TricTrac, Pitch and Toss, and Other Games: The Contexts of Handmade Ceramic Disks in New Netherland

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "More than Pots and Pipes: New Netherland and a World Made by Trade" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Examples of European ceramics carved into roughly circular pieces, are found on archaeological sites throughout the Atlantic world. Most scholarship to date focuses on “gaming pieces” created and used by enslaved people on plantations in the Caribbean and southern North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. Less studied are those ceramic disks recovered from northern North America and especially within 17th century Indigenous and European contexts. Two redware disks recovered from the New Amsterdam house occupied by the Kierstede family are rare examples from a 17th century urban context. The Kierstedes enslaved people of Indigenous and African ancestry adding depth and complexity to the interpretation of these objects. The occurrence of these objects suggests cultural origins as well as possible reasons for their presence on later 18th century sites in New York.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022   •
• More than Pots and Pipes: New Netherland and a World Made by Trade

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology