Unraveling Global and Local Ceramic Production Networks: An LA-ICP-MS Analysis of Ceramics from Barbados, Jamaica, and Great Britain

Summary

A wide variety of ceramics are recovered in plantation contexts on Barbados and Jamaica, from hand-built coarse earthenwares to refined tablewares, as well as industrial wares for sugar production. The origins for these ceramics are often uncertain. In addition to the importation of ceramics from Great Britain and elsewhere in the Americas, many potters and workshops existed on the islands to produce both quintessentially Caribbean pots as well as European-style vessels. To better understand this complex history and ceramic distribution, we present the results of elemental analysis of 250 coarse earthenwares from plantations on Barbados and Jamaica, analyzed via LA-ICP-MS. These results demonstrate how ceramic sources for both locally made wares and imported wares changed over time within Trent’s Plantation on Barbados, and across multiple plantations on Jamaica. Through this analysis, it becomes possible to visualize the overlapping production networks, from global to exceedingly local, that generated these diverse ceramic assemblages.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16862