Archaeology, Slavery, and Marronage: A Complex Relationship

Abstract

Archaeology has always had a relationship with contemporary politics. Nowhere is the connection more apparent than in the investigation of African life in the New World. For years, archaeology was associated strictly with the study of elite culture. The perspective changed in the late 1960s with the rise of social history and the analysis of peoples generally ignored in written histories. Historical archaeologists have played a major role in illustrating the everyday lives of the “lower orders,” especially Africans in the Americas. New research is occurring in South America, and this collection presents a number of recent analyses that expand what is known about the realities of African life in the diaspora.