An Archaeology of the English Atlantic World, 1600–1700

Drawing together information from numerous seventeenth-century texts and the findings of modern archaeological research, Orser examines the historical meaning of artifacts excavated throughout the seventeenth-century English Atlantic world. The coverage encompasses England, Ireland, western Africa, the Caribbean, and native North America. Where appropriate, he also makes forays into the non-Anglophone world, including a section dealing with the impact of the Portuguese on west central Africa. He places the archaeological evidence about housing, fortifications, delftware, and stoneware in its context through consideration of the networks of people and their skills that shaped English connections with the Atlantic’s diverse seaboards. Orser is as concerned with evidence associated with those people who were disadvantaged by colonial expansion, such as Native Americans and black Africans, as he is with material generated by English craftsmen, builders, and planners. He acknowledges that archaeological findings for some areas of the English Atlantic world are underdeveloped, which is...