"Southern archaeology" : the French départements and territories d'Outre-Mer in the Indian Ocean

Summary

At the beginning of the present decade, France developed a new policy for archaeology in its dependencies in the southern Indian Ocean and a department of the French ministry of culture and communication was created to oversee it. Reunion island was uninhabited before its colonization by the French, and was one of the last places in the world where no organised archaeological research had previously been undertaken. Our research program on the island provided two important discoveries related to slavery: coastal cemetery slave burials featuring dental mutilation, and the first maroon refuge site excavated, high in a volcanic region of the central mountains. Research has also started again on Mayotte Island, which has seen varied colonization since the medieval period, and in the French Southern and Antarctic territories where remains of one of the last attempts of modern colonization, at the then end of the world, have been studied.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Historical (Colonial) Archaeology in the French Départements d’Outre Mer.   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 506