Winner of the Southern Anthropological Society's prestigious James Mooney Award, Uncommon Ground takes a unique archaeological approach to examining early African American life. Ferguson shows how black pioneers worked within the bars of bondage to shape their distinct identity and lay a rich foundation for the multicultural adjustments that became colonial America.Through pre-Revolutionary period artifacts gathered from plantations and urban slave communities, Ferguson integrates folklore, history, and research to reveal how these enslaved people actually lived. Impeccably researched and beautifully written.

New scholarship provides insights into the archaeology and cultural history of African American life from a collection of sites in the Mid-Atlantic

Historical archaeology has made great strides during the last two decades. Early archaeological reports were dominated by descriptions of features and artifacts, while research on artifacts was concentrated on studies of topology, technology, and chronology. Site reports from the 1960s and 1970s commonly expressed faith in the potential artifacts had for aiding in the identifying socioeconomic status differences and for understanding the relationships be tween the social classes in terms of their material culture. An emphasis was placed on the presence or absence of porcelain or teaware as an indication of social status. These were typical features in site reports written just a few years ago. During this same period, advances were being made in the study of food bone as archaeologists moved away from bone counts to minimal animal counts and then on to the costs of various cuts of meat. Within the last five years our ability to address questions of the rela tionship between material culture and socioeconomic status has greatly ex panded. The essays in this volume present efforts toward measuring expendi ture and consumption patterns represented by commonly recovered artifacts and food bone. These patterns of consumption are examined in conjunction with evidence from documentary sources that provide information on occupa tions, wealth levels, and ethnic affiliations of those that did the consuming. One of the refreshing aspects of these papers is that the authors are not afraid of documents, and their use of them is not limited to a role of confirmation.

Hong Kong boasts a number of rich archaeological sites behind sandy bays. Among these backbeaches is Sha Po on Lamma Island, a site which has long captured the attention of archaeologists. However, until now no comprehensive study of the area has ever been published. Piecing Together Sha Po presents the first sustained analysis, framed in terms of a multi-period social landscape, of the varieties of human activity in Sha Po spanning more than 6,000 years. Synthesising decades of earlier fieldwork together with Atha and Yip’s own extensive excavations conducted in 2008–2010, the discoveries collectively enabled the authors to reconstruct the society in Sha Po in different historical periods. The artefacts unearthed from the site—some of them unique to the region—reveal a vibrant past which saw the inhabitants of Sha Po interacting with the environment in diverse ways. Evidence showing the mastery of quartz ornament manufacture and metallurgy in the Bronze Age suggests increasing craft specialisation and the rise of a more complex, competitive society. Later on, during the Six Dynasties–Tang period, Sha Po turned into a centre in the region’s imperially controlled kiln-based salt industry. Closer to our time, in the nineteenth century the farming and fishing communities in Sha Po became important suppliers of food and fuel to urban Hong Kong. Ultimately, this ground-breaking work tells a compelling story about human beings’ ceaseless reinvention of their lives through the lens of one special archaeological site. ‘A singular effort in the field of Hong Kong archaeology, Piecing Together Sha Po adopts a social landscape approach to chart the development of a single site over millennia of occupation, revealing as it does the untapped potential which careful field investigations hold for generating a better understanding of the region’s rich past.’ —Francis Allard, Department of Anthropology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania ‘This volume is the best overview of the early history of Hong Kong that I know. The authors have articulated patterns of human settlement at Sha Po in a masterly way that informs us not only of Lamma Island, or greater Hong Kong, but of Lingnan as a whole. I welcome it as the key source for specialists and the interested public alike.’ —Charles Higham, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Otago, New Zealand ‘It is rare indeed for a multi-period study of a region to not only synthesise a vast range of archaeological material but also include incisive points of theory alongside that narrative, such as the need to understand evidence at a landscape level and questioning the utility of “Neolithic” and “Bronze Age” categories. This is such a book.’ —Steve Roskams, Department of Archaeology, University of York

Homeless Heritage describes the process of using archaeological methodologies to collaboratively document how contemporary homeless people use and experience the city. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in Bristol and York, the book first describes the way in which archaeological methods and theory have come to be usefully applied to the contemporary world, before exploring the historical development of the concept of homelessness. Working with homeless people, the author undertook surveys and two excavations of contemporary homeless sites, and the team co-curated two public heritage exhibitions - with surprising results. Complementing a growing body of literature that details how collaborative and participatory heritage projects can give voice to marginalised groups, Homeless Heritage details what it means to be homeless in twenty-

"A fascinating account of both the historical and current struggle of Native Americans to recover sacred objects that have been plundered and sold to museums. Museum curator and anthropologist Chip Colwell asks the all-important question: Who owns the past? Museums that care for the objects of history or the communities whose ancestors made them?"--Provided by the publisher

Introduction to curation and preservation of archaeological materials. Visit our website for sample chapters!