Island Lives: Historical Archaeologies of the Caribbean (review)

Paul Farnsworth's Island Lives seeks to appeal to a wide audience. For those familiar with the archaeology of colonial and postcolonial North America, it is an introduction to the work done to date in the Caribbean, presenting principal sites, research foci, and theoretical concerns. For those interested in applied anthropology and the collaboration between foreign investigators and local interest groups, it discusses the recent influence of Caribbean peoples and institutions in setting research agendas. Moreover, for those concerned with the formation of national identities, it claims to provide material evidence to bolster Caribbean nationalist assertions of cultural originality and resilience.

The volume consists of three sections. The first includes four essays that provide broad coverage of recent research in historical archaeology in the British, Dutch, French, and Spanish Caribbean. The authors summarize the current state of historical archaeology in the region, indicate guiding theoretical and thematic frameworks, and assess the progress and direction of research in each colonial and linguistic tradition. Charles R. Ewen uses the Columbian Quincentenary to appraise the development of Spanish colonial archaeology before and after 1992. Jay B. Haviser's goals in his essay are twofold: to present a reference essay on historical archaeological research in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba and to appraise the impact of this work on the islands' present populations. André Delpuech reviews the site reconnaissance and excavation done under the French government's incipient historical archaeology program in Guadaloupe, a project he has headed since 1992. David R. Watters concentrates his essay on the efforts of nongovernmental organizations in the British Caribbean, emphasizing their work to date in identifying and preserving archaeological sites of potential national interest.

Part 2, on Caribbean landscapes, includes overviews of three long-term projects. Norman F. Barka, in a summary of archaeological survey and excavation done on St. Eustatius since 1981, traces the changing settlement and land-use patterns on the island from the 1630s to the present. Douglas Armstrong combines survey and archival data to trace the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century settlement patterns of a free creole community in the east end of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Lydia M. Pulsipher and Conrad "Mac" Goodwin catalog the major findings from 15 years of fieldwork at the Galways site, a sugar plantation on Montserrat.

The third and final section tackles the issues of cultural continuities, culture change, and the development of creole cultures in the Caribbean. Thomas C. Loftfield claims that vernacular military architecture and locally produced ceramics reveal the rapid creolization of both Europeans and Africans in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Barbados. Paul Farnsworth and Laurie A. Wilkie stress African cultural continuities in their respective essays on plantation sites in the nineteenth-century Bahamas. Farnsworth argues that changes in construction techniques and materials for slave quarters resulted from "diachronic cultural negotiation between Africans and Europeans" (p. 271), in which their respective "mental templates" (p. 266) guided their architectural preferences. The resulting buildings incorporated African material propensities and thus reflected continuing African cultural identities. Wilkie also argues that the archaeological record reflects the maintenance of African cultural identity among plantation slaves. She examines ceramic tablewares, smoking pipes, and personal adornments (namely buttons) from archaeological contexts identified as having been African residences, and concludes that the assemblages reflect an African consumer preference for certain colors, decoration patterns, and motifs. The preference for particular forms sprung from aesthetic standards that in turn reflected an African cultural identity.

The individual sections show internal integrity, but the volume as a whole is unwieldy. The essays in the first section reflect the current state of the field. In many places historical archaeology is young, still at the initial phases of cataloging cultural resources, stabilizing and reconstructing standing remains, and prioritizing sites to be excavated. Limited resources also restrict the scope of research and conservation projects...