Africa’s Discovery of the World from Archaeological Perspectives: Revisiting Moments of First Contact, Colonialism, and Global Transformation

Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Africa’s Discovery of the World from Archaeological Perspectives: Revisiting Moments of First Contact, Colonialism, and Global Transformation," at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Previous approaches in historical archaeology privileging the agency and worldviews of Europeans have tended to marginalize the role of a plethora of African and Indigenous peoples and polities in shaping and responding to colonial conquest, expansion, and early modern globalization. Drawing from a range of archaeological, oral traditional, and archival material, archaeologists are increasingly collaborating with Black and Indigenous communities in disrupting these narratives. Novel approaches are revealing ways in which these historically subjugated groups interpreted, responded to, and influenced the global expansion and development of colonialism and globalization, as well as the historic and ongoing deleterious effects of exploitation, dispossession, and other forms of colonial violence upon many of these societies and their descendant communities. By revisiting histories of first contact, cultural continuity and transformation, and archaeological knowledge production, this session seeks to address these historic inequities while providing new understandings of the early modern world

Other Keywords
Colonialism • Rice • Islam • Cultural Heritage • ontology • colonial contact • community-based archaeology • African Diaspora • Mozambique • Resistance

Geographic Keywords
American Southeast • United States of America (Country) • United Mexican States (Country) • Cayman Islands (Country) • Turks and Caicos Islands (Country) • Bermuda (Country) • Territorial Collectivity of Saint Pierre (Country) • Republic of Cuba (Country) • Canada (Country) • Commonwealth of The Bahamas (Country)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-5 of 5)

  • Documents (5)
Documents
  • A Luta Continua: Post-Colonial Reinterpretations of Early Colonial Contacts and their Contemporary Legacies in Mozambique (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Diogo V. Oliveira.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Africa’s Discovery of the World from Archaeological Perspectives: Revisiting Moments of First Contact, Colonialism, and Global Transformation", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Cultural heritage and patrimony face myriad threats across the globe. Around the world, governments and institutions continue to affirm an inherent desire to protect cultural heritage, yet actions speak louder than words. Climate...

  • Maintaining the boundary: the archaeology of the Ìjẹ̀bú Kingdom’s discovery of the British Empire (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Tomos Ll Evans.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Africa’s Discovery of the World from Archaeological Perspectives: Revisiting Moments of First Contact, Colonialism, and Global Transformation", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Late 19th century British colonial authorities in Lagos sought to extend imperial hegemony over the Yorùbá kingdoms to the north as part of ongoing efforts to control trade in the interior of what is now Nigeria. The Ìjẹ̀bú Kingdom’s...

  • (Re)Framing Colonial Histories and the African Diaspora through a Restorative Archaeology. (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only L. Charde Reid.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Africa’s Discovery of the World from Archaeological Perspectives: Revisiting Moments of First Contact, Colonialism, and Global Transformation", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The arrival of the First Africans in English North America in 1619 marked a pivotal moment for the Virginia colony, for their arrival and labor secured the permanency and expansion of the colony itself. Previous Anglocentric narratives...

  • Rice as Resistance: The Significance of Saraka in the Global Diasporic Observance of the Third Pillar (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mia L Carey.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Africa’s Discovery of the World from Archaeological Perspectives: Revisiting Moments of First Contact, Colonialism, and Global Transformation", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. African Islam, the version of Islam brought by and retained by enslaved Africans and their descendants, disappeared as conscious practice before the eve of the American Civil War. Despite this, remnants of Islamic beliefs and practices...

  • "This Is The Ancestral": Black Women Archaeologists and Ethics of Care (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Nala K. Williams.

    This is an abstract from the session entitled "Africa’s Discovery of the World from Archaeological Perspectives: Revisiting Moments of First Contact, Colonialism, and Global Transformation", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Black women archaeologists care deeply for one another, the artifacts and sites they study, and the global Black community. An ethic of care and notion of obligation are important, undertheorized anti-racist practices that mediate Black...