Chronological Evidence of Material and Landscape Changes Associated with a Shift in Colonial Control at the Morne Patate Plantation, Dominica

Summary

Morne Patate Plantation in southern Dominica (occupied between the 1740s and 1950s) provides us with an opportunity to examine a setting that underwent major changes in social organization and economic engagements associated with the shift in colonial control of the island from the French to the British in 1763. This paper presents an overview of the chronology of the archaeological contexts at the site and changes in settlement organization. This material record provides evidence for discrete phases of occupation which can be tracked through the changes in the altered landscape and the footprint of the plantation. This study examines changes in chronologically sensitive ceramic assemblages that correlate with modifications in the landscape, and changes in buildings constructed at the site. Morne Patate has two main phases of occupation with distinct patterns of material culture and use of space. This change in settlement organization paired with the site chronology provides an important archaeological context to observe different uses of materials and varying domestic production strategies that occur in separate phases of the plantations occupation.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Colonial Consequences: Results from the Archaeological Survey of Colonial Dominica

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16826