More Than Just Food: What 25 Years of Faunal Analysis Has Revealed about Jamestown, Virginia

Dating from 1607 to the 1620s, over 200,000 animal bones have been analyzed from Jamestown representing the initial years of settlement; the Starving Time; the post Starving Time; and the time of the Great Charter. Faunal data from these periods have shown how leadership changes, establishment of laws, sickness and disease, environmental adaptations, shifting trade relations with the Virginia Indians, and the colonists’ dependence on the Virginia Colony all influenced the faunal record and how the colonists eventually took ownership of their own land, provision system, and livestock herds.