Archaeology, the Public and the Recent Past (original) (raw)

Post-Medieval Archaeology, 2015

Abstract

the Powhatans, who from 1607 encountered the english along the James River. in all cases, their material worlds both shaped and reflected the increasing cultural diversity of their daily lives. Perhaps the differences between these volumes result from issues of scale as much as specific regional traditions within our shared discipline. while situating La Placita within the broader context of the political and ethnic intricacies of the American South-west, Clark’s primary focus detailed the archaeology of a single site. It demonstrated how the architecture, layout, artefact assemblages, family memories and local newspapers revealed transformations and continuities of domesticity for the men, women and children who occupied these marginal lands. Her study attempted to convey a sense of ‘place’ as an almost metaphysical aspect of this landscape — an essence that transformed an arid patch of high plains into a ‘home’ remembered across the generations. The necessarily global comparative scope of Horning’s study required far broader brushstrokes. In tracking the flows of investment capital, elite landownership, labour relations, town planning and commodity exchange within and between Ulster and the Chesapeake, her volume firmly locates these two regions within the British Atlantic world of the early modern period. Together, these important volumes help us acknowledge the complexities by which disparate folks encountered each other — died, survived and often thrived — throughout the early colonial period. And through those transformative and highly material experiences how they generated a diverse set of hybrid places of continuing relevance and legacy.

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