Food preservation, including salting and barreling meat, has played a significant role in human history; however, it remains challenging to identify cases of salting in the archaeological record. Most studies have relied on limited datasets and focus on body-part profiles observed in faunal assemblages. Known and suspected cases of barreled meat and on-site butchery, drawn from six shipwrecks and seven fur trade posts, provide a means of identifying body-part profiles for salted pork and beef. Modeled body-part profiles based on these data reveal differences in expected body-part frequency between salted and locally butchered beef, although the patterning is less obvious for pork. Comparing these models against 26 military forts reveals that, despite the prominence of salted beef and pork in historic records, many forts exhibit patterns consistent with on-site butchery of live animals.

Military garrisons in North America were provisioned with a diet based primarily on domesticates. A relationship between colonial diets and nationality has been an assumed truism, encouraging the belief that colonial diets were static and predetermined by European norms and leading to devaluation of colonists’ adaptability and agency. We challenge that perspective using zooarchaeological data on soldiers’ diets at 49 American fortifications in North America. Statistical comparisons reveal that some sites relied heavily on provisioned livestock, while others did not. Dietary patterns were significantly impacted by accessibility, length of occupation, garrison size, and local infrastructure. This evidence suggests that reliance on wild game was an adaptive response to local environmental and cultural factors influencing the accessibility of preferred domesticates, regardless of nationality.