Finny Merchandise

During California’s Gold Rush of 1849-1855, thousands of miners rushed to San Francisco, Sacramento, and elsewhere throughout northern California, creating a significant demand for food. In this work, we investigate the role of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and Pacific cod (G. macrocephalus) during the Gold Rush era using historical records, ancient DNA, and vertebral morphology in the cod assemblage recovered from Thompson’s Cove (CA-SFR-186H), a Gold Rush-era site in San Francisco. From the 18 cod bones recovered from Thompson’s Cove, our analysis of five specimens for ancient DNA indicates that Atlantic cod were imported during the 1850s, likely as a (largely) deboned, dried and salted product from the East Coast of the United States. Curiously, while locally available in very deep waters off the California coast, Pacific cod were minimally fished during the 1850s and became abundantly available in the 1860s after an Alaska-based fishery developed

Archaeology · Atlantic cod · Biology · Cove · Fish · Fish <Actinopterygii> · Fishery · Gadidae · Gadus · Geography · Gold rush · Historical record · American Environmental and Regional History · American History and Culture · Geology · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · History · Oceanography

• What ancient DNA reveals about the ubiquitous rockfish of the Pacific Coast of North America

  Open Access•M L Mo, Brittany Bingham et al.•Archaeological and Anthropological…•2022

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• Ancient DNA Identification of Giant Snakehead (Channa micropeltes) Remains from the Market Street Chinatown and Some Implications for the Nineteenth-Century Pacific World Fish Trade

  Open Access•J Ryan Kennedy, Brittany Bingham et al.•American Antiquity•2022

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• Evaluation of methods that subdue the effects of polymerase chain reaction inhibitors in the study of ancient and degraded DNA

  Open Access•Brian M Kemp, Cara Monroe et al.•Journal of Archaeological Science•2014

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• Quantitative Paleozoology

  Open Access•R L Lyman•Quantitative Paleozoology•2008

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• Resource Intensification and Resource Depression in the Pacific Northwest of North America

  Open Access•Virginia L Butler, Sarah K Campbell•Journal of World Prehistory•2004

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• Meta-analysis in zooarchaeology expands perspectives on Indigenous fisheries of the Northwest Coast of North America

  Open Access•Iain Mckechnie, M L Mo•Journal of Archaeological Science…•2016

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• Fishing Booths and Fishing Strategies in Medieval Iceland

  Colin Amundsen, Perdikari et al.•Environmental Archaeology•2005

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• Hide, Tallow and Terrapin

  Open Access•C Conrad, Kenneth W Gobalet et al.•International Journal of…•2015

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• Kangaroos and the California Gold Rush

  C Conrad•California History•2017

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• Sea Routes to the Gold Fields

  Oscar Osburn Winther, Oscar Lewis•The Mississippi Valley Historical…•1950

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• The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis

  Diane Miller Sommerville, Barbara L Vo•Journal of American History•2009

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• San Francisco's Nineteenth-Century Egg Basket

  Open Access•Robin W Doughty•Geographical Review•1971

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• Fish trade in Norse Orkney and Caithness

  Open Access•James H Barrett•Antiquity•1997

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• Fish for the city

  Open Access•D Orton, David C Orton et al.•Antiquity•2014

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• Widening diet breadth, declining foraging efficiency, and prehistoric harvest pressure

  Open Access•J M Broughton•Antiquity•1997

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