A01=Myriam Arcangeli
Antillean
archaeology
artifacts
Author_Myriam Arcangeli
Basse-Terre
Caribbean
Category=NK
ceramic artifacts
ceramic culture
ceramics
colonial sites
commensal events
Creole
Creole cuisine
Creole culture
Creole medicine
Creole women
domestic life
domestic slaves
domestic water management
early modern households
elite planters
enslaved
enslaved healers
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
European colonization
Faience
Faience style
feasting practices
foodways
French colonial
French colonial world
Guadeloupe
historical archaeology
hospitality
households
jugs
marked ceramics
material culture
pearlware
pots
potsherds
probate inventories
social history
social power
tableware
water ceramics
water reserves
West Indies
Product details
- ISBN 9780813080581
- Weight: 272g
- Dimensions: 155 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 14 May 2024
- Publisher: University Press of Florida
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Investigating ceramic artifacts to better understand daily life in the French colonial Caribbean
Ceramics serve as one of the best-known artifacts excavated by archaeologists. They are carefully described, classified, and dated, but rarely do scholars consider their many and varied uses. Breaking from this convention, Myriam Arcangeli examines potsherds from four colonial sites in the Antillean island of Guadeloupe to discover what these everyday items tell us about the people who used them. In the process, she reveals a wealth of information about the lives of the elite planters, the middle and lower classes, and enslaved Africans.
By analyzing how the people of Guadeloupe used ceramics—whether jugs for transporting and purifying water, pots for cooking, or pearlware for eating—Arcangeli spotlights the larger social history of Creole life. What emerges is a detail rich picture of water consumption habits, changing foodways, and concepts of health. Sherds of History offers a compelling and novel study of the material record and the “ceramic culture” it represents to broaden our understanding of race, class, and gender in French-colonial societies in the Caribbean and the United States.
Arcangeli’s innovative interpretation of the material record will challenge the ways archaeologists analyze ceramics.
Ceramics serve as one of the best-known artifacts excavated by archaeologists. They are carefully described, classified, and dated, but rarely do scholars consider their many and varied uses. Breaking from this convention, Myriam Arcangeli examines potsherds from four colonial sites in the Antillean island of Guadeloupe to discover what these everyday items tell us about the people who used them. In the process, she reveals a wealth of information about the lives of the elite planters, the middle and lower classes, and enslaved Africans.
By analyzing how the people of Guadeloupe used ceramics—whether jugs for transporting and purifying water, pots for cooking, or pearlware for eating—Arcangeli spotlights the larger social history of Creole life. What emerges is a detail rich picture of water consumption habits, changing foodways, and concepts of health. Sherds of History offers a compelling and novel study of the material record and the “ceramic culture” it represents to broaden our understanding of race, class, and gender in French-colonial societies in the Caribbean and the United States.
Arcangeli’s innovative interpretation of the material record will challenge the ways archaeologists analyze ceramics.
