Constructed between 1665 and 1675, the Virginia plantation house known as “Bacon’s Castle” gained notoriety when it was seized during the 1676 Bacon’s Rebellion conflict. The protracted, destructive nature of this event, and the rapid clean-up that ensued even as construction of the surrounding landscape continued, left distinctive archaeological traces. Among these is a refuse pit which remains the largest and best-preserved 17th-century feature/deposit excavated to-date at a site plagued by stratigraphic disturbance and a highly fragmentary artifact record. Remarkable as the Rebellion connection is, the deposit is most remarkable for the glimpses it affords into the materiality of everyday life in the colonial Chesapeake during a transitional, ultimately pivotal, era. Local and imported goods "plundered," but evidently not all "carried away" in the siege, were the focus of a study combining a critical analysis of legacy material with past findings, adding context and complexity to understandings of this site.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century the ruins of Tikal were briefly reoccupied. Refugees fleeing the Caste War of Yucatan (1848-1901 AD) cohabited with Lacandon Maya from the surrounding jungles and heavily Hispanized Itza Maya from the lakes of central Petén, Guatemala, to form a small multiethnic hamlet amongst the hulking ruins of the ancient Maya city. While the village was largely provisioned with cheap globally produced consumer goods from Great Britain and the United States, the most numerous artifact type discarded or abandoned by the historic villagers was a locally made ceramic ware. Tikal Project ceramicist Patrick Culbert assigned what he thought to be Tikal’s final ceramic phase (“Caban”) to the Early Postclassic (950-1200 AD) but admitted that it is “poorly defined.” This presentation explores Tikal’s Caban ceramic phase and offers an introduction to the historic ceramics of Tikal, utilized by the historic occupants of the city.

Cairns Rusty’s Market, located in Far North Queensland, Australia, was a home to Chinese immigrants from 1880s to 1930s. Gordan Grimwade & Associates excavated 1280 ceramic sherds (MVC = 418) from Cairns Rusty’s Market in 2001. Many Chinese migrants moved to city centers seeking further opportunities after the gold exhaustion. Niche Environment and Heritage excavated Nine Holes, a Chinese occupation between 1880s and 1920s on Albert Street, Brisbane City, Queensland in 2020. A total of 2115 ceramic sherds (MVC =304) were analyzed. This paper discusses the differences in the use of ceramic objects in rural and urban Queensland, illustrating how globalization and colonization affected the consumers’ choices and how the Chinese used tangible materials to express their identities.

This paper discusses the analysis of ceramic tableware from the Martin Luther Orphans’ Home (1871-1945) in West Roxbury, Massachusetts to assess the ways the “orphan-parents” who ran the institution used material culture as tools of domestic and religious instruction. By isolating a series of intact deposits on contexts previously thought disturbed, and comparing the assemblage to a contemporary institution, the Dorchester Industrial School for Girls (1859-1941), this research reveals the symbolic narratives encoded into the daily rituals of the orphanage. Analysis of the ceramics sheds light on how the institution emulated specifics of a middle-class domestic experience, reflecting 19th-century notions of respectability and Christian moral values. This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of religious and domestic practices within a late-Victorian institution through detailed analysis of the site's ceramic assemblage.

This paper investigates the diverse ceramic assemblage from the Brafferton Indian School, arguing that attempted Europeanization of Indigenous people reflects a failed universal, Christian culture pushed by European colonization. Ceramic types found at the site, including Chinese porcelain, reveal an influence beyond Europe – with origins spanning at least three continents. Although previous scholarship on the Brafferton has rightfully stressed the importance of Native adaptations of European vessels and cultural forms, and vice versa, this paper highlights these trends in a global context. It follows the development of different ceramics from their origin to the New World, emphasizing the transient and circumstantial nature of material culture’s significance. Thus, although Native children may have been forced to utilize what was presented as ‘English’ or ‘European’ ceramics, these types were never just European, and Native communities could transcribe their own meaning onto these pieces.

Archaeologists have long used organic compounds absorbed into ceramic pastes to study past foodways. Such research has focused almost exclusively on unglazed ceramics since glazes prevent food residues from seeping into the underlying paste. Over the past decade, however, several studies have shown that organic compounds can absorb into the paste of lead-glazed coarse earthenware through glaze imperfections and areas of use wear. This paper presents preliminary findings from the first gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis of absorbed organic residues from 18th- and 19th-century refined earthenware. Our work shows that food residues can be recovered and identified from creamware, pearlware, and whiteware. As a result, this study indicates that absorbed residue analysis can add new dimensions to historical archaeologists’ work on 18th- and 19th-century ceramics through the direct investigation of vessels’ contents.

Maroons, primarily self-emancipated Africans, were ubiquitous throughout the colonial Americas. Yet, studying Maroons archaeologically has proven immensely difficult. Recent excavations on Providencia and Santa Catalina indicate that the islands may have been entirely occupied by Maroons during a “period of abandonment” by European powers from 1671-1786. Artifacts include colonowares, European pipe stems dating to the “Maroon period”, and colonoware pipe stems with African designs. The presence of these along with spatial data from recent excavations provide important information about the lifeways of these Maroons who lived with very little, if any, formal oversight or fear of recapture. The presence of high proportions of imported European materials indicate that the Maroons were not maintaining high levels of self-sufficiency which is often assumed of other Maroon communities near European colonial centers. The Maroons on Providencia and Santa Catalina utilized unique strategies to survive and thrive outside of the colonial industrial complex.

Tonalá Bruñida is an Indigenous Mexican ceramic ware that originated in the late colonial period and is still in production today. This ware is distinguished by its paste, made from a combination of two clays native to the Tonalá region, by a distinct slip which produces a specific scent when in contact with water, and by a meticulous process of burnishing. Tonalá Bruñida was eaten and consumed in high volumes as a luxury commodity among the elite classes of Spain. In fact, it grew to such significance that it was shipped in great quantities whole and in sherds for distribution among the upper classes across Europe, as evidenced by its extensive presence on multiple shipwrecks of the period. This paper presents preliminary results of a project investigating the nutritional and cultural values associated with the geophagia and cultural commodification that inspired the extensive maritime export of an Indigenous ceramic product.

Clay tobacco pipes, both imported and African-produced, are commonly found on West African historic sites. The African-produced pipes, whose unique characteristics set them apart from their European counterparts, have been the subject of extensive studies in West Africa by various researchers. Such studies have focused on typological analyses as a pathway to understanding the spread of tobacco smoking practice, establishing chronologies, and providing insights into the social and economic dynamics of people in the subregion. This paper focuses on pipes from Ede-Ile, a seventeenth- through early nineteenth-century Yoruba town in present-day Nigeria. They share characteristics similar to local varieties from other West African sites, although it remains to be established whether they were locally produced. The study entails a comparative analysis of Ede-Ile pipes with those from other sites in the subregion to identify typological, contextual, functional, and production variations, contributing to an understanding of smoking culture in West Africa.