The practice of slavery has risen and faded a number of times, and even exists in some regions today. Its most extensive practice took place during the colonial era, in the Age of Mercantile Capitalism in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, between 1450 and 1860, and its legacy is continues down to the present day. Colonial era slavery involved the translocation and control of millions of people and its enormity has been compared with that of the colonial-era devastation of the North American Native peoples and the European Holocaust. Its vast literature covers aspects of anthropology, sociology, biology, demography, religious studies, women’s studies, economics, psychology and medicine.
Historical archaeology - as defined in the US - covers the period 900-1850 AD when European nations expanded their maritime empires to the New World, Africa and Asia. As such, it includes the 15th-19th centuries when slavery became an essential part of the plantation system on which the wealth of European nations came to depend.
This course focuses on how historical archaeology contributes to the discourse of slavery. Archaeological excavations reveal evidence of how slaves were transshipped from their homelands, and how they lived in their new ones. Their findings help reconstruct the lives and death of slaves, where they lived, what they ate, what they made, and what they believed. It explores how archaeological finds are integrated with written sources to enrich an understanding of this shameful past. It reveals the material signature of enslaved people, showing how slaves coped with their situation, and how they reinvented themselves, materially and spiritually, in order to survive and flourish in foreign lands.
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.