The Occaneechi can best be described in subsistence terms as diversified agriculturalists/collectors. Although these people devoted a great deal of time and energy to collection and processing of certain species (particularly corn, acorn, and hickory), they used a wide variety of plant foods, most of which would have been abundant in anthropogenic habitats such as old fields. The Occaneechi had a relationship of husbandry with crops they planted and tended, like corn and common bean. In addition, they made use of fleshy fruit species that grew in areas they had disturbed through farming and burning. Perhaps the relationship between the Occaneechi and these latter species is best described as one of incidental or specialized domestication (Rindos 1984); that is, a symbiotic, coevolutionary relationship resulting from human feeding on plants, initiated and maintained chiefly through dispersal and protection. These characteristics of incidental and specialized domestication stand in contrast to the seed storage, weeding, and tilling characteristic of agricultural domestication, which would have been the type of domesticatory relationship shared with crop species like corn. Specialized domestication implies a specialized dispersal relationship between humans and plants, and is usually accompanied by storage and planting (Rindos 1984:163). Peach (and perhaps other fruit-bearing species as well) probably had this sort of relationship with the Fredricks site population. Even nut trees, typically considered "wild" resources, may have had at least a relationship of incidental domestication with the Fredricks site population involving some sort of protection.
What evidence do we have that this pattern differs from that typical of populations living in the same area prior to contact? How did trade with Europeans and other contact-related phenomena affect earlier patterns? Evidence is still inconclusive on these points, but so far no drastic differences have been noted between plant remains assemblages from Fredricks and the nearby early protohistoric Wall site (Gremillion 1985). The types of plant foods used were basically the same at both sites; although acorn may have declined somewhat in importance, the difference is not as great as was supposed based on evidence only from the 1983-1984 seasons. In fact, acorn may have been collected in greater quantities than hickory at the Fredricks site. Corn remained important, and perhaps became more so after contact; however, there is no evidence for a narrowing of diet breadth. Peach was introduced by Europeans and rapidly incorporated into the subsistence system of the Fredricks site population, but it took its place alongside indigenous fleshy fruits rather than replacing them.
It is therefore difficult at this point to formulate hypotheses about the effects of European contact on subsistence. Presumably depopulation and the introduction of new trade networks and new tools and technologies acted to change decision-making about subsistence activities in most areas. But at the Fredricks site, there is no evidence of adoption of European crops (except peach) or abandonment of native ones, and only slim evidence of adjustments in the proportions of native plant foods contributing to subsistence. Perhaps the presumed position of the Occaneechi village on the Eno as a trading center made it atypical in this respect. For example, if individuals from other depopulated areas aggregated at this village, its precontact population level might have remained stable despite losses through disease. And if Fredricks site men acted as middlemen in the European trade network, they may not have traveled far afield to hunt specifically for trade. It is apparent that explanation of subsistence stability is as important for this project as the explanation or establishment of change. We may find that the apparent stability of subsistence as revealed archaeologically in fact reflects a considerable amount of behavioral change (Winterhalder 1980). Behavioral changes may have been necessary to maintain the traditional diet represented archaeologically in the face of considerable perturbation.