Theme: "Evidence"

The session brings together scholars whose varied research on the archaeology of colonialism will converge on the theme of “evidence.” Participants will evaluate the evidence for past colonial interactions and address critical questions, like “what this evidence counts for” and “how evidence might be colonial”. Finally, the session will explore how novel configurations of evidence and isolated discoveries shape the discipline, direct the places where we conduct our research, and change the communities with which we engage.

In the talk on Caribbean Encounters, Material Engagements and the Making of Europe, Corinne Hofman (Leiden University) and Mark Hauser (Northwestern University) explore the role of early encounters in the Caribbean in creating European identities, by drawing insights from the eastern Caribbean. A full abstract of the paper can be found below

Abstract

The disciplinary practice of Caribbean archaeology has created a fractured landscape. There are in fact two Caribbean archaeologies: one focused on indigenous pasts examining indigenous settlements and households before and during the early years of European colonization; the other focused on concerns of capitalism, empire and the African diaspora devoting their attentions to plantation and commercial landscapes. An unintended implication of this practice is that colonial trade, politics, and migration are framed between ‘the west and the rest’. Here the west is Europe and its nations presented as stable categories.

While this is not unique to the Caribbean, the implications of this practice in the Caribbean has much broader impact. In this paper we show how early encounters in the Caribbean were equally important in creating European identities, among others, as stable categories that inform the unfolding of the region’s history. We draw insights from the Eastern Caribbean, a region continually occupied for 2 millennia. Trade goods recovered from excavated houses and surface survey show an integrated landscape. First the landscape is littered with discrete archaeological components dating to different phases of Caribbean history. Second, there is a general trend from a limited set of trade goods from a highly diverse set of origins to a relatively diverse set of goods coming from a limited number of sources. These observations highlight the peripheral flows and the circulation of goods and ideas they fostered.

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