Animal Consumption at Hospital de San Martín (Gran Canaria): First Zooarchaeological Analysis in the Modern Era of the Canary Islands (Fifteenth-Eighteenth Centuries CE)

The Canary Islands were initially colonized around 200 CE by North African Berber populations who brought with them domestic plants and animals. These communities remained isolated until the arrival of Europeans in the Late Middle Ages which triggered the conquest of the archipelago. Its geostrategi...

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Published inInternational journal of historical archaeology Vol. 27; no. 4; pp. 1210 - 1242
Main Authors Brito-Mayor, Aitor, Santana, Jonathan, Moreno-García, Marta, Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Amelia
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York Springer US 01.12.2023
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
18th century
Archaeology
Archipelagoes
Chickens
Diet
Islands
Social Sciences
Canary Islands
Spain
Hospital
Diet
Animal translocation
Historical zooarchaeology
Atlantic expansion
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Summary:The Canary Islands were initially colonized around 200 CE by North African Berber populations who brought with them domestic plants and animals. These communities remained isolated until the arrival of Europeans in the Late Middle Ages which triggered the conquest of the archipelago. Its geostrategic location in the framework of Atlantic expansion facilitated the arrival of people, knowledge, goods, plants, and animals which served to shape the new Canarian society. This study explores the dietary practices of this period through the zooarchaeological analysis of the faunal remains recovered at the Hospital de San Martín (fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries), Las Palmas (Gran Canaria, Spain). Our results suggest that caprines were the main taxa consumed. This follows both the pre-colonial Indigenous tradition and, according to historical sources, the subsequent European period. The faunal assemblage recovered also reveals the first directly radiocarbon-dated cases in the Canary Islands of three hitherto unknown species: cattle, chicken, and rabbit. Moreover, the results evidence a progressive increase throughout the Modern Era of chicken and rabbit, and that translocating these new species to the archipelago during the European expansion led to a diversification of meat resources.
ISSN:1092-7697
1573-7748
DOI:10.1007/s10761-023-00708-4