A Twitch or a Wink: A Search for Meaning in Coins, Cuffs, and Pottery from a Rural Virginia Assemblage

Summary

There are countless ways to interpret archaeological assemblages. One can take a purely functionalist approach. Plates are for eating and cups for drinking; fasteners keep clothing from falling. However, confronted with a range of symbolically charged artifacts from a Late Colonial through Early Republic period site in Northern Virginia, one is tempted to draw upon our anthropological origins to find meaning. A cuff link commemorating the fox hunt as well as coins and pottery bearing classical imagery. Are they simply the artifacts of everyday life in late eighteenth through early nineteenth century rural Virginia? Do they speak to the how citizens of the new republic saw themselves or what they aspired for others to see? Could the symbology represent an understanding among enslaved persons of the inherent contradiction between American bondage and American freedom? To paraphrase a legendary quote, is a cigar ever really just a cigar?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20977