What were Peter Britt and his family eating? Researchers want to know.

The Southern Oregon University Laboratory of Anthropology received a $16,000 grant from a division of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department to finish a faunal analysis of artifacts discovered at Jacksonville’s Britt Gardens site in 2010 and 2011.

Anthropologists hope the faunal analysis — the process of identifying and studying animal remains such as bone fragments to research the diets of people living on the site — will highlight the foods consumed by the Britt family during the 1800s.

The excavations by SOULA were completed more than a decade ago on the 4.5-acre site, but changes in project plans and loss of funding sidelined the analysis until recently. Around 30,000 artifacts were recovered from the 2010 and 2011 excavations at the Britt homestead.

“We’re basically looking at what the Britt family was eating. … It can tell us how their food choices changed over time with market availability,” said project leader Katie Johnson, an SOU research archaeologist.

Peter Britt was the first of the family to voyage to Southern Oregon as a settler.

“Peter Britt came to the Rogue Valley pretty early on in 1850s and had a little cabin, and later on brought his wife and raised a family there,” Johnson said.

Britt, a Swiss and German immigrant, is best known for his photography across Southern Oregon. He was the first settler to photograph Crater Lake in 1874, which was instrumental in persuading the U.S. Congress to create Crater Lake National Park in 1902.

The settler’s photography is still used today to study how the region’s natural landscape has changed over the years, Johnson said.

Generations of the Britt family continued to live on the homestead until the 1950s.

With the $16,000 grant, researchers aim to gain a better understanding of the Britt family’s eating habits and compare findings with Jacksonville’s nearby Chinese Quarter, which burned down in 1888.

The grant is one of 18 Preserving Oregon Grants, totaling $277,681, that were awarded this summer to aid historic and archeological projects throughout the state.

“We can compare those two within their timeframes to help understand better the different food choices they made,” Johnson said.

The project leader hopes the faunal analysis will further highlight the political and social climate of the area in the late 19th century.

“There was a lot of anti-Chinese legislation and a history of racism,” Johnson said of Jacksonville’s political climate in the late 1800s.

In turn, that could’ve had an impact on the food choices and options for the Britt family versus their Chinese neighbors.

The Britt family interacted with the Chinese gold-mining community of Jacksonville and surrounding region in various ways, with Chinese immigrants being subjects of Peter Britt’s photography at times.

Findings from the excavation of the Chinese Quarter were analyzed with the help of a 2016 Oregon Heritage Grant, with the data being used in numerous studies of the Oregon Chinese Diaspora, which is the subject of Johnson’s master’s thesis.

“That’s part of reason I applied for grant, and now, how I can take the next steps,” Johnson said of connecting the Britt family findings with Jacksonville’s Chinese Quarter. “This project and other projects are part of a much larger effort to tie these [findings] across the West Coast.”

The faunal analysis is a collaborative effort by SOU, the city of Jacksonville, the Southern Oregon Historical Society, the Oregon Chinese Diaspora Project and community volunteers.

Johnson is a specialist in faunal analysis and has completed work on two previous Oregon Heritage Grant projects during more than a decade of work in the state, and she recently completed her master’s degree in applied anthropology and environmental studies at SOU.