Deerskins and Domesticates

Creek Subsistence and Economic Strategies in the Historic Period

Bibliographic Data

ID2591600
AuthorsBarnet Pavao-Zuckerman (0000-0003-2884-5569, Arizona State Museum, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume72
Issue1
Pages5-33
Publication date2007-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Antiquity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7316 • E-ISSN: 2325-5064
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/40035296
OpenAlexW1993903269
LanguageEN
Citations received25
References cited21

Previous research indicates that, following European colonization, animal husbandry did not replace hunting as the primary source of meat in the diet of southeastern Native Americans until the early nineteenth century. However, while the introduction of Eurasian domesticated animals had little immediate impact on the lives of indigenous peoples in the Southeast, the expansion of the European market economy had profound implications for the economic and subsistence strategies of Native Americans in all regions. In response to European demands for deerskins, furs, and other goods, Native Americans of the Southeast and elsewhere intensified exploitation of indigenous resources. The Creeks became one of the largest producers of deerskins for the European commodities trade in the Southeast. Ethnohistoric and zooarchaeological evidence indicates that the intensification of localized resource exploitation had a suppressive effect on the adoption of animal husbandry by the Creeks. It was only after the collapse of the deerskin trade in the Southeast that animal husbandry replaced hunting as the primary source of meat in the subsistence strategy of the Creeks

Agriculture · Animal husbandry · Archaeology · Biology · Domestication · Economics · Economy · Ethnology · Geography · Indigenous · Period (music) · Resource (disambiguation) · Subsistence agriculture · Subsistence economy · Zooarchaeology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Natural History · Ecology · History · Indigenous Studies and Ecology