similar still water environment such as Yauhannah Lake. The standard lengthsof fish from the site show some standardization of their sizes, which may be a result of net fishingor a similar selective capture technique. Smaller fish may have simply been thrown back.The prehistoric features unfortunately did not provide many faunal remains. Shellfish and somelarge mammal (probably deer) made up the majority of the specimens recovered from thesefeatures.