Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 22 January 1988:
Vol. 239. no. 4838, pp. 362 - 367
DOI: 10.1126/science.239.4838.362
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

American Historical Archeology: Methods and Results

JAMES DEETZ 1

1 Professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.

For historical archeology to be effective, research methods must be employed that ensure that both archeological and historical data be synthesized in a constructive manner. An example from Flowerdew Hundred, a Virginia plantation, illustrates such an approach. Collections from eighteen sites(1619 to 1720) were studied and dated by the inside bore diameters of pipestem fragments from clay smoking pipes. The sites grouped into three distinct categories, each with a different date. The latest group of sites (1680 to 1720) contained Colono ware, a slave produced pottery; none of the earlier sites did, although there were blacks at Flowerdew Hundred as early as 1619. On the basis of studies of probate data and other primary historical sources, it is suggested that this pattern of Colono ware occurrence is due to a change in the social and residential status of blacks during the century and that only when they lived separately from the masters did they make this type of pottery.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
On the Fringes of Conquest: Maya-Spanish Contact in Colonial Belize.
E. GRAHAM, D. M. PENDERGAST, and G. D. JONES (1989)
Science 246, 1254-1259
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)