1000 sherds: Portuguese Ceramics at Jamestown

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Jamestown collection contains proportionally few Portuguese-made ceramics. However, their presence in seventeenth century Virginia highlights the political, economic, and social dynamics between an established world power and a developing one. Global trade networks, particularly the trading power and influence of the Dutch in the seventeenth century, inform our understanding of the material culture of James Fort. This influence likely played a role in the presence of Portuguese coarsewares and tin-glazed earthenwares in early Virginia. Preliminary evidence indicates that Portuguese ceramics were used onsite for the duration of the early fort period ca. 1607-1624. This paper will present the results of a ceramic vesselization and analysis in an attempt to better understand the period in which Portuguese vessels were imported to Jamestown, the vessel forms present on site, and the types of contexts the broken ceramics were ultimately deposited in.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023   •
• Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow