The Early Immigration Experience in Global Perspective
Susan D. Ball
European colonisation of the world and the effects of contact with indigenous populations are two of the most important and, I believe fascinating, topics in historical archaeology today. Inherent in any discussion of the colonisation of an area is the story of the immigrants who realised the colonial endeavour and their contact with indigenous peoples. Historical archaeologists have been studying African, British, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Spanish immigration to the New world, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific for many years resulting in an increased awareness of the dynamics of colonisation, settlement, multicultural interaction, and culture change. Increasingly, historical archaeologists have been addressing the myriad issues concerning the contact between Europeans and local peoples. Additionally, much historical archaeology is being done in Africa and Europe (a.k.a. medieval archaeology) to learn more about the world the immigrants left behind them. I propose a symposium that would bring together this large body of work in such a way that the process of the early immigration experience might be revealed. The session will be composed of a series of papers for each immigrating group represented. Ideally, each series will include four papers; one paper on the archaeology of the homeland for a given time period, one concerning the realities of the transoceanic voyage for the time, one on settlement in a colony from the same time period in order to maintain cultural and temporal continuity, and one on the effects of contact on native populations. Each series will be concluded by remarks from a discussant. With this symposium I want to provide a broader, yet more inclusive, context for examining colonisation and, more specifically immigration, and culture change by bringing together historical archaeologists who study different colonial episodes at different points in time but who are all studying the same process and who are posing very similar and related questions. My hope is that through such a comparative approach, new theoretical and methodological insights and questions will be suggested that will benefit historical archaeologists in their study of this global phenomenon.
papers:
Author 1 Author 2 Title
Brink From Citizen to settler: European colonists at the Cape of Good Hope
Brink Discussant: 17th Century Dutch Immigration to South Africa Series
Cremin Home and Away: the Material Culture of colonial Portugal
Funari Discussant: 16th Century Portuguese immigration to Brazil series
Janowitz 17th Century Dutch Foodways in New Netherlands
Jordan Creating the Colonist: potters, pottery production and identity at the Dutch colonial Cape of Good Hope
Lawrence An Archaeology of Early Colonial Australia, 1780-1851
Murray Discussant: 19th Century British Immigration to Australia Series
Rothschild The Beaver is all things: Mohawk and Dutch policies of interaction in the Hudson Valley, New York
Schaefer Life in the 17th Century Netherlands
Smith Immigrants and indigenes in 17th Century South Africa s036smt1
Staniforth Immigrants and Convicts to Australia: the Voyage experience
Stevens Aborigines and the Pastoral Economy in the Pilbara, Western Australia.
Wall Discussant: 17th Century Dutch Immigration to New Netherlands Series
Werz Ships of Wood and men of Steel: Trans-Oceanic Voyages to the Cape of Good Hope during the 17th Century