Production of Animal Commodities at Plum Grove, Iowa City

To understand how people living in rural areas articulated with larger systems of commodities networks it is important to study them not just as consumers of goods, but also as producers of commodities. Based on historical and ethnohistorical comparisons, a late-19th-century feature at the Plum Grove site in Johnson County, Iowa, displays archaeological evidence of the production of animals for market sale despite a lack of historical records from this time period. The nature of this evidence is discussed, as is its significance in understanding Plum Grove's articulation with macro-level economic networks.