Cattle in the Postcolumbian Americas

How the arrival of cattle transformed lifeand society in the AmericasInthis book, Nicolas Delsol compares zooarchaeological and material evidence fromsites across Mesoamerica and the Caribbean to show how the introduction ofcattle, beginning with imports by Spanish colonizers in the 1500s, shapedcolonial American society. BeforeEuropean colonization, cows were vital in European and African societies butwere unknown to the Native communities of the Western Hemisphere. This book tracestheir impact in the Americas by using a broad range of methods, such as ancientDNA analyses on faunal collections from major postcolumbian sites. Delsol describesthe place of cattle in the colonial culture and landscape, beginning with thetransportation of cattle across the Atlantic and moving to herding practices innew habitats, butchery techniques, and the production, trading, and use of cowbyproducts.Cattle in thePostcolumbian Americas is the first large-scale regional archaeologicalstudy of the introduction of a European domesticated species to the Americas. Usingboth zooarchaeological and historical data, Delsol argues that the arrival ofcattle was a major consequence of European colonization with effects that have oftenbeen overlooked.