Hide, Tallow and Terrapin: Gold Rush-Era Zooarchaeology at Thompson’s Cove (CA-SFR-186H), San Francisco, California

Abstract

Zooarchaeological investigations at Thompson's Cove, San Francisco, a Gold Rush-era site located on the original shoreline of Yerba Buena Cove, provide evidence of the maritime California hide and tallow trade, consumption of abundant wild game, including seasonal hunting of migratory ducks and geese, and importation of non-native species into Alta California, specifically Galapagos tortoise (Chelonoidis sp.) and sea turtle (Family Cheloniidae). This abundant and diverse assemblage (NISP=8661, NTAXA=50) dating primarily to the 1840s-60s allows rigorous investigations into the economic and subsistence activity of San Francisco in a stratified context encompassing the California Gold Rush-era.

Finny Merchandise: The Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua) Trade in Gold Rush–Era San Francisco, California

“…Cod at Thompson's Cove occurred in three features: 25 (NISP = 10; minimum number of individuals [MNI; Lyman 2008] = 1), 15 (NISP = 2; MNI = 1), and 7 (NISP = 6; MNI = 1; Conrad et al 2015a;Pastron and Bruner 2014; see the latter reference for site-specific feature information). These features all date to between the late 1840s and 1853.…”

“…Sediments from these three features were water-screened through 3.2 mm (1/8 inch) mesh in the laboratory and account for the majority (NISP=3,002/3,024 including scales) of all fish specimens recovered from the site (Conrad et al 2015a). Feature 3/31/37 also received bulk sediment water-screening, but only a single fish bone was identified in this context and is not a cod.…”

“…Oddly, although these written accounts document an abundance of cod imported into San Francisco during the Gold Rush, archaeological records present a different story. Gold Rush sites in San Francisco and the Bay Area tend to be represented by local fishes, or fishes brought into the city from the California coast or the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta (Conrad et al 2015a; Table 2). For cod, the earliest Gold Rush archaeological evidence occurs at Thompson's Cove and a site in Sacramento, the Golden Eagle Hotel (Praetzellis et al 1980;Schulz 1980).…”

“…At Thompson's Cove (CA-SFR-186H), a Gold Rush archaeological site located near North Beach in San Francisco (Pastron and Bruner 2014), the faunal assemblage is represented by at least 50 species and more than 8,000 skeletal elements, but domesticates, including cattle, pig, sheep, and goat, dominate the assemblage (see tables 3, 14, and 17 in Conrad et al 2015a). In Feature 7, which dates to the early 1850s, cattle, sheep and pigs represent 64% (number of identified specimens [NISP; Lyman 2008] = 826/1293) of the assemblage-a common trend for Gold Rush-era archaeological sites.…”

Ancient DNA Analysis and Stable Isotope Ecology of Sea Turtles (Cheloniidae) from the Gold Rush-era (1850s) Eastern Pacific Ocean

“…The transport of sea turtles to be used as food is seen in the archaeological record. At Thompson's Cove (CA-SFR-186H), located near the Financial District of modern-day San Francisco, excavations recovered a single sea turtle (Cheloniidae) flipper phalanx in food refuse deposits dating to the early 1850s (Figure 1; Conrad et al 2015; see Pastron and Bruner 2014 for additional chronological information). Morphological similarity in sea turtle phalanges (with the exception of leatherback sea turtles [Dermochelys coriacea]; Wyneken 2001) did not allow a species identification, but this specimen matched the size and morphology of a comparative green sea turtle skeleton from the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, Berkeley.…”