Urban Animals: Human-Poultry Relationships in Later Post-Medieval Belfast
Urban Animals: Human-Poultry Relationships in Later Post-Medieval Belfast
B. Tyr Fothergill 0 1
0 School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester , University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH , UK
1 B. Tyr Fothergill
Live animals were a ubiquitous feature of post-medieval cities and provided a variety of products to a broad cross-section of society. Poultry species were portable and accessible to people of modest means. Yet, the quotidian presence of poultry contrasts with the lack of attention to urban animal husbandry. Zooarchaeological data from the faunal assemblage from St. Anne's Square, a 0.77 ha seventeenth to early twentieth-century site in Belfast, combined with historical legislation, court records, and news sheets held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland reveal the complexity of and contradictions implicit in poultry-human relationships in Belfast and nearby areas.
Animal husbandry; Urban; Women's work; Poultry; Cock-fighting
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Beyond these themes, however, animals have shaped the urban experience both
historically and archaeologically; they were of critical importance to the many-stranded
economic success of Belfast. Yet, they and their roles have escaped investigation apart
from bland acknowledgement as producers of waste, agents of disease, or shadowy
features of the backdrop against which history happened. Certain species (namely pigs
and poultry) were affordable to many city-dwellers and husbanded in these
environments until well into the twentieth century, though urban pig-keeping was gradually
legislated out of permissibility over time and few traces of poultry-rearing exist from c.
1920 onward. These Bhousehold animals^ are easily overlooked and their maintenance
often perceived as women’s work, which may have made them less intriguing subjects
for historical writing
(Thirsk 2006, p.262; Sayer 2013)
. Even economic histories of the
keeping, movement, slaughter, processing, and sale of valuable and culturally important
large ungulates such as horses and cattle remain obscure, heavily overshadowed by
treatises on specific industries such as linen production and shipbuilding.
An archaeological perspective offers a distinctive way of examining husbandry
methods and other past relations between humans and Bhousehold^ domesticates in urban
environments. Whilst brief interpretations based upon skeletal element measurements,
species ratios, mortality profiles and population structure data collected at the time of
primary analysis have clear utility with regard to understanding breeding, population
management, and slaughtering practices, human perceptions of urban domesticates and
other facets of their husbandry are not typically discussed from an archaeological
perspective. These include subjects such as housing and space; transport and control of movement;
waste management; grooming, hygiene, and medical treatment; and the harvesting,
gathering, and sale of products. It is also important to recognise that different social groups
in an urban environment will approach animal husbandry in ways which are not
necessarily consistent or compatible with one another. Although the case of each species and
city will be different, attempts to go beyond basic interpretations of animals raised in urban
environments can offer enticing details of past relationships between humans and other
animals beyond aspects of population and presence. In this paper, I examine the roles of
poultry in Belfast by approaching the concept of husbandry as a suite of social practices
that included a range of actors and interactions rather than a different way of framing
exploitation or production. Poultry-human relationships can be detected in the histories of
common pastimes, the urban economy, management of space, hygiene and sanitation,
gender, and education; it is within these themes that aspects of husbandry emerge.
Zooarchaeological reports exist for a number of sites across Ulster and Northern
Ireland
(see Hamlin and Lynn 1988; Ó Baoill 2011)
, and although interpretations for
the roles of large mammals, especially cattle and horses, are regularly provided, avian
bone is not routinely discussed (or even analysed, in some cases). This is especially
evident in reports from urban contexts in the post-medieval period, despite the fact that
poultry husbandry would have been feasible in a far greater range of circumstances than
horse or cattle husbandry. Furthermore, poultry-keeping had the potential to empower
women across the socioeconomic spectrum and contribute to the financial stability of
urban households and neighbourhoods during times of social upheaval. Several issues are
responsible for the lack of archaeological attention; generally, these include perception,
identification, and recovery. Post-medieval faunal assemblages are perceived as less
valuable than those from other periods and are not prioritised for analysis or retention
(Thomas 2009); identifying bird remains often requires (...truncated)