The Material Basis of the Caribbean Plantation Complex

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Transformation of Historical Archaeology: Papers in Honor of Charles E Orser, Jr" session, at the 2019 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the mid-1980s historical archaeology was still deeply mired in its pursuit to identify and define normative markers of patterned human behavior. At this moment in time, when historical archaeology perched on the precipice of processual irrelevance, Chuck Orser published his "The Material Basis of the Postbellum Tenant Plantation." The Marxist apporach shed new light on how material culture of those oppressed by an socioeconomic system created, rather that merely reflected, conditions of inequality. In this paper I demonstrate how the approach adopted by Orser transformed the staid approaches so common in Historical Archaeology at the time, and in so doing I will review how the methodolotgies of archaeology, as a materialist discipline, can be used to interpret the landscapes of the Caribbean Plantaiton Complex. The main points in the paper will be illustrated with examples taken from my 30 years of work in the Caribbean.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2019   •
• The Transformation of Historical Archaeology: Papers in Honor of Charles E Orser, Jr

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 354