Archaeology Of Colonialism (in Archaeology/Historical Archaeology)

The Politics of Commerce: Aztec Pottery Production and Exchange In the Basin of Mexico, AD 1200--1650

by Christopher Garraty

2006 The Politics of Commerce: Aztec Pottery Production and Exchange in the Basin of Mexico, A.D. 1200-1650. Ph.D. Dissertation, Arizona State University, Tempe. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms.

The relationships between market and political institutions have varied in different times and places, but no market... more The relationships between market and political institutions have varied in different times and places, but no market system was (or is) devoid of political involvement. The contrasting approaches of the Aztec empire and Spanish colonial regime to the Basin of Mexico market system are instructive about the ways that commercial agents (producers, traders) respond to “top-down” pressures from state elites to steer and direct the commercial economy to their political advantage. The results of this study suggest that the market system in the Basin flourished under the Aztec empire but suffered a decline after the Spanish conquest. To establish a window on state-market relationships, I focus on pottery production and exchange (plainware and decorated wares) prior to and during the period of Aztec imperial rule (ca. A.D. 1200-1520) and subsequent colonial period (ca. A.D. 1520-1650) based on compositional analyses and analyses of form specialization and attribute standardization. In the fragmented political landscape that preceded the Aztec empire, most plainware producers manufactured on a relatively small scale and exchanged their wares locally through a system of small, non-hierarchical market networks that likely operated independently of elite regulation. Conversely, decorated Black-on-orange and redware serving vessels were manufactured on a larger scale in fewer production loci and exchanged over a wider area, indicating a hierarchical exchange system that operated under elite auspices. During the Aztec empire, the consolidation of power under the imperial capitals of Tenochtitlan and Texcoco brought about a more stable milieu for inter-polity interaction. In this context, plainware and Black-on-orange production both involved large-scale, high-intensity production industries centered at or near four principal market centers in the Basin, including the imperial capitals. Tenochtitlan became by far the most prominent and prolific locus of pottery production and export, especially for Black-on-orange vessels and comales (tortilla griddles). After the Spanish conquest, the large-scale pottery production and export industries evident in the Late Aztec period collapsed. Production was generally less intensive, smaller in scale, and probably mostly geared toward local consumers. Tenochtitlan—now Mexico City—was no longer the principal hub of indigenous commerce and became increasingly geared toward the Spanish overseas economy.

2012 (Gil J. Stein) “Food Preparation, Social Context, and Ethnicity in a Prehistoric Mesopotamian Colony” Pp 47-63 in: The Menial Art of Cooking: Archaeological Studies of Cooking and Food Preparation, edited by Sarah R. Graff and Enrique Rodriguez-Alegria. University Press of Colorado, Boulder, CO.

by Gil Stein

This chapter uses food preparation and consumption as a way to examine ethnicity and inter-cultural power relations in... more This chapter uses food preparation and consumption as a way to examine ethnicity and inter-cultural power relations in the worlds earliest known colonial network – that established by Mesopotamia in its surrounding regions during the Uruk period (ca. 3700-3100 BC). Food preparation and consumption often occur in different social contexts, roughly corresponding to the contrast between the domestic and more public or socially inclusive spheres. For this reason, these two activities can reflect different context-dependent assertions of social identity (gender, class, ethnicity) and different degrees of consciousness in practice (habitus vs. intentional symbolic statements). As recent analyses by New World historical archaeologists have shown, these contrasts can be especially marked in multi-ethnic culture contact situations, especially those involving cross-cultural marriage in colonial encounters.

Excavations at the site of Hacınebi along the Euphrates valley trade route in southeast Turkey. Excavations indicate that in the mid fourth millennium BC, the earliest state societies of the Uruk culture in southern Mesopotamia established a trading enclave in the midst of this local Anatolian settlement. The Uruk enclave at Hacnebi forms part of the broader phenomenon called the “Uruk expansion” – the world’s earliest known colonial network. The organization of economic, social, and political relations between Uruk settlements and local communities in the Uruk expansion remains a hotly debated topic. Evidence for long term peaceful co-existence of Mesopotamians and Anatolians at Hacınebi suggests that social and economic relations were based on strategies of alliance rather than colonialist domination. In this paper I compare several aspects of food preparation (food choice, butchery, cooking practices and cooking vessels) with the social context of food consumption. Artifacts from the more domestic social context of food preparation are strongly Anatolian in style, while those from more public contexts of consumption are predominantly of Uruk Mesopotamian styles. Significantly, local Anatolian cooking pot styles predominate even in archaeological contexts that are otherwise overwhelmingly Uruk Mesopotamian in character. The evidence is consistent with the interpretation of gendered ethnic differences between the social arenas of food preparation and consumption. I suggest that the Mesopotamian colonists at Hacınebi forged marriage alliances with local elites, forming multi-cultural households composed of Uruk males and Anatolian females.

“World Systems Theory and Alternative Modes of Interaction in the Archaeology of Culture Contact”.

by Gil Stein

1998  (Gil Stein) “World Systems Theory and Alternative Modes of Interaction in the Archaeology of Culture Contact”. In James Cusick (ed.) Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology. pp. 220-255. Carbondale,  Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Center for Archaeological Investigations.

Roman colonialism and postcolonial thought

by Nic Terrenato

The Fort at Mashantucket: A King Philip’s War-era Defended Location in Connecticut

by Brian Jones

The Massachusetts Center for Interdisciplinary Renaissance Studies Biennial Newsletter Spring 2009. With Kevin McBride.

The Fort at Mashantucket is a King Philip’s War-era archaeological site on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in... more The Fort at Mashantucket is a King Philip’s War-era archaeological site on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in southeastern Connecticut. Evidence from European clay pipe fragments and a wax stag seal associated with the reign of King Charles II indicate a short period of occupation between about 1670 and 1680. The domestic artifacts and food remains, like the fort’s architecture, reflect a syncretic blend of Native and European influences in daily life.

Smoking and culture: the archaeology of tobacco pipes in eastern North America

by Rob Mann

The Silenced Miami: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Evidence for Miami-British Relations, 1795-1812

by Rob Mann

" True Portraitures of the Indians, and of Their Own Peculiar Conceits of Dress": Discourses of Dress and Identity in the Great Lakes, 1830-1850

by Rob Mann

Intruding on the Past: The Reuse of Ancient Earthen Mounds by Native Americans

by Rob Mann

From Ethnogenesis to Ethnic Segmentationin the Wabash Valley: Constructing Houses and Identity in Great Lakes Fur Trade Society

by Rob Mann

Pointe Coupee: Recent Archaeological Investigations at an 18th-Century Colonial Settlement in French Louisiane

by Rob Mann

Occulting the past: conceptualizing forgetting in the history and archaeology of Sylvester Manor

by Kat Hayes

Call for abstracts/Imperialism and Identities - news

by Marko Jankovic

B. ÖZTÜRK, Kuruluşundan Bizans Devri Sonuna Kadar Tios Antik Kenti (The ancient city of Tios from its establishment till the end of the Byzantine Period), Arkeoloji Sanat 128 (2008) 63-78

by Bülent Öztürk

The ancient site of Tios (modern Filyos) lies at the mouth of the river Billaios (Filyos Çayı), towards the western... more The ancient site of Tios (modern Filyos) lies at the mouth of the river Billaios (Filyos Çayı), towards the western end of the southern Black Sea coast, in Zonguldak province. In ancient sources the city is spelt in various ways, including Tios, Tieion, Teion and Tion. In the second half of the seventh century BC the city was founded as a Milesian colony by the priest named Tios.

It was dependent to various kingdoms throughout the Hellenistic period and the city fell under Roman control in AD 70. In the Roman Imperial period, it is understood from inscriptions and coins that Roman emperors and proconsuls encouraged the development of the city. In the Byzantine period the city was a bishopric and we find the names of bishops of Tios on lead seals.

The ceramics of colonial Ciudad Vieja, El Salvador: Culture contact and social change in Mesoamerica

by Jeb Card

Cocco y Letieri - Proyecto localización del primer asentamiento español en la cuenca del Rio de la Plata - Fuerte Sancti Spiritus 1527-1529 Localidad de Puerto Gaboto

by Gabriel Cocco

En: Mamül Mapu: pasado y presente desde la arqueología pampeana,
editado por M. Berón, L. Luna, M. Bonomo, C. Montalvo, C. Aranda y M. Carrera Aizpitarte:
215-226. Editorial Libros del Espinillo (Ayacucho, Pcia. de Buenos Aires). ISBN 1666-2105.

El primer asentamiento español en la cuenca
del Río de la Plata, concretado con el establecimiento
del... more El primer asentamiento español en la cuenca
del Río de la Plata, concretado con el establecimiento
del fuerte Sancti Spíritus (1527-1529) a orillas del
Río Carcarañá, representó un hito trascendental que
fue extensamente tratado a través de la documentación
histórica. El objetivo de este trabajo es exponer
los resultados preliminares de un proyecto de investigación
en curso desde una perspectiva arqueológica.
Para alcanzar los objetivos propuestos se requirió del
concurso y aportes de otras ciencias como la historia
y la geología, y la aplicación de una metodología
integradora de las disciplinas intervinientes que permita
ofrecer un panorama más amplio para la interpretación
y el análisis de las evidencias arqueológicas
recuperadas hasta el momento.

Beyond Intermarriage: the role of the Indigenous Italic population at Pithekoussai

by Olivia Kelley

(Forthcoming 2012) in the Oxford Journal of Archaeology

Encounters in the ditch: Ritual and the middle ground in an Iron Age hillfort in Galicia (Spain)

by Alfredo González-Ruibal

Co-authored with Rafael M. Rodríguez Martínez and Xurxo M. Ayán Vila.
Published in Bollettino di Archeologia Online (2010). Volume Especiale. Rome 2008. International Congress of Classical Archaeology, pp. 25-31.

Italian Archaeology in Libya From Colonial Romanità to Decolonization of the Past

by Massimiliano Munzi

Published in M.L. Galaty, C. Watkinson (eds), Archaeology Under Dictatorship, New York, 2004, pp. 73-107.

Italian imperialism in Africa, especially in Libya, was from the start connected with the ideology of Romanità. Of... more Italian imperialism in Africa, especially in Libya, was from the start connected with the ideology of Romanità. Of course, Italy's colonial experience ended traumatically with the disaster of WWII, followed by the collective removal of all signs of fascism, including also the abandonment of the Romano-centrism of Italian archaeology. Owever, sketching a picture of what were potentially important scientific enterprises, while at the same time facing evidence for hurried, non-stratigraphic excavations subordinated to political ideologies, is a tax that contemporary Italian archaeology must now have the courage to pay. Archaeology played a fundamental role in building the ideology of the historical right of Rome to Libyan land. As a result, the political powers turned particular attention to the discipline and to classical studies, in general. Fascism enlarged greatly and rapidly the already strong recognition of the political value of Romanità and of Roman archaeology, thereby permanently binding the concept of Romanità to itself.

Roberto Paribeni. Elemente einer politischen Biographie

by Massimiliano Munzi

Published in C. Trümpler (ed), Das grosse Spiel. Archäologie und Politik, Köln 2008, pp. 560-569.