John,

Below is my abridged reference list for archaeology of
turtles in north america. I have many more references
if you would like to discuss further.

My research suggests that burning patterns and
butchery marks are not very useful when it comes to
the remains of medium or small turtles. The meat was
usually completely separated from the limbs by
boiling, burning is usually associated with
post-consumption disposal. Butchery consists of
removal of head (rarely remains intact in a site),
carpals/tarsals (rarely recovered due to small size),
scraping carapace/plastron to remove meat (which did
not leave many marks). The Carson reference below has
a very detailed description of dressing a turtle.

I will be presenting a paper at next weeks SAA's on
Turtle Ecology and Feature Taphonomy in the Chesapeake
Region (Friday's Taphonomy session). The paper and
reference list (nicely formatted) will be available
on-line afterwards at www.taphonomy.com.

-April
-------------
April M. Beisaw, RPA
Zooarchaeology and Taphonomy Consulting
http://www.taphonomy.com
[log in to unmask]
----------------

Turtles in North America

Adler, Kraig
1968 Turtles from Archeological Sites in the Great
Lakes Region. The Michigan Archaeologist.
14(3-4)147-164.

1970    The Influence of Prehistoric Man on the
Distribution of the Box Turtle. Annals of the Carnegie
Museum. 41(9):263-280.

Barber, Michael
1976 The Vertebrate Fauna from a Late Eighteenth
Century Well: The Bray Plantation, Kingsmill,
Virginia. Historical Archaeology 10:68-72.

Bedell, John
1999    Historic Context: The Archaeology of Farms and
Rural Dwelling Sites in New Castle and Kent Counties,
Delaware, 1730-1770 and 1770-1830. Draft Report
Submitted to The Delaware Department of
Transportation, Dover, Delaware.

Bedell, John, Ingrid Wuebberm Meta Janowitz,
Marie-Lorraine Pipes,  and Charles LeeDecker
1998a   The Ordinary and the Poor in Eighteenth-Century
Delaware: Excavations at Augustine Creek North and
South Sites (7NC-G-144 and 7NC-G-145). Report prepared
for the Delaware Department of Trnasportation.

1998b   Farm Life on he Appoquinimink: Excavation of the
McKean/Cochran Farm Site (7NC-F-13) New Castle County,
Delaware. Volume I.. Report prepared for the Delaware
Department of Trnasportation.

Bedell, John, Ingrid Wuebberm Meta Janowitz,
Marie-Lorraine Pipes, Gerard Scharfenberger, Richard
Affleck, and Charles LeeDecker
1999    An Ordinary Family in Eighteenth-Century
Delaware: Excavations at the Thomas Dawson Site.
Report prepared for the Delaware Department of
Trnasportation.

Bunyard, Edward and Lorna
1937    The Epicure's Companion. J.M. Dent and Sons LTD,
London.

Carson, J.
1968 Colonial Virginia Cookery. Colonial Williamsburg,
Inc. Virginia.

Catts, Wade P., Jay F. Custer, JoAnn E. Jamison,
Michael D. Scholl, and Karen Iplenski
1995 Final Archaeological Investigations at the
William Strickland Plantation site
(7K-A-117), A Mid-Eighteenth Century Farmstead, State
Route 1 Corridor, Kent County, Delaware. Report
prepared for the Delaware Department of
Trnasportation.

Claussen, Dennis L., Paul M. Daniel, Suping Jiang, and
Nadine A. Adams
1991 Hibernation in the Eastern Box Turtle, Terrapene
c. carolina. Journal of Herpetology 25(2):334-341.


Cummings, R. O.
1940 The American and His Food: A History of Food
Habits in the U.S. University of Chicago, Illinois.


Kraft, Herbert C.
1989    A Turtle Head Pendant from Mariner's Harbor, New
York. Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of New
Jersey. 44:70


Miller, Henry
1988 An Archaeological Perspective on the Evolution of
Diet in the Colonial Chesapeake, 1620-1745. In:
Colonial Chesapeake Society. Edited by Lois Green
Carr, Philip D. Morgan, and Jean B. Russo. The
University of North Carolina Press, U.S.

Price, Cynthia R.
1985    Patterns of Cultural Behavior and Intra-site
Distributions of Faunal Remains at the Widow Harris
Site. Historical Archaeology 19(2):40-56.

Reitz, Elizabeth
1986 Urban/Rural Contrasts in Vertebrate Fauna from
the Southern Atlantic Coastal Plain. Historical
Archaeology 20(2):47-58.

Reitz, Elizabeth and Nicholas Honerkamp
1983 British Colonial Subsistence Strategy on the
Southeastern Coastal Plain. Historical Archaeology
17(2):4-25.

Reitz, Elizabeth J. and C. Margaret Scarry
1985    Reconstructing Historic Subsistence with an
Example from Sixteenth Century Spanish Florida.
Historical Archaeology Special Publication Series,
Number 3.

Rhodin, Anders G. J.
1992    Chelonian Zooarchaeology of Eastern New England:
Turtle Bone Remains from Cedar's Swamp and other
Prehistoric Sites. Bulletin of the Massachusetts
Archaeological Society. 53(1):21-30.
1995 Archaeological Turtle Bone Remains from Concord
Shell Heap. Bulletin of the Massachusetts
Archaeological Society. 56(2):71-82.

Rockman, Diana Diz. and Nan A. Rothschild
1984    City Tavern, Country Tavern: An analysis of Four
Colonial Sites. Historical Archaeology 10(2):112-121.

Rothschild, Nan and Darlene Balkwill
1993 The Meaning of Change in Urban Faunal Deposits.
Historical Archaeology 27(2):71-89.

Spiess, Arthur E. and Kristin D. Sobolik
1997    Blanding's Turtle Specimens from the Turner Farm
Archaeological Site, North Haven, Maine.
Herpetological Review 28(1):24-25.





--- "John D. Speth" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I would be grateful for any
> references--archaeological,
> ethnoarchaeological, and ethnographic--describing
> either of the following
> aspects:
>
>         1. Methods of cooking tortoises and turtles
>
>         2. Burning patterns observed on cooked
> tortoise/turtle bones
>
> Thanks very much.
>
> John D. Speth                                   Home
>    (734) 662-9505
> Museum of Anthropology
> Office: (734) 764-1240
> 4009 Museums Building
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> University of Michigan                          Fax:
>    (734) 763-7783
> Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1079 USA


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