Commodification of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in 17th century southern New England

Abstract

Sustainable natural resource use and management is widely proposed as the solution to our current planetary ecological crises. However, there are multiple pathways to sustainability: consume fewer resources or modify the environment to be more productive. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in 17th century New England provide an informative case study of the historical ecology of sustainable and unsustainable natural resource use as the species was ostensibly used sustainably by Native peoples for millennia but hunted nearly to extinction soon after European colonization. Zooarchaeological analyses of white-tailed deer remains from two sites in the lower Connecticut River Valley suggest that deer abundance in this locality declined in the 17th century due to increased hunting pressure consistent with commodification of the species within a novel mercantile capitalist economy. Depression of this deer population in the 17th century—at a time of general human population decline—appears to have been driven by capitalist market forces that increased demand for deerskin clothing for purposes of social signaling. These results illustrate the importance of addressing the harms of commodification when promoting sustainable natural resource use and management.