Seventeenth-Century Clay Industries at ca. 1670 Charles Towne, Charleston, South Carolina

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum: Celebrating 20 Years Serving the Archaeological Community " session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The restoration of Charles II to the English throne created a flourishment of economic growth, philosophical change, and a new focus on scientific experimentation in the English empire. The Carolina colony was founded in 1670 with the intent to create an ordered and profitable society for its colonists that was focused on agriculture and local industries within the colonies. This study targets specific examples that evidence clay as a source for and byproduct of 1670s industry, trade, and commerce that molded and shaped Carolina and its colonists, revealing information about the elite private property owners, indentured servants, and enslaved Africans that labored to transform Carolina into a successful colony. This study utilizes laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analyses on 146 samples from three distinct clay wares—kaolin tobacco pipes, redware, and colonoware pottery—recovered from contexts at the ca. 1670 town settlement. Here, we establish an elemental signature for future comparative studies and gain insight into English global and regional trade and commerce as well as the early local clay industries founded in the Carolina colony.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• The Elemental Analysis Facility at the Field Museum: Celebrating 20 Years Serving the Archaeological Community

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39533.0