Archaeological
Approaches
to
Atlantic
Slavery

Anthropology and Architectural History 3603/7603	Place:Campbell Hall 105
University of Virginia	Wednesday:4:30-7:00
Fall 2010	Fraser D.Neiman

Description This course explores how archaeological evidence can be used to enhance our understanding of the slave-based societies that evolved in the early-modern Atlantic world from the 17th through early-19th centuries. We will focus on the Cheapeake, South Carolina, and Jamaica. The course covers recent contributions to the historical and archaeological literatures on the lives of enslaved people, as well as theoretical models of human behavior and basic techniques in archaeological data analysis that jointly are required to make and evaluate inferences about the meaning of archaeological evidence. The course is structured around a series of research projects that offer students the opportunity to use historical knowledge, theoretical grounding, and methodological skills in the analysis of real data from the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (http://www.daacs.org). In each project, you will have an opportunity to make and critically evaluate inferences about the historical meaning of the archaeological record left behind by enslaved Africans and their descendents. The projects focus on the following issues: How can we infer reliable, fine-grained archaeological chronologies that are necessary to trace patterns of change in lifeways of enslaved people within a single site and at multiple sites? What do patterns of change across the 18th century and regional variation in slave houses and in the abundance and morphology subfloor pits tell us about social dynamics within slave communities? Do changing frequencies and shapes of locally made and imported ceramic vessels document changing social identities, economic opportunities, and participation by enslaved people in markets and the 18th-century "consumer revolution"? The class format combines lectures, discussion, and computer workshops. Course Schedule and Reading List The schedule and readling list for the course are available here. All required reading will be available on Collab You may want to purchase the following two books. We'll be reading almost all of Samford and three chapters from Davis. Davis, David Brion 2006 Inhuman Bondage, The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. Oxford, New York. Click here. Samford, Patricia 2007 Subfloor Pits and the Archaeology of Slavery in Colonial Virginia University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. Click here. Requirements Written work for the course includes the three class projects. The class projects are due at the beginning of class on the day specified in the Course Schedule. I will deduct one letter grade for each day your project is late, unless it is accompanied by a letter from your physician or association dean attesting to your physical incapacity. Plan your work accordingly. Each student is responsible for one presentation in which he or she shares the results of one of the projects with the class. We will divide the projects up on the first day of class. Presentations should be 20-30 minutes in length. There will be occasional short homework assignments (in addition to the reading). These are designed to ensure that you are mastering the analytical and technical skills that you will need to complete the projects successfully. Doing well on the class projects requires integrating archaeological data with theoretical ideas, analytical techniques, and historical information from the reading and lectures. There is no way you will be able to be able to grasp the ideas, learn the techniques, digest the history, do the analysis, and write it all up in the week before the project is due. Success requires that you do not miss any classes; come to class having mastered the reading for that week; if you do not understand something we cover in class, ask immediately. Honor Policy Students in this class are expected to adhere to the College's and University's honor policies. I reserve the right to determine grades, independent of the outcome of any honor investigation. Evaluation Three written class projects: 20% each; one project presentation: 10%; Homework: 10%; Participation in class discussion 20%. Datasets DAACS: Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Clifts Plantation Data Project Descriptions and Requirements Project 1: Utopia Chronology Project 1: Slave Housing in the Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake Project 3: Enslaved Consumers? Software Tools Excel Tutorial Excel skills a bit rusty? Try this tutorial. XYChartLabeler.xlam An Excel Add-In that allows you to label scatterplots. For quick-and-dirty installation, download the .xlam file. Then launch Excel, click the Office Button, then "Excel Options" > "Add-Ins" > "Manage Excel Add-Ins" > "Go" > "Browse". Navigate to the folder than contains the .xlam file, select it, click "OK". The complete package, which requires administrator privleges to install, is available from appsro.com . Frequency-Seriation Diagrams Make sure you get FrequencySeriation.xls (v3.0) An Excel spreadsheet with VBA code, from Tim Hunt and Carl Lipo, that draws frequency-seriation diagrams a la Jim Ford.

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