Animal Consumption at Hospital de San Martín (Gran Canaria)

First Zooarchaeological Analysis in the Modern Era of the Canary Islands (Fifteenth-Eighteenth Centuries CE)

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12460484
AutoresAitor Brito-Mayor (0000-0002-2453-7780, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, autor de correspondencia), J Santana (0000-0002-9615-8560, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), Marta Moreno-García (0000-0002-6735-9355), Amelia C Rodríguez-Rodríguez (0000-0001-7112-2441, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria)
Año2023
Volumen27
Número4
Páginas1210-1242
Fecha de publicación2023-09-11
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Journal of Historical Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1092-7697 • E-ISSN: 1573-7748
EditorialSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s10761-023-00708-4
OpenAlexW4386605543
IdiomaCA
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas66

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

Ancient history · Archaeology · Archipelago · Art · Biology · CONQUEST · Ethnology · Fifteenth · Geography · Indigenous · Middle Ages · Period (music · Radiocarbon dating · Zooarchaeology · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Historical Studies · History · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Ecology