Setting the Table!: Comparative Analysis of Vessel Forms between the Fort Amsterdam and the Brimstone Hill Fortress Collections

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Exploring Globalization and Colonialism through Archaeology and Bioarchaeology: An NSF REU Sponsored Site on the Caribbean’s Golden Rock (Sint Eustatius)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Dutch Caribbean Island of Saint Eustatius has been a focal point throughout the Lesser Antilles and European economic development of the 17th and 18th century period. Food has always been a reflection of complex social and economic exchange between cultures. It is through dietary patterns that trades between countries can be traced back and current cultural patterns understood. This poster focuses on identifying the types of vessel forms from ceramic sherds recovered from Fort Amsterdam on Saint Eustatius and Brimstone Hill Fortress on Saint Kitts. An examination of everyday life vessels can help reconstruct and compare dietary customs, patterns, and table setting traits between Dutch and British sites. In addition, 17th-18th century cookbooks and still life and genre paintings from England and the Netherlands are used as reference to comprehend how common domestic traits can lead up to significant cultural influences that transcend between cultures through time. Quotidian choices can show how globalization can be found even in the way previous settlements in the Caribbean were setting their tables.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Exploring Globalization and Colonialism through Archaeology and Bioarchaeology: An NSF REU Sponsored Site on the Caribbean’s Golden Rock (Sint Eustatius)   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25246