00:00.00 ALEX And we are back with archeo animals. We are talking about the zoo archeology of the Americas so North and South America and we are now at again I always say it no one cares I'll keep saying it because I don't know. Maybe maybe it's like I'm gonna. Wish it into existence that people love this part of the episode but I guess it's it's a good part of the episode I don't know it's the case studies. We might be rejecting but it's it is fun I mean. 00:26.22 S_ Granarius Okay, on that. But maybe it's our favorite part and we're just projecting that everyone else does. 00:35.18 ALEX Feel like the case studies are good. They're very important. It helps people understand inaction what we're talking about hopefully so we're going to start with the zoo archeology of Jamestown which is located in the United States so Jamestown was the first. Permanent english settlement in North America it was established in sixteen seven briefly abandoned in 1610 and then permanently settled by the english colonizers afterwards. So Jamestown is located in what is now the state of Virginia which is located. On Seneco Maco lands now James Owe is actually a kind of a um I don't know what I'm trying to think of what the equivalent would be in England because I assume they must have like like reenactment type places. 01:30.98 S_ Granarius More like specific places where people do reactment. 01:31.60 ALEX Kind of yeah like so James sounds a very obviously It's a very big touristy place I've definitely gone there at least twice in grade school because I lived in New York which isn't that far from Virginia. You know it was couple hour drive but they have it. It is kind of interesting. Obviously they've they've got kind of recreations a lot of the buildings you can go there. The people who work there are often in character recreating you know life in Jamestown. 02:06.77 S_ Granarius I Guess you have sort of ah up North is it like a beads world and the beamish just sort of but much later um, were not not beads world Obviously um. 02:13.69 ALEX No, it's ah. Yeah, because I was trying to think of you know, do we really have any because obviously we have a lot of reinterpretation sites and places that are made to kind of look like what they like you know, obviously we talked a lot about like Butzer Farm and places like that I was trying to think of. There's places where they actually have people like in character as ye old timey thing and then I was thinking is that a very american thing or what. 02:49.66 S_ Granarius Yeah, because I'm not sure if they do that but I can thinking like the the 1 thing yes, the beam image is some open air museum in the northeast of england so so that tells sort of the story of daily life in Northeast england so in the nineteenth like slash twentieth century. 03:05.99 ALEX Okay, yeah, so when you go to Jamestown you like I said there's lots of people. They're all dressed up. They're doing like farming. There's obviously someone doing blacksmithry things like that. It's very very common I feel like around. 03:09.90 S_ Granarius But. 03:24.55 ALEX A lot of the northeast states because obviously that's where a lot of the the original colonies were so places like that and Williamsburg yeah, very it's a very american thing and apparently the only thing that I could remember from ever going to Jamestown was. Buying sticks of honey and eating them so really made an impression on an early archeologist anyway, what we really want to talk about though is the zoo archeology of Jamestown and it's it's actually really interesting. So. You know and there are previous episodes that we've done for this miniseries. We've talked a lot about sites that you know either they were either kind of sites that were massive settlement places where you had ah loads of different kind of. Explorations as to what the diet was where they were getting it trade and stuff like that and then I guess the other kind of examples that we've been looking at have been trade ports because obviously it's really interesting to see the zoo archeology of places where things were coming and going you know and being traded and. Jamestown is kind of interesting because obviously it is a colony so you already have that kind of component to it. But it's the first permanent one. So it's a very new colony and it's ah settlers who are trying to survive in a very new colonized territory. So it was unsurprisingly rough to say the least and it's through the kind of zoo archeological analysis that we've been able to better understand what is known as the starving times which unsurprisingly refers to. Period of starvation during the winter of sixteen nine to about sixteen ten and it was so rough that basically the population of the colony reduced from 500 people to about 61 so yeah when they're not really kidding when they say starving times. 05:23.82 S_ Granarius The ish. 05:30.41 ALEX And so there's been a lot of zo archaeological analysis looking at kind of deposits dating to the period before the starving times and then deposits that are associated with the starving times and it's so clear the difference. So from pre-starving times to like sixteen seven to 168 you start to see mostly you know, butchered deer fish birdbones I mean a lot of this is pre them bringing over a lot of the kind of animals that would eventually be you know more domesticated. On these settlements. So a lot of them are you know, really focused on deer fish and bird that are more native. But then as you go to the starving times during 6 you know 9 to sixteen ten the composition of this. The archeological record becomes completely different. It's squirrel rat snake dog and horse and you know obviously if you saw that you'd be like oh maybe that's wall deposits but they were all butchered so clearly they were just eating anything. They could get. 06:39.78 S_ Granarius And also especially things like horse. You'd leave that as a last resort because they they are quite valuable. 06:45.36 ALEX For sure. Yeah I mean I think Horse is probably the the real smoking gun there because you know that is extremely last case and again you know we are the population reduced so drastically. So. It was real dark dire times, but it is interesting because I think we have talked previously as well about you know how? Zo Archaeologically you can see these kind of shifts in species and how you can interpret. Things like famine from them I mean I think in our previous episode. We kind of talked about how you can see the difference between early settlement when they would eat I think it was mostly like cattle and things like that. But as they ran out of space. They had to turn to oh it was the opposite. They originally ate something like sheep and then as they ran out of space. They turned to imported Cattle. So. It's really interesting I Think like. 07:45.10 S_ Granarius Yeah, and I guess was like dog is a like fairly like usually a red flag as well because also dogs do tend to be quite useful and used for a variety of Jobs. So And so yeah, um. Is there any evidence of what may have brought that on because you know they've been there sort of previously was he a particularly harsh winter that do do we know. 08:10.90 ALEX Yeah, it was just it was a harsh winter and obviously and I think this is a very recurring theme in a lot of the early settlements in North America by by colonizers is that they just weren't prepared. Um, there was obviously before Jamestown there was. Rowano colony which is very infamous because it basically vanished no one really knows what happened to the colonists there. There was ah obviously a complete failure jamestown I think came afterwards, but you know you have there's a lot of other stories and you know obviously even like Plymouth is very similar. That they just the winters were harsh. They weren't really ready for that and they just because they would also like have to wait ages for rest of their supplies to come through. You basically a lot of these colonies just completely like struggled in that first year or so. Especially during the winter but hey. 09:08.69 S_ Granarius And now we'll be. We'll be moving to South America First second case study. Um, they'll be looking at the zoo archeology of Machu Picchu in Peru. Um, so. 09:14.23 ALEX Yes, sir. 09:24.57 S_ Granarius Lapihu is the site of a fifteenth century Incan Citadel just located in Southern Peru um it has been recently proposed that the site was originally made to be an estate for the inc and emperor. Um Pachaoti and was likely inhabited between 1420 1532 um now they've carried out some isottopic analysis sort of on the remains found at Machu Picchu and now asopic analysis something that archaeologists do um that informs I guess on the diet of so like ah past populations but also. 09:57.30 ALEX Um, in um. 10:03.41 S_ Granarius Through that you're able to pinpoint sort of the origin or like whether there's any evidence of migration that um normally I believe it's teeth that you look at because um, our bones sort of remodel sort of roughly sort of every 10 years so normally when you look at the bones. 10:18.16 ALEX Ah. 10:22.13 S_ Granarius Anything they extract from the bones will tend to reflect anything from the last ten years of your life while the teeth will provide inference on you know the time when they actually formed so generally that'll be childhood. 10:32.59 ALEX Yeah, So especially when you're doing human bones. Technically you could use as long as you have usable collagen So I have done ice topic analysis on arguably the worst thing you could do it on which is fish bones. It was. Let me tell you it was a massive struggle as you can imagine to get collagen out of fish vertebra. But by God I did it. It kind of explains my hatred towards fish I think. 11:00.93 S_ Granarius Assistance. Um. 11:06.76 ALEX But yeah, so basically for humans you would definitely want to use teeth isotope analysis is actually extremely powerful in terms of archaeological sciences. You can as Simona said you can look at diet diet is like the big one. But also you can look at migration and things like that. And it. It is extremely useful and obviously it's become even more important as genetic studies and ancient Dna have become more usable and more popular because obviously it helps kind of supplement that information. But yeah, so sorry. 11:40.20 S_ Granarius So think all so go say for diet mainly I Guess what you'll be looking at is the Nitrogen values if correctly, so like course of course the Nitrogen I guess the more ah meat-based. 11:49.19 ALEX Yeah. 11:57.40 S_ Granarius Your diet is the higher sort of your nitrogen levels will be with actually if you have a marine diet that will have the highest amount of Nitrogen of all correct me if I'm wrong. Yes. 12:05.12 ALEX No. Yes, so you basically have nitrogen and and you have carbon so you're kind of looking at the way those are balanced and as you say if you have a very very high nitrogen values then you definitely have what is more of a marine. Diet. So like when I was looking at fish which sounds again ridiculous to be like why would you look at fish you you know what? they're eating. It was to compare the the nitrogen values of fish with the human remains that we had from the site that we were working on to look at whether or not they were using eating ah a marine diet. Obviously that can be extremely valuable and again that helps with the way we understand migration because obviously if you have remains of a person that's pretty landlocked but you can see at some point they had a diet high in marine resources. You might be able to figure out hey maybe they moved. And that was actually the case in Matra Picchu 13:03.40 S_ Granarius Yeah, and oh I guess you'll probably be the case for myself when they'll eventually study me in a few hundred years time um as I come from ah a place that has a very high like a very marine ah rich diet and then I moved somewhere that's landlocked there. You go. So things say this. So and that is very much um the case for Machu Picchu as well because the isotopic analysis has um, um, shown that actually a lot of the habitants were migrants from elsewhere in Peru likely from coastal regions. 13:37.10 ALEX Ah. 13:38.22 S_ Granarius Ah, the the so the Isotopic analysis shown that um, many had diets that were previously very high in marine resources. So. 13:48.82 ALEX Yeah, and then as they move to Machu Picchu you can see where actually grains and and food like corn were likely a much more prominent source of subsistence and I believe that corn is very high in carbon. I vaguely remember this for my master's degree but there you can actually kind of map out certain types of food and where they would kind of score isotopically and that obviously helps in kind of figuring out diet that way which is very like. 14:20.12 S_ Granarius Yeah I think there's the whole map. So like you have a map of various sort of world regions and each sort of region have and their own sort of values that you can sort of Confront it against? Um, oh yeah, so they're very previously a very high marine diet. 14:26.72 ALEX Yeah, it's really cool. 14:38.90 S_ Granarius Which of course you know shifted then in match Picchu and unsurprisingly ah a lot of the former remains found at the site were actually Alpaca and Lamas. So. 14:47.68 ALEX Yeah, which you know as we we already talked about but again I figured it's a great time to talk about ritual baby. 14:57.66 S_ Granarius Yes, sir as a zoochiological analysis has also um, been used to examine so ritualistic feast deposits from Machu picchu which may have been used as part of an ancestor feast right? um or used as part of ancestor worship. 15:07.40 ALEX 2 15:16.11 S_ Granarius Ah, may have included the offerings of both food and sacrifices. So like aside from your Lammas and alpacas ah some of the fauna remains included dog um cameids um cameids cameids which are the 2 How is a camelis or Camelid. 15:33.18 ALEX I Always say camaades. But I my be caelids I don't know. Yeah. 15:38.90 S_ Granarius Camelet Dear and guinea pigs but please please serve her put. Yeah. 15:40.56 ALEX Yes, no yeah, which are for people who don't know Guinea pigs were often eaten in these areas. So yeah, maybe don't tell your kids but it's very very common and yeah, so. 15:50.23 S_ Granarius Yeah, as we'll say that don't don't don't tell your kids very um. 16:00.40 ALEX The dogs were often found on butchered and thus they were probably the sacrifices and then it's probably implied that the offered feast would include llamas and alpacas and all other cameids and deer and the gidy pids and like I said they're all kind of noted to be part of the subsistence area of. Ah, subsistence of the area and it's also just interesting to think of andean ancestor worship which I didn't know was actually kind of a cultural part of that region as again because we were talking about. You know how we have these similarities and cultures around the world. Ah. Chinese culture and still part of chinese culture is obviously ancestor worship and kind of ancestor feasting. We're very big on any time. There's an ancestral kind of holiday like tomb sweepeping day you got to go to ah your ancestor's grave or tomb. And Nia you lay out a nice meal I've never really done. It. But I've kind of started doing it now because it feels right? but interesting to to do that. 17:03.97 S_ Granarius Yeah, think similarly, um we only have a day of the dead November second but then like we we don't particularly celebrate per save but is very much that you'll go to the cemetery. So see your ancestors pay your respects. Um. 17:10.19 ALEX Ah, yeah, of course. 17:22.80 S_ Granarius But I think there might be traditional foods in there. But I ah can't. 17:24.88 ALEX Yeah I mean I We don't We don't sacrifice though. Oh different do sacrifice Good food sometimes but you do it for the ancestors. What can I say but yeah and I think. 17:28.24 S_ Granarius No, no, no, no, no, no that. 17:43.18 ALEX Brings us to the end of the zoo archeology of the Americas which has been a very confusing journey as to maybe we should all get better naming conventions huh folks just putting it out there. But as always you know. You should tell your friends about the podcast. You should subscribe to our podcast. Although I've only just realized that it's follow now on like Itunes so follow and or subscribe to our podcasts leave us a review we are on Twitter at Archeoadimals. You can follow us and let us know what do you want us to talk about. We love taking listener requests. Obviously we're doing this miniseries but hey after that who knows what we're doing. Actually we do know we're doing because we're very well organized but you don't know so that's a surprise. 18:35.23 S_ Granarius The and we can always take the time for a listener's request. 18:39.90 ALEX Anything else. Yes, we can and hey maybe if you go to the archeology podcast network and you become a member there you might find some bonus apps or bonus material from us or all the other podcasts that are available on the network. So as always I guess. I'm been Alex Fitzpatrick and yeah, we'll see you next time folks bye. 18:59.96 S_ Granarius And sim one of Falanka wo by.