Measuring the Quality of Personal Goods: Antipodean Adventures in the Archaeology of Consumption

Penny Crook

Measuring the Quality of Personal Goods: Antipodean Adventures in the Archaeology of Consumption

Part of the An archaeology of colonial consumption: Sydney trade and material culture, 1788–1901 project

Year: 2018

Summary

The systematic indexation of quality in mass-produced goods offers a new approach for historical archaeology and studies of consumption. The relative excellence of glass and ceramics sherds has proven to be a useful complement to traditional analyses of function, fabric and decoration when studying consumer choice at the household level. But does this approach suit the archaeological study of personal goods? Are the challenges of artifact preservation and assemblage diversification too great? This paper will introduce the practice and limitations of the quality system as applied to two classes of personal goods from nineteenth-century domestic assemblages: footwear and pressed-metal ornaments known as ‘Birmingham wares’ (including buckles, buttons and brooches). It will overview current research (2014–2018) applying this approach to the analysis of working-class households in The Rocks, and more broadly, the archaeology of consumer life in colonial Sydney.

Cite this Record

Measuring the Quality of Personal Goods: Antipodean Adventures in the Archaeology of Consumption. Penny Crook. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2018 ( tDAR id: 452664) ; doi:10.6067/XCV8452664