I am pleased to announce that archaeological data for Stewart Castle, located in Trelawney Parish, Jamaica, are now available on the DAACS website. Background information, site maps, Harris matrices, artifact and excavation images and data on over 11,000 artifacts from the Stewart Castle slave village and main house are now accessible at www.daacs.org. DAACS now contains standardized, downloadable data for 32 slave quarter sites from around the Atlantic Region. They include 19 Virginia sites, two Maryland sites, nine Jamaica sites, and two sites on Nevis.
In May, the DAACS Caribbean Initiative (DCI) initiated excavations at the Stewart Castle, a late-eighteenth-century sugar plantation on the north coast of Jamaica. Located just east of Falmouth Jamaica, in Trelawney Parish, Stewart Castle was patented in 1754. By 1799, the sugar plantation had grown to well over 1200 acres, with approximately 500 acres planted in sugar cane. During the second decade of the 19th century, an average of 332 enslaved Africans lived and worked on the property. A 1799 plat by the surveyors Munro, Stevenson, and Innes captures the scope of the 1200 acre sugar plantation in detail, showing the location of the slave village, the fortified main house, sugar works, and slave provision grounds. The goal of the 2007 DCI excavation was to assess the temporal and spatial occupations at the slave village and main house. With the help of students from the University of the West Indies and the University of Virginia, 176 shovel-test-pits (STPs) were excavated across a 7000 square meter area at the village. Thirty-six STPs were excavated at the main house. Three 1-x-1 meter units were also excavated at the village, one placed near an early nogged house, one on the interior of a cut limestone foundation, and the third on an earthen terrace. Over 11,000 artifacts were recovered from these pits and quadrats. Both the village and main house have mean ceramic dates of 1800. Architectural and landscape features in the village, such as stone walls, foundations and limestone nog piles, and landscape terraces, were selectively mapped with a total station.
This research was conducted as part of a Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS)/University of Virginia archaeological field school. All artifacts, context records, site maps, and photographs from these excavations are available through the DAACS website (http://www.daacs.org). Prior to 2007, no archaeological work relating to the historic period occupations at Stewart Castle had been conducted.
Link to Stewart Castle Village: http://www.daacs.org/resources/sites/StewartCastleVillage/index.html Link to Stewart Castle Main House: http://www.daacs.org/resources/sites/StewartCastleMainHouse/index.html
In 2008, The Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery-UVA Field School in Historical Archaeology, The Archaeology of Sugar and Slavery in Colonial Jamaica (UVA ANTH 382), will be held at the Papine and Mona villages, located on the University of the West Indies, Mona campus.
For more information on the 2008 UVA field school, please contact Jillian Galle at jgalle@monticello.org or 434-984-9873. more
Seville Plantation, Jamaica sites live!
| October 1, 2007 Archaeological data for Seville Plantation, located in St. Ann's Parish, Jamaica, are now available on the DAACS website. Background information, site maps, Harris matrices, artifact and excavation images and data on over 39,000 artifacts from two Seville quarter sites are now accessible at www.daacs.org.
Seville Plantation was excavated by Dr. Douglas Armstrong and students from Syracuse University between 1987 and 1993. The two sites presented through DAACS, Houses 15 and 16, were part of the early slave village located on the sugar plantation. These sites date from the 1670s through 1850s.
Link to Seville House 15: http://www.daacs.org/resources/sites/SevilleHouse15/index.html Link to Seville House 16: http://www.daacs.org/resources/sites/SevilleHouse16/index.html
DAACS has also launched data from its preliminary fieldwork season at the Jessups Plantation on Nevis. In 2006, DAACS, in collaboration with DePaul University, the University of Southampton and National Liverpool Museums conducted a two week shovel-test-pit survey at two village sites at Jessups Plantation. Jessups I, the early village, has a mean ceramic date of 1741. Jessups II, the later village, has a mean ceramic date of 1780. Data will be added to these sites as excavations resume in subsequent years.
Link to Jessups I: http://www.daacs.org/resources/sites/JessupsI/index.html Link to Jessups II: http://www.daacs.org/resources/sites/JessupsII/index.html
DAACS now contains standardized, downloadable data for 30 slave quarter sites from around the Atlantic Region. They include 19 Virginia sites, two Maryland sites, seven Jamaica sites, and two sites on Nevis.
Link to All Archaeological Sites in DAACS: http://www.daacs.org/resources/sites/
Please do not hesitate to contact DAACS with any questions.more
Apply for the 2008 DAACS-UVA archaeological field school in Jamaica.
| November 7, 2007 The 2008 DAACS-University of Virginia Field School in Historical Archaeology, The Archaeology of Sugar and Slavery in Colonial Jamaica (ANTH 382) offers a unique field school experience for advanced undergraduate and graduate students from universities throughout the United States and Caribbean. This field school provides students with a solid grounding in archaeological field and laboratory methods, with a specific focus on understanding slavery in the culturally diverse and economically complex context of the Caribbean through the archaeological record.
The goals of this course are threefold. First, students will learn archaeological survey methods, basic excavation techniques and field recording methods through daily field work on 18th-century sugar plantations located on the campus of the University of West Indies, Mona, outside of Kingston, Jamaica. Second, regular participation in laboratory activities will expose students to 18th and 19th century material culture and provide the basis for analytical exercises that use the archaeological data to make concrete arguments about people living at the Papine and Mona villages. Finally, students will be exposed to collaborative interdisciplinary research through lectures, tours, and field recording projects with faculty from the University of the West Indies, the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, Colonial Williamsburg, and Monticello. Students will have the opportunity to travel throughout Jamaica through supervised weekly field trips and architectural field recording projects off campus.
This field school will run from May 24-June 21, 2008. A detailed description of the field school, as well as the course syllabus, is available online through the University of Virginia's website. Students will receive six credits for particpating in this program. For more information and to apply online, please go to the University of Virginia's Study Abroad website: http://www.studyabroad.virginia.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgram&Program_ID=06067772724F0302750C75750E0A1C017D0F73140E0A74706E0906737B02750B0F700070727B717B05&Type=O&sType=O.
Please contact Dr. Jillian Galle (jgalle@monticello.org; 434-984-9873) with any questions regarding the program.more
