| The Dutch East India Company (VOC) established their settlement at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652 in order to refresh passing trade ships with fresh water, vegetables, and meat in hopes of lessening disease and death during the long voyages around the tip of Africa between Europe and the Far East. The great demand for meat provided an impetus for Dutch-Khoehoe interactions which ultimately drained the Khoekhoe of their wealth, land, and identity. Currently, with the exception of the terrestrial faunal from Oudepost I (Cruz-Uribe and Schrire 1991), historic period faunal analyses at the Cape have been very localized, superficially descriptive, and taphonomically flawed, which has led to very little understanding of the overall colonial meat market and included some implausible interpretations.;This thesis takes into account contextual evidence, applies zooarchaeological methodology, and incorporates actualistically-based research into taphonomic traces on bone surfaces and to better reconstruct the originally deposited samples. The investigation of the VOC's meat industry that was emplaced at the Cape is carried out through the investigation of five faunal samples including three sites from the Castle of Good Hope; the Moat, the Granary (F2), and Donkergat (DKG); Elsenburg; and the Dump from Oudespost I. The systemic approach provides information about livestock production, slaughter, and consumption at the Cape with information about large scale slaughter for local markets or trade ship provisioning. This thesis describes the transplanted European husbandry practices as the VOC overcame initial hardships of meeting high meat demands to become the dominant power across the landscape. |
