University Alabama Press Archaeologies of African American Life in the Upper Mid-Atlantic

Review The first comprehensive look at the archaeology of African American sites in the northeastern United States. This volume should be well received by historical archaeologists of the African diaspora and historians alike."" - J. W. Joseph, president of the Society for Historical Archaeology and coeditor of Another's Country: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Cultural Interactions in the Southern Colonies Product Description New scholarship provides insights into the archaeology and cultural history of African American life from a collection of sites in the northeastern United States. This groundbreaking volume explores the archaeology of African American life and cultures in the Upper Mid-Atlantic region, using sites dating from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Sites in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York are all examined, highlighting the potential for historical archaeology to illuminate the often overlooked contributions and experiences of the region's free and enslaved African American settlers. Archaeologies of African American Life in the Upper Mid-Atlantic brings together cutting-edge scholarship from both emerging and established scholars . Analyzing the research through sophisticated theoretical lenses and employing up-to-date methodologies, the essays reveal the diverse ways in which African Americans reacted to and resisted the challenges posed by life in a borderland between the North and South through the transition from slavery to freedom. In addition to extensive archival research, contributors synthesize the material finds of archaeological work in slave quarter sites, tenant farms, communities, and graveyards. Editors Michael J. Gall and Richard F. Veit have gathered new and nuanced perspectives on the important role free and enslaved African Americans played in the region's cultural history. This collection provides scholars of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions, African American studies, material culture studies, religious studies, slavery, the African diaspora, and historical archaeologists with a well-balanced array of rural archaeological sites that represent cultural traditions and developments among African Americans in the region. Collectively, these sites illustrate African Americans' formation of fluid cultural and racial identities, communities, religious traditions, and modes of navigating complex, cultural landscapes in the region under harsh and disenfranchising circumstances. About the Author Michael J. Gall is a principal senior archaeologist at RGA, Inc., in Cranbury, New Jersey, and has directed more than two hundred archaeological projects in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions in the past eighteen years.  Richard F. Veit is a professor of anthropology and chair of the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. He is a North American historical archaeologist whose research focuses on the Mid-Atlantic Region between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. He is the author and coauthor of six books including DiggingNew Jersey’s Past: Historical Archaeology in the Garden State. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Archaeologies of African American Life in the Upper Mid-AtlanticBy Michael J. Gall, Richard F. VeitThe University of Alabama PressCopyright © 2017 University of Alabama PressAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-0-8173-1965-6ContentsList of Illustrations, Acknowledgments, Introduction: Exploring and Contextualizing Historic African American Life in a Cultural Borderland, 1690s to 1950s Michael J. Gall and Richard F. Veit, PART I. SLAVERY AND MATERIAL CULTURE, 1. Identifying an Eighteenth-Century Slave Quarter Complex at the Cedar Creek Road Site in Southern Delaware William B. Liebeknecht, 2. Colonoware in the Upper Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Keri J. Sansevere, 3. An Archaeological View of Slavery and Social Relations at Rock Hall, Lawrence, New York Ross