Archaeology below the Cliff

Archaeology below the Cliff
Author: Matthew C. Reilly
Publisher: University Alabama Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0817320288

First book-length archaeological study of a nonelite white population on a Caribbean plantation Archaeology below the Cliff: Race, Class, and Redlegs in Barbadian Sugar Society is the first archaeological study of the poor whites of Barbados, the descendants of seventeenth-century European indentured servants and small farmers. “Redlegs” is a pejorative to describe the marginalized group who remained after the island transitioned to a sugar monoculture economy dependent on the labor of enslaved Africans. A sizable portion of the “white” minority, the Redlegs largely existed on the peripheries of the plantation landscape in an area called “Below Cliff,” which was deemed unsuitable for profitable agricultural production. Just as the land on which they resided was cast as marginal, so too have the poor whites historically and contemporarily been derided as peripheral and isolated as well as idle, alcoholic, degenerate, inbred, and irrelevant to a functional island society and economy. Using archaeological, historical, and oral sources, Matthew C. Reilly shows how the precarious existence of the Barbadian Redlegs challenged elite hypercapitalistic notions of economics, race, and class as they were developing in colonial society. Experiencing pronounced economic hardship, similar to that of the enslaved, albeit under very different circumstances, Barbadian Redlegs developed strategies to live in a harsh environment. Reilly’s investigations reveal that what developed in Below Cliff was a moral economy, based on community needs rather than free-market prices. Reilly extensively excavated households from the tenantry area on the boundaries of the Clifton Hall Plantation, which was abandoned in the 1960s, to explore the daily lives of poor white tenants and investigate their relationships with island economic processes and networks. Despite misconceptions of strict racial isolation, evidence also highlights the importance of poor white encounters and relationships with Afro-Barbadians. Historical data are also incorporated to address how an underrepresented demographic experienced the plantation landscape. Ultimately, Reilly’s narrative situates the Redlegs within island history, privileging inclusion and embeddedness over exclusion and isolation.

Caligula's Barges and the Renaissance Origins of Nautical Archaeology Under Water

Caligula's Barges and the Renaissance Origins of Nautical Archaeology Under Water
Author: John M. McManamon
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2016-12-09
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1623494397

Sometime around 1446 A.D., Cardinal Prospero Colonna commissioned engineer Battista Alberti to raise two immense Roman vessels from the bottom of the lago di Nemi, just south of Rome. By that time, local fishermen had been fouling their nets and occasionally recovering stray objects from the sunken ships for 800 years. Having no idea of the size of the objects he was attempting to recover, Alberti failed. For most of the next 500 years, various attempts were made to recover the vessels. Finally, in 1928, Mussolini ordered the draining of the lake to remove the vessels and place them on the lake shore. In 1944, the ships burned in a fire that was generally blamed on the Germans. John M. McManamon connects these attempts at underwater archaeology with the Renaissance interest in reconstructing the past in order to affect the present. Nautical and marine archaeologists, as well as students and scholars of Renaissance history and historiography, will appreciate this masterfully researched and gracefully written work.

Archaeology in America [4 volumes]

Archaeology in America [4 volumes]
Author: Linda S. Cordell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 1477
Release: 2008-12-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0313021899

The greatness of America is right under our feet. The American past—the people, battles, industry and homes—can be found not only in libraries and museums, but also in hundreds of archaeological sites that scientists investigate with great care. These sites are not in distant lands, accessible only by research scientists, but nearby—almost every locale possesses a parcel of land worthy of archaeological exploration. Archaeology in America is the first resource that provides students, researchers, and anyone interested in their local history with a survey of the most important archaeological discoveries in North America. Leading scholars, most with an intimate knowledge of the area, have written in-depth essays on over 300 of the most important archaeological sites that explain the importance of the site, the history of the people who left the artifacts, and the nature of the ongoing research. Archaeology in America divides it coverage into 8 regions: the Arctic and Subarctic, the Great Basin and Plateau, the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, the Midwest, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Southwest, and the West Coast. Each entry provides readers with an accessible overview of the archaeological site as well as books and articles for further research.

The Historical Archaeology of Shadow and Intimate Economies

The Historical Archaeology of Shadow and Intimate Economies
Author: James A. Nyman
Publisher: University Press of Florida
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2019-06-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0813057108

Emphasizing the important social relationships that form among people who participate in small-scale economic transactions, contributors to this volume explore often-overlooked networks of intimate and shadow economies—terms used to describe trade that takes place outside formal market systems. Case studies from a variety of historical contexts around the world reveal the ways such transactions created community and identity, subverted class and power relations, and helped people adapt to new social realities. In Maine, woven baskets sold by Native American artisans to Euroamerican consumers supported Native strategies for cultural survival and agency. Alcohol exchanged by Scandinavian merchants for furs and skins enabled their indigenous trading partners to expand social webs that contested colonialism. Moonshine production in Appalachia was an integral part of economic exchanges in isolated mountain communities. Caribbean and American plantations contain evidence of interactions, exchanges, and attachments between enslaved communities and poor whites that defied established racial boundaries. From brothel workers in Boston to seal hunters in Antarctica, the examples in this volume show how historical archaeologists can use the concept of intimate economies to uncover deeply meaningful connections that exist beyond the traditional framework of global capitalism.

Handbook of Latin American Studies Vol. 75

Handbook of Latin American Studies Vol. 75
Author: Katherine D. McCann
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 701
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 1477322787

The 2021 volume of the benchmark bibliography of Latin American Studies.

Mimbres Archaeology of the Upper Gila, New Mexico

Mimbres Archaeology of the Upper Gila, New Mexico
Author: Stephen H. Lekson
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 128
Release: 1990
Genre: History
ISBN: 0816511640

The importance of the Saige-McFarland Site for Mimbres archaeology became obvious in late 1985, when I was preparing a proposal through the Arizona State Museum for archaeological contract work in the Upper Gila area. The major goals of the project at that time were (1) the preparation of the collections for museum curation (they are now in a permanent repository at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe), and (2) the preparation of a descriptive report of the site to assist future analyses of the collections.

Pre-Colonial and Post-Contact Archaeology in Barbados

Pre-Colonial and Post-Contact Archaeology in Barbados
Author: Maaike S. De Waal
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2019-11-30
Genre:
ISBN: 9789088908460

Collected papers on all aspects of Barbados' history, heritage, and archaeology, this volume will have considerable impact upon the wider context of Caribbeanist archaeology, history and heritage studies.

The Archaeology of Wak'as

The Archaeology of Wak'as
Author: Tamara L. Bray
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 423
Release: 2015-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1607323184

In this edited volume, Andean wak'as—idols, statues, sacred places, images, and oratories—play a central role in understanding Andean social philosophies, cosmologies, materialities, temporalities, and constructions of personhood. Top Andean scholars from a variety of disciplines cross regional, theoretical, and material boundaries in their chapters, offering innovative methods and theoretical frameworks for interpreting the cultural particulars of Andean ontologies and notions of the sacred. Wak'as were understood as agentive, nonhuman persons within many Andean communities and were fundamental to conceptions of place, alimentation, fertility, identity, and memory and the political construction of ecology and life cycles. The ethnohistoric record indicates that wak'as were thought to speak, hear, and communicate, both among themselves and with humans. In their capacity as nonhuman persons, they shared familial relations with members of the community, for instance, young women were wed to local wak'as made of stone and wak'as had sons and daughters who were identified as the mummified remains of the community's revered ancestors. Integrating linguistic, ethnohistoric, ethnographic, and archaeological data, The Archaeology of Wak'as advances our understanding of the nature and culture of wak'as and contributes to the larger theoretical discussions on the meaning and role of–"the sacred” in ancient contexts.