Showing papers in "Historical Archaeology in 2019"
TL;DR: In this article, the authors demonstrate two methodological points broadly relevant to historical archaeologists: the use of light detection and ranging (LiDAR), also known as airborne laser scanning (ALS), has been widely used to identify prehistoric archaeological sites, and its use in historical archaeology could be expanded.
Abstract: In this technical brief I demonstrate two methodological points broadly relevant to historical archaeologists. While light detection and ranging (LiDAR), also known as airborne laser scanning (ALS), has been widely used to identify prehistoric archaeological sites, its use in historical archaeology could be expanded. LiDAR data are particularly valuable because they are frequently open access. By coupling open LiDAR data with open source software one can quickly, easily, and inexpensively identify historical landscape modification. I present an illustrative example, the identification of charcoal hearths in Pennsylvania, along with tools and techniques used to carry out the research. This method has allowed us to identify 758 charcoal hearths within a 74 km2 research area along the Blue Mountain of northeastern Pennsylvania.
16 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that historical archaeologists underutilize radiocarbon dating and present the case for its use and Bayesian modeling of the dates, and illustrate these methods with a simulated hypothetical example and an archaeological example from the mission period in the American Southeast.
Abstract: Few historical archaeologists working on sites that postdate A.D. 1500 employ radiocarbon dating throughout the course of their research. We argue that historical archaeologists underutilize radiocarbon dating, and present the case for its use and Bayesian modeling of the dates. We illustrate these methods with a simulated hypothetical example and an archaeological example from the mission period in the American Southeast. Our work shows that through the careful consideration of sample selection and the integration of prior knowledge regarding the archaeological record, one can dramatically increase the precision of radiocarbon dating on samples from historical sites, which can play an important role in secondary research question formulation and sampling across historical sites.
11 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the role of consumer behavior in the growth of capitalism, as well as the roles of violence and accumulation by dispossession at the intersection of colonialism and capitalist accumulation, and examines case studies from 12th to 16th-century Europe and Britain for evidence of consumerism driving economic expansion.
Abstract: Drawing inspiration from the writings of Rosa Luxemburg, this article examines the role of consumer behavior in the growth of capitalism, as well as the roles of violence and accumulation by dispossession at the intersection of colonialism and capitalist accumulation. In her critique of Marx, Luxemburg asked what had created the demand for the goods that fueled capitalist expansion. She also called for more studies of the “real-life” experiences of those who were actors in capitalist economies. This article examines case studies from 12th- to 16th-century Europe and Britain for evidence of consumerism driving economic expansion, and takes a detailed look at the manner in which colonial legal systems contributed to the violence and dispossession experienced by the Nipmuc of Massachusetts and Connecticut. These two forces—consumer behavior and accumulation through dispossession––are presented as critical elements of an emerging political economy that was linked to the growth of capitalism.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, ceramic materials from an 1870s deposit associated with Black enlisted men at Fort Davis, Texas, are discussed to demonstrate how material evidence provides insights into the ambitions, experiences, and actions of soldiers, in their status as freedmen and citizens, as they navigated the colonial structure of a western fort.
Abstract: Archaeologies of military life have made little contribution to the study of Black regulars on the frontier. In part, this is the result of disciplinary boundaries separating scholars who study military history from those who study the African diaspora. Other problems include the nature of military movements and the nature of military record keeping. In this article, ceramic materials from an 1870s deposit associated with Black enlisted men at Fort Davis, Texas, are discussed to demonstrate how material evidence provides insights into the ambitions, experiences, and actions of soldiers, in their status as freedmen and citizens, as they navigated the colonial structure of a western fort.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a deeper historical approach to class relations in Iceland reveals the fundamental role of monopolization and labor insecurity across capitalist and pre-capitalist political economies, and how it is that these "proletarian" relations came about in the first place, how they were maintained, and, finally, how Iceland's transition to capitalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was less the creation of a uniquely proletarian class than a migration of long-dispossessed labor under new capital regimes.
Abstract: “Proletarian” relations are generally understood in terms of capitalist dispossession. However, a deeper historical approach to class relations in Iceland reveals the fundamental role of monopolization and labor insecurity across capitalist and pre-capitalist political economies. During the first settlement of Iceland in the late 9th century A.D., land was freely available to colonists, but by the late 17th century, over 95% of all farming properties were owned by landlords. Landlords and tenants frequently negotiated new leases, effectively creating a dispossessed, insecure, and mobile class of tenant farmers. Using the millennium-long history and archaeology of farmsteads in Skagafjorður, northern Iceland, we then outline (1) how it is that these “proletarian” relations came about in the first place, (2) how they were maintained, and, finally, (3) how Iceland’s “transition to capitalism” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was less the creation of a uniquely proletarian class than a migration of long-dispossessed labor under new capital regimes.
6 citations
TL;DR: In the period after the First World War, a new kind of Machine Age mass consumerism was developed as a parsimonious solution to twin crises confronting the country, one political and the other economic as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In the period after the First World War a new kind of Machine Age mass consumerism was developed as a parsimonious solution to twin crises confronting the country, one political and the other economic. This machinic consumerism was the key to the integration and intensification of a heterogeneous network composed of new commodity forms, infrastructure, logistics, financial and governmental structures, landscapes, subjectivities, and machinic processes. A theoretical framework developed out of Marx’s reflections on the use of machines on the factory floor is effective in illuminating the many nodes of this assemblage. Recognizing the linkages within a machinic network requires transcending traditional dualisms between micro- and macro-processes, histories and presents, humans and machines, and material and ideological processes. An archaeological assemblage excavated from a coal-company town shanty enclave in Pennsylvania provides examples of how artifact morphologies reflect the infrastructure, landscapes, aesthetics, advertising strategies, and media effects of these developments.
6 citations
TL;DR: A project in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, sought to record karst defenses in order to understand the defensive strategies and tactics people employed at them during World War II.
Abstract: During World War II, in the Pacific theater, the Japanese military and civilians used “karst defenses”—caves and tunnels—for various purposes. Despite their widespread distribution across the Pacific, karst defenses have received little historical and archaeological attention. As a result, archaeologists record and describe these sites inconsistently. A project in Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, sought to record karst defenses in order to understand the defensive strategies and tactics people employed at them during World War II. This article discusses the karst defenses constructed and used by the Japanese military and offers a basis for recording them. The information presented will be of value to both archaeologists and historians studying World War II defensive strategies in the Pacific.
5 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the U.S. government took ownership of Dakota homelands in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory, leading to increasingly violent conflicts and decades of war, and military and militia forts were built at the physical boundaries of contested space to push “hostiles” west and to protect European American settlers.
Abstract: During the 19th century, the U.S. government took ownership of Dakota homelands in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory, leading to increasingly violent conflicts and decades of war. Military and militia forts were built at the physical boundaries of contested space to push “hostiles” west and to protect European American settlers. Fort Wadsworth, constructed in South Dakota during the 1864 Dakota Campaign, and Fort Juelson, built in 1876 by Norwegian immigrants during an “Indian scare” in Minnesota, were both knowingly constructed on top of burial mounds, appropriating and reshaping sacred Native American landscapes into protective enclosures for the dominating, yet fearful, colonizers. Aerial laser scanning, geophysical survey, and historical research explore the archaeological expression and significance of these interlocked landscapes at geographic and cognitive frontiers.
5 citations
TL;DR: For instance, the authors suggests that both the French and the native employed material goods in distinctive ways to ensure survival and promote their interests in the colonial encounter; borrowing was merely an expedient strategy.
Abstract: Fort St. Joseph was one of many French colonial outposts established throughout the St. Lawrence River valley and the western Great Lakes region in the late 17th to 18th centuries to cultivate alliances with native peoples. The result was an exchange, amalgamation, and reinterpretation of material goods that testify to the close relationships the French maintained with various Native American groups. Yet, closer examination suggests that both the French and natives employed material goods in distinctive ways to ensure survival and promote their interests in the colonial encounter; borrowing was merely an expedient strategy. This interpretation shifts attention away from the amicable relations, altruistic behaviors, and hybridization that researchers previously posited toward an understanding grounded in more pragmatic forms of materiality that agents practice to ensure the persistence of cultural identities under colonialism.
5 citations
TL;DR: The childhood home of W. E. B. Du Bois in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, has been the focus of archaeological research since the 1980s as mentioned in this paper, focusing on the materials recovered from the site, the people who created it, and its implications for African American archaeology.
Abstract: The childhood home of W. E. B. Du Bois in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, has been the focus of archaeological research since the 1980s. Reports of this work have mainly focused on the materials recovered from the site, the people who created it, and its implications for African American archaeology. In this article we report on the regional contexts for the site and its residents, and the role of African American “homeplaces” within this larger context, issues that will guide future work at the W. E. B. Du Bois Homesite.
5 citations
TL;DR: The presence of ceramic and glass gastroliths at house sites within Fort Vancouver's village provides evidence for the keeping and consumption of domestic fowl, including chickens and turkeys.
Abstract: Transfer-printed ceramics and other objects ingested by fowl provide unique data on the household production associated with a fur-trade center in the Pacific Northwest. Gastroliths are an indicator of the use of avifauna at archaeological sites, specifically those of the order Galliformes. The presence of ceramic and glass gastroliths at house sites within Fort Vancouver’s village provides evidence for the keeping and consumption of domestic fowl, including chickens and turkeys. The presence and concentration of these artifacts, combined with documentary and other evidence, provide clues about household economies in a culturally diverse colonial setting. While ethnic backgrounds of the villagers included native Hawai‘ian, American Indian, French Canadian, English, and American, archaeological and archival evidence points to shared practices emerging within Fort Vancouver Village.
TL;DR: In the first decades of the 18th century, people of African descent accompanied Dutch and British settlers into the Berkshires and created "homeplaces" as mentioned in this paper, where families were able to create domestic harbors within racialized space.
Abstract: In the first decades of the 18th century, people of African descent accompanied Dutch and British settlers into the Berkshires. In 1783, Massachusetts abolished slavery by judicial decree. In the first federal census in 1790, Massachusetts and Vermont were the only states in the Union that recorded no captive Africans, at least officially. Therefore, these states were seen as havens for those fleeing captivity in slaveholding states. Although Whites transferred their “common sense” understanding of captive Africans to the free population, African Americans created “homeplaces,” as two archaeological assemblages in Massachusetts reveal. The boyhood home of W. E. B. Du Bois in Great Barrington and the Reverend Samuel Harrison Homestead in Pittsfield demonstrate how families were able to create domestic harbors within racialized space. Additionally, issues of identity formation, in a nation that was creating an American identity that was not inclusive of all, are addressed.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for a critical rethinking of capitalism through the emerging contributions of feminist, new materialist, actor-network, and post-Marxist perspectives that emphasize the diverse mechanisms and practices generative of the effects attributed variously to an abstract, monolithic, epochdefining capitalist system.
Abstract: Long an analytical staple of historical archaeology, capitalism in recent years has found itself under renewed scrutiny, due in part to the repercussions of the 2008 global economic crisis. Questions about the failings of “free-market” self-regulation and the proliferation of predatory practices and value-manipulation instruments fostered discussions about what, in fact, the “true” nature of capitalism was, and whether such practices, drawing on extra-economic power, violence, and various forms of coercion in the name of unequal accumulation, were aberrational or foundational. A space emerges within these discussions for a critical rethinking of capitalism through the emerging contributions of feminist, new materialist, actor-network, and (post-)Marxist perspectives that emphasize the diverse mechanisms and practices generative of the effects attributed variously to an abstract, monolithic, epoch-defining capitalist system. The approaches articulated in this thematic collection push for a move away from limiting and inconsistent definitions of capitalism, and toward a more supple suite of analytical threads for the cross-context analysis of diverse assemblages with diverse histories of emergence that generate parallel capitalist effects. In turn, the contributors to this collection illustrate the broader relevance of the contributions of historical archaeologies of capitalism to other archaeological contexts and subdisciplines by providing common ground for the comparative analysis of contexts generative of similar human/nonhuman experiences and effects that have remained categorically segregated in their analyses.
TL;DR: The Fairfield Foundation as discussed by the authors used drone-based photogrammetry, Autodesk 3D modeling software, and a MakerBot 3D printer to record and recreate archaeology at Fairfield Plantation.
Abstract: The Fairfield Foundation is using new technology to record and recreate archaeology at Fairfield Plantation. Using drone-based photogrammetry, Autodesk 3-D modeling software, and a MakerBot 3-D printer, the organization is developing three-dimensional models of every stratigraphic layer excavated, then printing replicas of each layer that connect seamlessly. This interactive model of the site is ideal for teaching students and the public about archaeology while engaging them in the history and architecture of Fairfield Plantation. At the same time, it creates the most detailed archive of archaeological data yet undertaken at this site, providing the foundations for future virtual and augmented reality applications and preserving a vital record of the archaeology. Methods developed for this project can be applied at any site, enhancing outreach and site documentation efforts around the world, especially when initiated at the onset of a project.
TL;DR: In this article, a well-preserved mummy with clothing and shoes was found in a wooden coffin in St. Stephan's Church in Leuk (Switzerland) in the 1980s.
Abstract: During the excavation of St. Stephan’s Church in Leuk (Switzerland) in the 1980s, a well-preserved mummy with clothing and shoes was found in a wooden coffin. Subsequently, the mummy underwent restoration, but the observations have never been published. Therefore, an interdisciplinary investigation was recently organized that included a thorough archaeological and anthropological documentation in collaboration with specialists in costume history and leatherworking. The aim was to gather evidence for the dating and preservation mechanism, as well as to determine the biological profile of the individual. The investigation was accompanied by a noninvasive examination with a mobile x-ray device, which enabled identification of sex, age, body height, and pathologies. The clothing (cape, blouse, skirt, drawers) and the shoes were subjected to a detailed stylistic and technological examination. The individual is female, aged 45–60 years, with foot deformities that might be related to constricting footwear. Stylistic details of the shoes indicate that the burial dates from the first half of the 17th century, more precisely to the 1630s. Despite her simple clothing, the burial location attests to her respected position in society.
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of sugar as an iconic commodity in the history of European capitalism and colonialism is discussed, and a view of more diverse and changing configurations of interaction is offered, and suggests a shift in analytical emphasis to market exchange in the past.
Abstract: Seeking to widen the constellation of pasts in studies of capitalism, this article contributes to interventions into the dominant narratives and frameworks in the history of capitalism. It discusses Western historiography and historicism in relation to the role that Islamic cultural geographies and sugar, as an iconic commodity, have played in the history of European capitalism and colonialism. This alternative rendition of sugar brings together significant archaeological and historical sources of sugar production in Egypt and Syria-Palestine during the medieval and Ottoman periods. Islamic sugar production and markets are discussed in relation to Western framings of historical capitalism, global commodities, unequal exchange, and capital accumulation. Questioning modernity’s framing of history and capitalism, this article offers a view of more diverse and changing configurations of interaction, and suggests a shift in analytical emphasis to market exchange in the past in order to make comparisons between commercial and market-oriented societies.
TL;DR: This paper explored how frontier forts were a catalyst for complex and emergent spatial relations that subverted hierarchical space and identity in early 18th-century forts on the Carolina frontier.
Abstract: English forts in the Carolina Colony embodied the ongoing struggle between the ambitions of imperial impositions and the aspirations of frontier autonomy. This tension is acutely reflected in the spatial organization of forts. Whereas colonial authorities sought to separate Europeans, Africans, and Native Americans through the formal segregation of the built environment, life on the frontier encouraged a fluidity in space and identity. The theoretical construct of flat ontologies can be used to explore how frontier forts were a catalyst for complex and emergent spatial relations that subverted hierarchical space. Archaeological data from early 18th-century forts on the Carolina frontier exemplify the connective processes of flat ontologies that blurred space and identity.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that archaeology can play a role in detailing the history of capitalism in space and can work towards countering its effects in the city of Baltimore, arguing that the contrast between affluence and poverty and the degree to which the capitalist process shapes lives and space in and around the city and devalues them.
Abstract: The capitalist process seeks to maximize the accumulation of capital by creating, maintaining, and reinventing divisions and distance. The result is the devaluing of people to a state whereby they are expendable and the violence they experience can be justified, perpetuated, and ignored. Space is a crucial component of this process, allowing for the destruction and creation of new configurations of capital circulation that foster a landscape of depreciation and exploitation. The landscapes of Baltimore throughout time show the contrast between affluence and poverty and the degree to which the capitalist process shapes lives and space in and around the city and devalues them. Drawing from Baltimore, this article argues that archaeology can play a role in detailing the history of capitalism in space and can work towards countering its effects.
TL;DR: In this paper, a look at a community of laundresses in Fort Davis, Texas, shows how life on the edge of geographic and social frontiers allowed inhabitants of these contested spaces to construct and redefine new personhoods.
Abstract: As contested spaces, frontiers are the ideal location in which to study identity, as inhabitants of these landscapes constantly experience and actively negotiate among the multiple lived realities that are shaped by conflicting ideologies. I propose the use of third-space and borderlands theory as frameworks for understanding the fluidity of experiences in the American frontier during the 19th century. Through a look at a community of laundresses in Fort Davis, Texas, I show how life on the edge—or perhaps in the middle—of geographic and social frontiers allowed inhabitants of these contested spaces to construct and redefine new personhoods. Moreover, I assert that women’s participation in food provisioning and preparation allowed them to act as cultural brokers across various scales of community interaction.
TL;DR: The authors examine the overlapping roles and material effects of three categories of "inanimate actors" in the adoption of cash cropping in the Senegalese province of Siin: peanuts, pangool (ancestral spirits), and places.
Abstract: Histories of cash-crop agriculture in Senegal’s peanut basin have foregrounded the sway of market forces—an economic story of supply and demand staging metropolitan industrial needs, commercial entrepreneurialism, and profitable returns with both planned and unplanned developments. The political connivance between commercial crops and French rule is also well documented. The relentless expansion of peanut cultivation in Senegal’s hinterland was promoted by colonial policies and collusions between the French administration and Muslim brotherhoods. African farmers were not idle bystanders to these transformations, as peasant social strategies were centrally implicated in the (re)construction of colonial countrysides. While accounts illuminate the broad structural forces and human institutions involved in the commodification of African rural worlds, they frequently overlook the contributions of a host of other historical actors: the unsung, yet influential, nonhuman agencies that were integral components of farming ecologies, shaped people’s affective belonging to their landscapes, and actively mediated histories of capitalist transformations. In this article I attend specifically to the overlapping roles and material effects of three categories of “inanimate actors” in the adoption of cash cropping in the Senegalese province of Siin: peanuts, pangool (ancestral spirits), and places. Drawing on Adorno’s (1973) concept of “constellation” and Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) idea of “assemblage,” I examine how the tangible properties of crops, spiritual beings, and rural geography (and the social practices it nurtured) combined to assist and disrupt the operations of capital and government. Peanuts, pangool, and places drew humans and nonhumans into material constellations that cut across the plain of political economic analysis and offset totalizing visions of global capitalism; they reveal alternative tales of power, labor, and intimacy, “understories” that speak to the contingent, hybrid, and unfinished histories of colonial modernity in Africa.
TL;DR: The authors investigates the meeting of two monetized economies and how producing a "commodity money" nurtured forms of violence in the Izalcos region of colonial Guatemala, part of today's western El Salvador.
Abstract: This article investigates the meeting of two monetized economies and how producing a “commodity money” nurtured forms of violence. This case presents an opportunity to rethink why economies monetize and how that relation fits into coercive, violent foundations of an emerging capitalist system. Money is important for understanding early capitalism, as Marx suggested that money is the first form of the appearance of capital. Money masks the social nature of labor, a fiction that not only creates conditions for capitalism, but is violent by wrenching the self from social bonds. Archaeological examples illustrate relationships of money with corporeal and social violence in the Izalcos region of colonial Guatemala, part of today’s western El Salvador. The early colonial market relied on exploiting inequalities as well as the predictability of native production. A stable currency based on cacao as small coin buffered the awkwardness and unpredictability of a volatile economy.
TL;DR: This article used archival and archaeological research on colonial Maya sites in the piedmont and highland regions of Guatemala to piece together the spectrum of economic and productive practices carried out by colonial Maya communities: some coerced, some opportunistic of the emerging colonial economic landscape, and others having little to do with the intrusions of capitalist/colonial practices and effects.
Abstract: The consequences of Spanish colonial/capitalist intrusions in highland Guatemala are an emerging focus of archaeological investigation. While providing insight into the entanglements between colonialism and capitalism and their effects on Maya communities, it is critical not to fixate only on extractive and exploitative labor regimes to the exclusion of other patterns of practice and production central to the experience of people in the past. In our analyses, a singular focus on capitalist colonialism reifies the suffocating ubiquity of abstract processes, foreclosing the possibility of other ways of being in the world that were not capitalist, colonial, or formed in relation or opposition to them. Instead, a holistic approach to the assemblage of production practices in capitalist colonial contexts allows for analyses of “capitalist” practices that exist side side-by-side and/or articulated with other practices—traditional and innovative—outside the unproductive two-step of either resistance to or engagement with capitalism or colonialism. In this article we use archival and archaeological research on colonial Maya sites in the piedmont and highland regions of Guatemala to piece together the spectrum of economic and productive practices carried out by colonial Maya communities: some coerced, some opportunistic of the emerging colonial economic landscape, and others having little to do with the intrusions of capitalist/colonial practices and effects.
TL;DR: In Pardeesville, Pennsylvania, migrant laborers constructed a shantytown at the periphery of a coal-company town in the late 19th century as discussed by the authors, which represented an exceptional space excluded from paternalist care, but also exempt from surveillance and infrastructural development.
Abstract: In Pardeesville, Pennsylvania, migrant laborers constructed a shantytown at the periphery of a coal-company town in the late 19th century. For the first half of its existence it represented an exceptional space excluded from paternalist care, but also exempt from surveillance and infrastructural development. It housed a flexible labor force for the mechanized industry increasingly central to its operations. The collapse of the anthracite industry in the 1940s brought the withdrawal of company ownership and a brief period of employee ownership. Following the town’s emancipation from capitalist control, residents developed forms of communal self-organization adapted from the survival strategies of an earlier era. By the 1960s, however, regional government pursued efforts to recapitalize the postindustrial landscape, guided by national ideologies of redevelopment and renewal. This governmentalizing process radically altered the material landscape, bringing with it neoliberal economics and its corresponding subjectivities. Extracto En Pardeesville, Pensilvania, los trabajadores migrantes construyeron una barriada en la periferia de una ciudad de una compania de carbon a finales del siglo XIX. Durante la primera mitad de su existencia represento un espacio excepcional excluido de la atencion paternalista, pero tambien exento de vigilancia y desarrollo infraestructural. Albergaba una fuerza laboral flexible para la industria mecanizada, cada vez mas importante para sus operaciones. El colapso de la industria antracita en la decada de los 1940 trajo el retiro de la propiedad de la compania y un breve periodo de propiedad de los empleados. Tras la emancipacion de la ciudad del control capitalista, los residentes desarrollaron formas de auto-organizacion comunitaria adaptadas de las estrategias de supervivencia de una epoca anterior. Sin embargo, en la decada de los 1960, el gobierno regional continuo sus esfuerzos para recapitalizar el panorama postindustrial, guiado por las ideologias nacionales de reurbanizacion y renovacion. Este proceso de gubernamentalizacion altero radicalmente el paisaje material, trayendo consigo la economia neoliberal y sus subjetividades correspondientes. Resume A Pardeesville, en Pennsylvanie, des travailleurs migrants ont construit un bidonville en peripherie d'une ville miniere de charbon a la fin du 19eme siecle. Pendant la premiere moitie de son existence, il a represente un espace exceptionnel hors de toute attention paternaliste, mais egalement exempte de toute surveillance et de developpement des infrastructures. Il abritait une main d'œuvre flexible pour l'industrie mecanisee de plus en plus centrale pour les operations de cette derniere. Le declin de l'industrie de l'anthracite dans les annees 40 a implique le retrait de la detention par l'entreprise et une breve periode d'appropriation par le personnel. A la suite de l'emancipation de la ville a l'egard du controle capitaliste, les residents ont developpe des formes d'auto-organisation communautaire adaptees des strategies de survie d'une ere anterieure. Cependant, vers les annees 60 le gouvernement regional a engage des efforts pour recapitaliser le paysage post-industriel, guide par des ideologies nationales de redeveloppement et de renouvellement. Ce processus de gouvernementalisation a transforme de maniere radicale le paysage materiel, apportant avec lui une economie neoliberale et ses subjectivites correspondantes.
TL;DR: The origins of capitalism in the British West Indies began as part of the revolutionary shift to sugar and slavery in Barbados in the second quarter of the 17th century as mentioned in this paper, and the change took place rapidly during a period of political turmoil in England that resulted in laissez-faire governance and a void in administrative oversight in the West Indies.
Abstract: The origins of capitalism in the British West Indies began as part of the revolutionary shift to sugar and slavery in Barbados in the second quarter of the 17th-century. This study examines the origins of capitalism in Barbados through the exploration of the historical record and archaeological findings from Trents Plantation and other early colonial estates in Barbados. The expansion of agro-industrial sugar production into the English colony of Barbados set in motion a dramatic shift in social and economic structures. Social and economic change resulted from the intersection of access to investor capital, dramatic profits rapidly amassed through the production of a commoditized cash crop, sugar, and a related shift in the labor force to a reliance on large numbers of enslaved laborers from Africa. The change took place rapidly during a period of political turmoil in England that resulted in laissez-faire governance and a void in administrative oversight in the West Indies. The social and economic changes seen in the archaeological record at Trents, and actuated across Barbados, had a dramatic impact on the broader Atlantic World, inclusive of the Americas, Europe, Africa, and their trading partners across the globe.
TL;DR: The authors explores themes of morality and capitalist exploitation within the context of the East African ivory trade and traces how morality-tinged, Western-driven narratives concerning the ivory trade mobilize asymmetrical relationships of capitalist exchange in both the past and present.
Abstract: This article explores themes of morality and capitalist exploitation within the context of the East African ivory trade. Through an interdisciplinary lens that incorporates object-based, archival analysis and critical heritage studies, this article traces how morality-tinged, Western-driven narratives concerning the ivory trade mobilize asymmetrical relationships of capitalist exchange in both the past and present. In the late 19th century, the abolitionist movement conflated the East African ivory and slave trades by narrating the forced coercion of Africans made to carry ivory tusks in the interior, only to be sold into slavery upon reaching the coast. This discursively erased histories of active African engagement with mercantile capitalism as well as emerging labor culture among professional porters of the caravan trade. The vilification of “Arab” slave traders through stories of extreme cruelty within the ivory trade was used to justify formal British colonialism in the region, which led to more expansive capitalist integration and extraction. In a circuitous fashion, contemporary Western conservation activists blame African corruption, Islamic extremism, and Asian consumption for rampant elephant and rhino poaching across East Africa, making way for neoliberal appropriation of East African heritage under the guise of moral interventionism. In both cases, moral (and Orientalist) arguments advocating liberation, heritage preservation, and economic development veil processes by which unequal exchange is facilitated and maintained.
TL;DR: The authors examines Michael Roller's metaphor of the machine to describe the social conditioning associated with 20th-century mass consumption and argues that machinic mass consumerism risks understating the everyday creativity, retreat, silence, and imagination that negotiate and upset the machinery of mass consumer culture.
Abstract: This commentary examines Michael Roller’s metaphor of the machine to describe the social conditioning associated with 20th-century mass consumption. Roller’s machinic mass consumerism evokes familiar anxieties in its illumination of the ways consumer materiality shapes human experience. The hazard is that machinic mass consumerism risks understating the everyday creativity, retreat, silence, and imagination that negotiate and upset the machinery of mass consumer culture.
TL;DR: The recent history of western Massachusetts was shaped by a set of processes familiar in post-Columbian North America, including colonization, revolutionary repositioning in the Atlantic and world system, industrialization and deindustrialization, struggles for racial emancipation and gender and sexual equality, and the emergence of cultural reproduction to supplement, and increasingly to replace, the loss of industrial work as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The recent history of western Massachusetts was shaped by a set of processes familiar in post-Columbian North America, including colonization, revolutionary repositioning in the Atlantic and world system, industrialization and deindustrialization, struggles for racial emancipation and gender and sexual equality, and the emergence of cultural reproduction to supplement, and increasingly to replace, the loss of industrial work. The particular political, economic, social, ideological, and ecological contexts of western Massachusetts are presented to provide background for the finer-grained studies in the articles that follow.
TL;DR: The authors explored how variations in the materiality and spatiality of gender ideologies were more than simply deviations from middle-class cultural norms, and they represented active negotiation of dominant ideals and the construction of alternate meaningful gender relations and forms of domesticity.
Abstract: Two families—the Moors and the Balls—occupied a 19th-century house on the main street of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Archaeological assemblages associated with each of the households showed disconnects between gender ideals (notably the cult of domesticity for which the architectural style of the house itself is iconic) and the realities of poverty, raising children, and life cycle. In this article, I explore how variations in the materiality and spatiality of gender ideologies were more than simply deviations from middle-class cultural norms. Rather, they represented active negotiation of dominant ideals and the construction of alternate meaningful gender relations and forms of domesticity.
TL;DR: The authors examine the relationship between archaeology, discourses of market development, and the logics of coloniality/modernity that inform them, and explore how archaeology is implicated in the violence that allows capitalism to persist by examining processes of dispossession.
Abstract: Recent experiences within the discipline and my fieldwork in the town of Portobelo, Panama, have left me questioning the epistemic genealogy of archaeology and the complicity between archaeological and capitalist ontologies. Observing the specter of dispossession that hangs over Portobelo as a result of Eurocentric archaeological discourses and heritage-management practices of conservation has directed me to analyze archaeological knowledge production within the coloniality of power. I contemplate how archaeology is implicated in the violence that allows capitalism to persist by examining processes of dispossession through an exploration of the relationship among archaeology, discourses of market development, and the logics of coloniality/modernity that inform them.