African American Archaeology
Tom Wheaton and John Mcarthy
This symposium is intended as an introduction of African-American archaeology to the international community. It presents a cross section of the types of research being conducted, and explores some of the questions we are dealing with that go beyond artifacts and features, and into why we are doing what we are doing, and how to make our research relevant to non-archaeologist African Americans and to the general public. The sub-field of African-American archaeology is relatively new. Until the late 1970s, the number of projects touching on African-American archaeology could be counted on the fingers of two hands. Because of federal government regulations that required that all sites be dealt with, not just those traditionally considered to be significant, there was a boom in the study of non-traditional site types, not the least of which was African-American sites. Joe Joseph discusses this trend in his paper, but notes that current cultural resource management (government regulation compliance archaeology or CRM) dealing with the diaspora lacks focus, and he projects what he sees as the future role of CRM in African-American studies.
The next five papers discuss issues of culture change, continuity and resistance among slaves and freedmen at specific sites in the United States and Canada. Garrett Fesler presents the results of several years of research at a single late seventeenth to late nineteenth-century slave village in Virginia that has implications for the study of slavery in the Chesapeake region. Tom Wheaton presents data from three early eighteenth to early nineteenth century slave quarters in South Carolina showing a century of culture change. Ken Brown presents some surprising data and conclusions from a nineteenth-century Texas plantation illustrating belief systems and possible African connections. John McCarthy explores possible African continuities in the use of everyday items in antebellum African-American burials in Philadelphia. Karolyn Smardz approaches the question of resistance to slavery and racial discrimination through the study of a fugitive slave site in Canada that played a prominent role in Toronto’s history.
Synthetic studies have not been common in African-American archaeology, due in large part to the recent and rapid growth of the sub-field. Shannon Dawdy presents an attempt at such a synthesis while illustrating the impacts of French, Spanish and English cultures and systems of slavery on the creolization of African Americans in Louisiana. The last two papers present non-traditional approaches to African-American archaeology, or more properly to the use of African-American archaeology. Carol McDavid discusses the use of the Internet to create new dialogues about archaeological “truth” between black and white descendants of the same plantation (and between archaeologists and publics more generally) in hopes that archaeological knowledge may act as a catalyst for community collaboration and reform. Anna Agbe-Davies examines the implications of African-American archaeology for the current discussion of race relations in the United States, as well as the increasing role of African Americans in archaeological research. These two papers are particularly pertinent given President Clinton’s emphasis on promoting a national dialogue on race.
papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Agbe-Davies The legacy of ‘race’ in African-American archaeology: A silk purse from a wolf’s ear?
Brown Barnes An African village in a microcosm: the archaeology of spirituality in an African-American Tenant community
Lee Dawdy Contrasts at the crossroads: African-American archaeology in Louisiana
McCarthy African-Influenced burial practices and sociocultural identity in Antebellum Philadelphia s074mcc1
McDavid Contemporary conversations about the archaeology of slavery and tenancy: Collaboration, descendants, and computers
Smardz Archaeology of the African Diaspora in Canada
Wheaton Yaughan and Curriboo: A century of African-American culture change
Links Related to this Symposium:
Http://www.webarchaeology.com (Discussed in Carol McDavids Paper)