Breaking and Making Identities: Transformations of Ceramic Repertoires in Early Colonial Hispaniola

Author(s): Marlieke Ernst; Corinne Hofman

Year: 2017

Summary

Placed within the context of the ERC-NEXUS1492 research, this paper focusses on transformations in indigenous social and material worlds in Early Colonial Hispaniola. The initial intercultural encounters in the New World have led to the creation of entirely new social identities and changing material culture repertoires in the first decennia after colonization. The incorporation of European earthenwares in the indigenous sites of El Cabo and Playa Grande will be contrasted with the presence of indigenous ceramics and new manufacturing traditions in the early Spanish colonial sites of Cotuí and Concepción de la Vega. The transformation processes in ceramic repertoires will be assessed through a multi-pronged approach using theories of gift giving, appropriation and imitation combined with archaeological and ethnoarchaeological studies of the operational sequence (chaine opératoire) of ceramic manufacture. The paper presents new insights into the dynamics of Amerindian-European-African interactions, mutual influences and resilience at the onset of colonial encounters in the Americas.

Cite this Record

Breaking and Making Identities: Transformations of Ceramic Repertoires in Early Colonial Hispaniola. Marlieke Ernst, Corinne Hofman. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 431375)

Spatial Coverage

min long: -90.747; min lat: 3.25 ; max long: -48.999; max lat: 27.683 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15771