Archaeological Anthropology Commons^™

Transnational Artifacts: Grappling With Fluid Material Origins And Identities In Archaeological Interpretations Of Culture Change, Douglas Ross

Douglas Ross

There has been a gradual shift in historical archaeology towards interpretive approaches to material culture, including recognition of the potential for multiple functions and meanings in local contexts. It is argued here that artifacts can also maintain multiple, fluid origins and identities that affect our understanding of the nature of cultural persistence and change among migrant, indigenous and other ethnic groups. However, predefined classification schemes are often rigid and do not allow for this kind of fluidity, including the potential for artifacts from one culture to be indigenized into another. Data drawn from recent research on Japanese migrants in British …

Book Review Of Anna Andrzejewski, Building Power: Architecture And Surveillance In Victorian America, Adrian Myers

Adrian Myers

Historical Archaeology

Comparing The Material Lives Of Asian Transmigrants Through The Lens Of Alcohol Consumption, Douglas Ross

Douglas Ross

Historians commonly use the twin concepts of transnationalism and diaspora in exploring the lives of overseas Asian migrants, but such analyses are only just emerging among archaeologists. These concepts forefront processes of culture change and identity formation that consider simultaneously socio-economic and cultural influences from home and host countries. They also present an interpretive framework and common axes along which scholars can compare distinct groups of migrants. This study compares patterns of material consumption among Chinese and Japanese migrants at a salmon cannery in British Columbia through the lens of social drinking. Results indicate both groups consumed a range of …

Domestic Brick Architecture In Early Colonial Virginia, Douglas Ross

Douglas Ross

The purpose of my research was to clarify the social and economic significance of brick domestic architecture in early eighteenth century Virginia, a period for which few if any well-dated examples are known from prior to c. 1720, and to use the findings to reevaluate the significance of brick for the entire first century and a half of English settlement in Virginia. An associated goal was to use this understanding to aid in interpreting the results of my excavations at Turkey Island, a seventeenth to nineteenth century tobacco plantation in Henrico County owned by the Randolph family.

Structural data on …