Course Credits (3)
The practice of slavery goes back deep into Antiquity and is still found in some regions today. It reached its height between 1450-1850 AD in the Age of Mercantile Capitalism, but its legacy continues down to the present day. Colonial era slavery involved the translocation of millions of people and its enormity has been compared with the European invasion of the Americas and the European Holocaust. Its vast literature includes aspects of anthropology, sociology, history, biology, demography, religious studies, media studies, women’s studies, economics, psychology and medicine. This course focusses on how historical archaeology contributes to the discourse of slavery. Archaeological excavations reveal the currency used to traffic in slaves, the costs of transshipment and how they adapted to their diaspora. It reconstructs the lives and death of slaves, where they lived, what they ate, what they made, and what they believed. Archaeological finds are integrated with written sources to reveal the material signature of enslaved people, showing how slaves coped and reinvented themselves, materially and spiritually, in order to survive and flourish in their vast new Diaspora.
About Professor Schrire
Carmel Schrire earned her degrees at the University of Cape Town, Cambridge University and the Australian National University. She has excavated archaeological sites in Australia, New Guinea, Mauritius, and South Africa. Her work is widely published. Digging through Darkness, 1995, 1996) won the Society for American Archaeology book prize in 1995, and Historical Archaeology in South Africa (2014) was nominated for the Society for American Archaeology Jim Deetz Prize.