J. Cameron Monroe | University of California, Santa Cruz (original) (raw)

Books by J. Cameron Monroe

L'état précolonial en Afrique Occidentale: Construire la pouvoire au Dahomey, 2014

Ce texte est une traduction de mon livre « The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power i... more Ce texte est une traduction de mon livre « The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power in Dahomey» (2014). Le texte a été traduit à l'aide de Google Translate et je ne garantis pas l'exactitude de la traduction. Je le partage pour rendre l'œuvre plus accessible à un public francophone.

Ce volume incorpore des sources historiques, ethnographiques, historiques de l'art et archéologiques pour examiner la relation entre la production de l'espace et l'ordre politique dans le royaume ouestafricain du Dahomey pendant la tumultueuse ère atlantique. Le Dahomey, situé dans l'actuelle République du Bénin, apparaît à cette époque comme l'un des principaux agents de la traite négrière transatlantique et un exemple de la formation d'un État ouest africain. S'appuyant sur treize ans de travail de terrain ethnohistorique et archéologique en République du Bénin, la thèse centrale de ce volume est que les rois dahoméens ont utilisé des tactiques spatiales pour projeter le pouvoir et atténuer la dissidence sur leurs territoires. J. Cameron Monroe soutient que ces tactiques ont permis aux rois d'exploiter économiquement leurs sujets et de promouvoir un sens de l'inévitabilité historique du pouvoir royal, et de naturaliser la distance sociale entre les gouvernants et les gouvernés. J. Cameron Monroe est professeur agrégé d'anthropologie à l'Université de Californie à Santa Cruz et directeur du projet de recherche sur le plateau d'Abomey en République du Bénin, en Afrique de l'Ouest. Ses recherches portent sur la transformation politique, économique et culturelle de l'Afrique de l'Ouest et de la diaspora africaine à l'époque de la traite des esclaves. Son projet de recherche (Projet Archéologique du Plateau d'Abomey, Bénin) porte sur l'économie politique du paysage et de l'environnement bâti, et sur la nature des transformations urbaines en Afrique de l'Ouest à l'époque atlantique. Il a publié le

is a leader in archaeological research locally and around the world. Our PhD program adopts a rig... more is a leader in archaeological research locally and around the world. Our PhD program adopts a rigorous and innovative approach to the archaeology of colonial encounters. We emphasize the combination of advanced laboratory and eld methods to answer exciting questions about the past. UCSC boasts regional specializations in West Africa, Eastern Africa, the African Diaspora, California, the Pacifc Northwest, and South America. Additionally, the UCSC Archaeological Research Center facilitates interdisciplinary dialogue and public outreach among students and faculty. Graduate students at UCSC receive world-class mentorship in a wide range of theories and methods. These include ceramic materials analysis, zooarchaeology, spatial analysis, household and landscape archaeology, chemical and isotopic characterization studies, bioarchaeology, Ancient DNA analysis, and cultural heritage stewardship. Students work closely with faculty within the department and across campus in state-of-the-art research laboratories. We o er our PhD students 5-year funding packages and and an annual housing supplement. Several competitive merit-based fellowships are available to rst-year students. If you are driven to answer important questions in a setting known for its unparalleled natural beauty, please submit your application by December 10, 2021. For information, visit the following websites or contact a faculty member or Graduate Program Coordinator, Kirk Lange

The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power in Dahomey, Jun 2014

This volume incorporates historical, ethnographic, art historical, and archaeological sources to ... more This volume incorporates historical, ethnographic, art historical, and archaeological sources to examine the relationship between the production of space and political order in the West African Kingdom of Dahomey during the tumultuous Atlantic Era. Dahomey, situated in the modern Republic of Bénin, emerged in this period as one of the principle agents in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and an exemplar of West African state formation. Drawing from eight years of ethnohistorical and archaeological fieldwork in the Republic of Bénin, the central thesis of this volume is that Dahomean kings used spatial tactics to project power and mitigate dissent across their territories. J. Cameron Monroe argues that these tactics enabled kings to economically exploit their subjects, and to promote a sense of the historical and natural inevitability of royal power.

This volume examines the archaeology of precolonial West African societies in the era of the tran... more This volume examines the archaeology of precolonial West African societies in the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Using historical and archaeological perspectives on landscape, this collection of essays sheds light on how involvement in the commercial revolutions of the early modern period dramatically reshaped the regional contours of political organization across West Africa. The essays examine how social and political transformations occurred at the regional level by exploring regional economic networks, population shifts, cultural values, and ideologies. The book demonstrates the importance of anthropological insights not only to the broad political history of West Africa, but also to an understanding of political culture as a form of meaningful social practice.

Papers by J. Cameron Monroe

African archaeological review/The African archaeological review, Mar 21, 2024

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 5, 2012

African Archaeological Review, 2024

African Archaeological Review, May 28, 2014

Feasting is a central component of elite power strategies in complex societies worldwide. In the ... more Feasting is a central component of elite power strategies in complex societies worldwide. In the precolonial Kingdom of Dahomey, located in the Republic of Bénin, public feasts were a critical component of royal strategies to attract and bind political subjects over the course of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, a period of dramatic political transformation on the Bight of Benin. Archaeological excavations within the domestic quarters of a series of Dahomean royal palace sites have yielded diverse faunal and ceramic assemblages that represent clear examples of (1) ritualized food consumption and (2) everyday culinary practices. In this paper, faunal and ceramic evidence from two excavated contexts is marshaled to distinguish the archaeological signatures of feasting in Dahomey, highlighting the importance of private feasts in attempts to build political influence in the domestic zones of Dahomean royal palaces. In particular, this analysis foregrounds how royal women jockeyed for power and influence during a period of political uncertainty. Résumé À travers le monde, et parmi toutes les élites des sociétés complexes, la fête a toujours été un élément central dans les stratégies du pouvoir. Concrètement, dans le royaume précolonial du Dahomey, situé dans la République du Bénin, et au cours du 17ème au 19ème siècles, période dramatique de transformation politique dans le golfe du Bénin, les fêtes publiques ont constitué le coeur des stratégies royales destinées à attirer les sujets à la monarchie. Les fouilles archéologiques dans les zones intérieures des palais royaux dahoméens nous ont fourni de diverses collections de la faune et de la céramique, représentent des exemples clairs (1) des repas ritualizés, et (2), des habitudes alimentaires quotidiennes. Dans cet article, les preuves archéologiques obtenues au cours de deux fouilles sont assemblées, pour distinguer les traces archéologiques du phénomène de la fête dahoméenne, et pour révéler le role que les fêtes privées ont joué dans l'élaboration de l'influence politique à l'intérieur des palais royaux dahoméens. En particulier, cette Afr Archaeol Rev

Current Anthropology, 2020

This paper synthesizes recent archaeological research on the Kingdom of Haiti, a short-lived expe... more This paper synthesizes recent archaeological research on the Kingdom of Haiti, a short-lived experiment in political sovereignty founded in the years following the Haitian Revolution. I will explore the potential for an archaeology of sovereignty in the Black Atlantic world. Examining both architectural spaces and artifacts recovered from the palace of Sans-Souci, royal residence of King Henry Christophe, this paper highlights a constellation of material practices that fostered an emerging ideology of authority in postrevolution Haiti. Collectively, this research is revealing how political agents drew creatively and strategically from both European material culture and Afro-Caribbean traditions in the practice of political authority in the Kingdom of Haiti, casting new light on the complex nature of sovereignty after slavery in the Age of Revolutions.

This volume incorporates historical, ethnographic, art historical, and archaeological sources to ... more This volume incorporates historical, ethnographic, art historical, and archaeological sources to examine the relationship between the production of space and political order in the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the tumultuous Atlantic Era. Dahomey, situated in the modern Republic of B é nin, emerged during this period as one of the principal agents in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and an exemplar of West African state formation. Drawing from thirteen years of ethnohistorical and archaeological fi eldwork in the Republic of B é nin, the central thesis of this volume is that Dahomean kings used spatial tactics to project power and mitigate dissent across their territories. J. Cameron Monroe argues that these tactics enabled kings to economically exploit their subjects, promote a sense of the historical inevitability of royal power, and naturalize social distance between rulers and the ruled.

Society for American Archaeology & European Association of Archaeologists Joint Thematic Meeting

29 Leveau 2018, demonstrates that even minor fluctuations for the desert margins and the Maghrib ... more 29 Leveau 2018, demonstrates that even minor fluctuations for the desert margins and the Maghrib proper during Classical antiquity had potentially more profound implications for those zones. 30 Purdue et al. 2018b, 9-12. 31 Purdue et al. 2018b, 9. 32 See Gauthier and Gauthier Forthcoming for an important study that tracks human activity following shrinking lake margins in Chad.

L'état précolonial en Afrique Occidentale: Construire la pouvoire au Dahomey, 2014

The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power in Dahomey, Jun 2014

African archaeological review/The African archaeological review, Mar 21, 2024

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 5, 2012

African Archaeological Review, 2024

African Archaeological Review, May 28, 2014

Current Anthropology, 2020

This volume incorporates historical, ethnographic, art historical, and archaeological sources to ... more This volume incorporates historical, ethnographic, art historical, and archaeological sources to examine the relationship between the production of space and political order in the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the tumultuous Atlantic Era. Dahomey, situated in the modern Republic of B é nin, emerged during this period as one of the principal agents in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and an exemplar of West African state formation. Drawing from thirteen years of ethnohistorical and archaeological fi eldwork in the Republic of B é nin, the central thesis of this volume is that Dahomean kings used spatial tactics to project power and mitigate dissent across their territories. J. Cameron Monroe argues that these tactics enabled kings to economically exploit their subjects, promote a sense of the historical inevitability of royal power, and naturalize social distance between rulers and the ruled.

Society for American Archaeology & European Association of Archaeologists Joint Thematic Meeting

Journal of Haitian Studies, 2017

Abstract:Our understanding of the nature of life in the Kingdom of Haiti, the fledgling state tha... more Abstract:Our understanding of the nature of life in the Kingdom of Haiti, the fledgling state that emerged out of the turmoil of the Haitian Revolution, is obscured by the silences of an often problematic historical and literary archive. Since 2015, an international team of scholars from the United States and Haiti have undertaken archaeological research at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Sans-Souci. The royal palace of Sans-Souci was a key material component of royal power strategies in the Kingdom of Haiti, and it served as the center of political gravity during the reign of Henry Christophe. Despite the centrally important historical role this site has played in Haitian historical memory, negligible archaeological work has been carried out within the palace precinct. Adopting a multidimensional research strategy that includes 3-D modeling, ground-penetrating radar, and targeted excavation, the Milot Archaeological Project (MAP) is casting new light on the architectural chronology of the site, the nature of material life behind the palace walls, and both the regional and the long-distance economic networks in which the Kingdom was embedded. This article summarizes the MAP's recent findings, highlighting the great potential of archaeological research for answering important social, political, and economic questions about this important experiment in political sovereignty.

Historical Archaeology, 2004

The Encyclopedia of Empire, 2016

African Archaeological Review, 2014

The Precolonial State in West Africa

small axe: archipelagos, 2017

There were no beds given the slaves, unless one coarse blanket be considered such, and none but t... more There were no beds given the slaves, unless one coarse blanket be considered such, and none but the men and women had these.. .. They find less difficulty from the want of beds, than from the want of time to sleep; for when their day's work in the field is done, the most of them having their washing, mending, and cooking to do, and having few or none of the ordinary facilities for doing either of these, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in preparing for the field the coming day. – Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass's account provides a rare window into the everyday lives of many enslaved Africans in the New World, lives that were consumed by the grueling demands of plantation labor but were also filled with everyday domestic realities. 1 Historical sources are often silent on such aspects of slave life, and those seeking to tease out these hidden histories often engage with a variety of source material. Written accounts, plantation ledgers, slave narratives, oral traditions, music, folklore, and more are standard " go-to " resources for uncovering the subtle contours of slave life in the past. In the past few decades, archaeological evidence has increasingly entered the conversation, providing a valuable new archive for studying the materiality of slavery in the past. This evidence sometimes corroborates, often counters, and always agitates dominant narratives about slave societies in the New World, and the archaeological study of slavery has expanded significantly since the first excavations were undertaken in slave quarters decades ago. Numerous publications since the 1980s have brought attention to how the material record of slavery in the New World contributes to our understanding of food ways, domestic life, economy, and cultural values. 2 Yet most archaeological projects focus on a single site or, rarely, a handful of sites. As the field has matured, scholars have sought to adopt a comparative approach between sites and across regions, one that is capable of engaging

South African Archaeological Bulletin, vol. 68 number 168.

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 2013

Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 45(2), 2010

International Journal of African Historical Studies, , Vol. 39, No. 2 , 2006

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

UC Santa Cruz is a leader in archaeological research locally and around the world. Our PhD progra... more UC Santa Cruz is a leader in archaeological research locally and around the world. Our PhD program adopts a rigorous and innovative approach to the archaeology of colonial encounters. We emphasize the combination of advanced laboratory and field methods to answer exciting questions about the past. UCSC boasts regional specializations in West Africa, Eastern Africa, the African Diaspora, California, the
Pacific Northwest, and South America. Additionally, the UCSC Archaeological Research Center facilitates interdisciplinary dialogue and public outreach among students and faculty. Graduate students at UCSC receive world-class mentorship in a wide range of theories and methods.
These include ceramic materials analysis, zooarchaeology, spatial analysis, household and landscape archaeology, chemical and isotopic characterization studies, bioarchaeology, Ancient DNA analysis, and cultural heritage stewardship. Students work closely with faculty within the department and across campus in state-of-the-art research laboratories. We offer our PhD students 5-year funding packages and and an annual housing supplement. Several competitive merit-based fellowships are available to first-year students.

Archaeology has assumed a central role in a range of academic and popular narratives about the hu... more Archaeology has assumed a central role in a range of academic and popular narratives about the human past and its possible futures.

Today, archaeologists collaborate with a range of scholars based in cultural anthropology, history, art history, ecology, genetics, and earth sciences to produce truly interdisciplinary findings relevant to wider debates over the social and environmental trajectories of humans.

Founded in 2014, the UC Santa Cruz Archaeological Research Center bring these narratives into inter-disciplinary dialogue with one another, advancing a 21st century archaeology that situates a scientific and historically grounded archaeology within a context of community engagement and public outreach.

This website is devoted to disseminating information about the Abomey Plateau Archaeological Proj... more This website is devoted to disseminating information about the Abomey Plateau Archaeological Project, an archaeological research project in the Republic of Bénin, West Africa which is co-sponsored by the University of California, Santa Cruz and the Direction du Patrimoine Culturel, Bénin, and UCLA. Under the direction of J. Cameron Monroe (UCSC), the Abomey Plateau Archaeological Project has explored the dynamics of political and economic transformation in slave trade era West Africa since 2000. Adopting a landscape approach to this issue, regional survey and excavation has focused on understanding the long-term history of the pre-colonial Kingdom of Dahomey, example of a West African centralized state par excellence and one of principle African partners in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

"Bristol was a major player in the slave trade during the eighteenth century but there are scarce... more "Bristol was a major player in the slave trade during the eighteenth century but there are scarcely any traces of this history in our city today. The importance of this abominable commerce on the fabric of our city – from its rich multiculturalism to its Georgian elegance – has still to be recognised. The panel will take perspectives from different parts of the world and discuss how Bristol might acknowledge, face up to and carry forward its past.

The event will offer an opportunity for panel and audience to reflect on what this key part of Bristol’s history tells us now – the issues it raises of commemoration and legacy, the lessons it may teach and how our shared past bears on the slavery that continues, unnoticed, in the present day.

Chair
Arthur Torrington, OBE, Secretary and Co-Founder of the Equiano Society

Speakers
Mark Horton, Professor of Archaeology, University of Bristol;
Madge Dresser, Associate Professor in History, University of West of England; Kodzo Gavua, IAS Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor and Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and Heritage Studies, University of Ghana; J. Cameron Monroe, IAS Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor and Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of California Santa Cruz; Ros Martin, Poet, Playwright, Owner of Our History, Our Heritage.

The Atlantic Era was a period of intense commercial integration linking key economic players in W... more The Atlantic Era was a period of intense commercial integration linking key economic players in Western Europe, the Americas, the Indian Ocean littorals, and West and Central Africa. The period was marked by dramatic increases in the volume of commerce at both the regional and global levels, radically transforming the societies and environments of these core areas. In fact, it is arguable that few communities on earth escaped the wide-reaching effects of commercial expansion and integration in this period. African slavery in the Atlantic World facilitated this integration. The slave trade linked four continents as traders carried European exports to Africa, exchanged them for enslaved people, and ferried those captives to the Americas. African people and cultures dispersed across the Americas, and the crops and natural resources that enslaved people harvested in the New World were shipped around the globe. This political, cultural, and ecological process laid the foundations for the cultures, environments, and economies of the modern world. At the very heart of this transformation were cities, ports, and plantations that wreaked vast ecological changes across their respective landscapes. Large swaths of land were cleared for agricultural production, port cities were established for import and export, and flora and fauna were transplanted across hemispheres in a process known as the Columbian Exchange. These intentional and unintentional ecological transformations were accompanied by violent social and economic changes. Plantation labor regimes emerged as models for industrial factory work, contributing directly to rapid industrialization in the Atlantic world. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade thus stands as a point of origin for the Anthropocene, the contemporary moment in which environments around the world have been profoundly shaped by human action. This one-day symposium explores of the impacts and legacies of slavery and the slave trade across the landscapes of our rapidly changing world.

Please visit arc.ucsc.edu for further details

Appeals to " heritage " have become increasingly common and visible in recent decades. Whether wi... more Appeals to " heritage " have become increasingly common and visible in recent decades. Whether within the realms of the promotion and recreation of history, claims to sovereignty, protection of landscapes and climate, or economic development, connection to the past is often utilized as a demonstration of legitimacy and authority. Making sense of these diverse appeals to heritage and the many ways that the past becomes meaningfully constituted in the present is a challenge. This is due both to the complexity of the issues as well as the fact that heritage scholars tend to be widely scattered between departments and disciplines. To address these challenges our conference at the University of California, Santa Cruz will bring together an interdisciplinary community of scholars to discuss current research and evaluate future directions for this rapidly growing, yet still decentralized, field of study.

Friday, April 1, 2016 9:00AM-5:30 PM McHenry Library, Room 4286 UC Santa Cruz Campus Organizers:... more Friday, April 1, 2016
9:00AM-5:30 PM
McHenry Library, Room 4286
UC Santa Cruz Campus

Organizers:
Elaine Sullivan, UC Santa Cruz
J. Cameron Monroe, UC Santa Cruz

Conference Theme:
The past decade has witnessed a dramatic surge in the availability and use of digital technologies in Archaeology, where the increasing power and declining cost of computing technology has transformed the way we think about collecting, analyzing, and presenting archaeological data. While many technologies have been adopted and adapted into the field, the potential for 3D modeling is still being explored. This conference asks leading innovators in the use of 3D research methods to present and evaluate the impact and future of this new technology on the study of the past.

Speakers:
Michael Ashley, Center for Digital Archaeology
Edward González-Tennant, Digital Heritage Interactive
Susan Kuzminsky, UC Santa Cruz
Nicola Lercari, UC Merced
Tom Levy, UC San Diego
Bernard K. Means, Virginia Commonwealth University
Rachel Opitz, Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies
John Rick, Stanford University
Elaine Sullivan, UC Santa Cruz
Willeke Wendrich, UC Los Angeles

Keynote Address by Ruth Tringham, UC Berkeley

Admission is FREE and open to the public. Advance registration is required using the link provided below.

Call For Presentations:
In addition to the above speakers, we invite submissions for a small number of digital presentations focusing on methodological issues in 3D archaeology. These presentations will be presented in a digital “poster-session”, in which presenters will have a devoted widescreen LCD. As such, we discourage traditional powerpoint presentations or simple posters, but rather encourage presentations that will make maximum use of the flexibility afforded by a digital presentation mode. We particularly encourage submissions from graduate students, and small travel stipend is available to defray costs for graduate student presenters. Abstracts should be submitted online by February 19th.

The UCSC Archaeological Research Center 1st Annual Research Conference April 14th, 2015 UC Sa... more The UCSC Archaeological Research Center
1st Annual Research Conference
April 14th, 2015
UC Santa Cruz, Porter College
George P. Hitchcock Lounge

Since the first studies 30 years ago, the analysis of ancient DNA from biological specimens found in archaeological contexts has propelled our understanding of the evolution of our species, how humans diverged and interacted in the past, how biology and culture coevolved, how environmental changes impacted on past ecosystems, and also how diseases evolved and spread throughout the ancient world. Recent developments in molecular genetics now provide insights into biological processes unthinkable just 10 years ago. Ancient DNA researchers using these new methods have been able to reconstruct complete genomes of Neanderthals and other extinct species as old as 700,000 years, reconstruct past oral and gut microbiomes allowing incredible insights into past diets and health, to study complex evolutionary processes of adaptation to physical stressors in real-time, study ancient gene expression patterns, and to reconstruct complex patterns of admixture between human populations worldwide granting us a much better picture of how different cultures and regions interacted with each other. Indeed, ancient DNA research has reached the Age of Genomics. The UCSC Archaeological Research Center is hosting a public research conference on Paleogenomics with talks by major leaders in the field. These scientists will present a range of contributions that modern Paleogenomics has made to archaeological efforts to solve the riddles of our collective past.

Society for American Archaeology & European Association of Archaeologists Joint Thematic Meeting

Our understanding of the nature of life in the Kingdom of Haiti, fledgling state that emerged out... more Our understanding of the nature of life in the Kingdom of Haiti, fledgling state that emerged out of the turmoil of the Haitian Revolution, is obscured by the silences of an often problematic historical and literary archive. Since 2015, an international team of scholars from the US and Haiti has undertaken archaeological research at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Sans-Souci. The royal palace of Sans-Souci was a key material component of royal power strategies in the Kingdom of Haiti, and served as the center of political gravity during the reign of Henri Christophe. Despite the centrally important historical role this site has played in Haitian historical memory, negligible archaeological work has been carried within the palace precinct. Adopting a multi-dimensional research strategy, the Milot Archaeological Project (MAP) is casting new light on the architectural chronology of the site, the nature of material life behind the palace walls, and both the regional and long-distance economic networks in which the Kingdom was embedded. In 2017, the MAP initiated 1) a terrestrial LiDAR (3D scanning) campaign to fully document the archaeological landscape at Sans-Souci, and 2) opened new excavations in two areas of the site. This research is providing a hitherto unattainable level of detail on the architectural
chronology of the site and the nature of everyday life within the royal palace complex. This report summarizes the MAPs recent activities, highlighting the great potential of archaeological research for answering important social, political, and economic questions about this important experiment in political sovereignty, as well as possibilities for developing the site for public education and tourism.

In July of 2015, an international team of archaeologists from the University of California, Santa... more In July of 2015, an international team of archaeologists from the University of California, Santa Cruz, the University of Arkansas, the Université National d'Haiti initiated archaeological research at Sans-Souci, the royal palace of King Henry Christophe in Milot. Working under the direction of the Institut de Sauvegarde du Patrimoine National, this project employed traditional surface survey, non-invasive geophysical survey, and targeted test excavation to explore the architectural history of this UNESCO World Heritage site. This report summarizes fieldwork conducted in this field campaign. This results of this preliminary research provide new insights into the history of building at Sans-Souci, and allow us a valuable window into the nature of everyday life, long-distance trade, and local economy during the early years of Christophe's Kingdom.