Phases I and II of the Alamo North Wall project revealed a subsistence regimen based on domestic animals supplemented by wild fish and game.
Collections such as this usually contain non-food animals as well, though predicting what people do and do not consider food is problematical.
Animals such as the wood rat, cotton rat, and roof rat could have entered the remains as natural scavengers or disposed carcasses, just as the cat. In the
case of the cat, it is likely the lone tooth was a scavenging loss. Likewise, the water snake from Phase II could have been a disposal, a meal, or even a
natural inhabitant of the trash heap.

Among the domestic animals, dogs are frequent but mostly identified from isolated teeth. Scavenging losses are probable, but dog may have served as
table fare. Cow, goat, and pig remains were no doubt the product of butchering. The single horse bone and horse tooth identified were not necessarily
the product of butchering. Value as a pack animal often makes horses too valuable to slaughter, though by no means exempts them from the human
diet. Once again, how this animal entered the collection is unknown, but butchering residue is a possibility.

All the wild animals identified in the collection were locally available to the inhabitants of the Alamo. Although over a dozen are represented, only the
catfish, white-tailed deer, and antelope occur with any frequency. Of those three, the catfish is ubiquitous in the collection while the antelope is only
represented by a single individual in Phase I and two individuals in Phase II.

Of particular interest between the Phase I and II excavation collections is the occurrence of several aquatic or aquatically bound species in Phase II. In
addition to the alligator, a painted turtle, a soft-shell turtle, a water snake, a duck, and a river otter were identified. These aquatic or water-dependent
animals did not occur in Phase I collections. Of the 16 identified species excavated in Phase II, seven (counting the catfish) had to have been taken
from riverine or marshy areas. Wild species in Phase I units numbered nine, with one (the channel catfish) coming from an aquatic environment.

That all Phase I units have domestic animals outnumbering wild animals and that both Phase II units have wild animals outnumbering domestics
suggests differences in the depositional history of each.

1) The collections are contemporary and represent different butchering episodes and hunting forays into different environments.

2) The collections represent two different episodes (at least) during different time periods. The Phase II assemblage might represent earlier Alamo
subsistence in the absence of well established domestic herds, particularly of pigs, chickens, and turkeys. Phase I collections might represent a later
Alamo more dependent on established domestic stock and more opportunistic and selective in terms of wild species exploited.