In Small Things Forgotten James Deetz
Historical Archaeology: The archaeology of the spread of European cultures throughout the world since the fifteenth century, and their impact on and interaction with the cultures of indigenous peoples. (Deetz, p.5 )
Academic architecture
Chesapeake Earthfast architecture Utopia House, Kingsmill Plantation, VA
Reconstructions of Earthfast architecture
Worldview What was in the mind of the makers of past artifacts becomes realized in the artifacts themselves So we want to reconstruct not only the activities that produced the artifacts and assemblages we find, but the mental structures that made the artifacts meaningful
Colonial Virginia & Flowerdew Hundred Plantation 1619 to present Gov Yeardley Medieval vs. modern plantation
Archaeology at Flowerdew Hundred 20 previously undocumented sites dating between 1619 & 1800
Colonial clay tobacco pipes
Distribution of tobacco pipe bore sizes at Flowerdew Hundred
Group Revival of tobacco: Re-Anglicization/ Modernization Group Tobacco decline, localization Group Tobacco boomers, impermanence Tobacco histories
Earthfast architecture Phase 1. Tobacco Boomers, High demand/low supply for tobacco Cheap, available land Good climate for tobacco Slow navigable rivers: low transport cost Enclosures in England: push factor Negatives: Hard work, expensive labor Harsh Chesapeake environment
Early colonial Virginia
Iron Bloomer Site at Flowerdew Hundred note stone foundation Phase 2. Creole Diversification, Drop in tobacco prices: European conflicts Slowed immigration Abandonment of early sites, larger tracts sold off/ subdivided 1 st generation American born: separated from English roots, no desire to return Diversification: Agriculture & industry Localization of community Navigation Acts
Phase 1 and 2: Peasant cultures workers of the land – non-urban, non-bourgeois control their own labor conservative, traditional cultural values kin-based, corporate communities localized and suspicious of outsiders routines regulated by seasons and organic agrarian processes
Colonoware vessel: Africans in America Phase 3. Re-Anglicization/ Modernization, Revival of tobacco economy Organization of the Atlantic world Sharp increase in the number of enslaved Africans - Simultaneously affordable and expensive Class formation: planter-slave First generation to not experience labor educated, privileged Rise of popular culture: Georgian Contrast with medieval peasant culture
The Atlantic World: a rationalization of commerce making a living vs. making a profit production — commodity — labor
Structural oppositions Medieval Culture Asymmetrical Corporate Labor of self Traditional Local Organic Georgian culture Balanced Individualized Labor of others Popular/Modern Global Ordered