Material Encounters and Indigenous Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas brings together 15 case studies focusing on the early colonial history and archaeology of indigenous cultural persistence and change in the Caribbean and its surrounding mainland(s) after AD 1492. With a special emphasis on material culture and by foregrounding indigenous agency in shaping the diverse outcomes of colonial encounters, this volume offers new perspectives on early modern cultural interactions in the first regions of the ‘New World’ that were impacted by European colonization. The volume contributors specifically investigate how foreign goods were differentially employed, adopted, and valued across time, space, and scale, and what implications such material encounters had for indigenous social, political, and economic structures.
Contributors are: Andrzej T. Antczak, Ma. M. Antczak, Oliver Antczak, Jaime J. Awe, Martijn van den Bel, Mary Jane Berman, Arie Boomert, Jeb J. Card, Charles R. Cobb, Gérard Collomb, Shannon Dugan Iverson, Marlieke Ernst, William R. Fowler, Perry L. Gnivecki, Christophe Helmke, Shea Henry, Gilda Hernández Sánchez, Corinne L. Hofman, Menno L.P. Hoogland, Rosemary A. Joyce, Floris W.M. Keehnen, J. Angus Martin, Clay Mathers, Maxine Oland, Alberto Sarcina, Russell N. Sheptak, Roberto Valcárcel Rojas, Robyn Woodward.
Corinne L. Hofman, PhD (1993), Leiden University, is Professor of Caribbean Archaeology. She has published articles, book chapters, and edited volumes on the indigenous Caribbean, including The Oxford Handbook of Caribbean Archaeology and The Caribbean before Columbus (Oxford University Press, 2013 and 2017).
Floris W.M. Keehnen, MA (2012), Leiden University, is a PhD student. In 2013, he obtained a grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) to investigate indigenous Caribbean attitudes towards European-introduced material culture in early colonial times (AD 1492-1550).
Preface: What’s in a Name?
Charles R. Cobb
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
1 Material Encounters and Indigenous Transformations in the Early Colonial Americas
Floris W.M. Keehnen, Corinne L. Hofman and Andrzej T. Antczak
2 Colonial Encounters in Lucayan Contexts
Mary Jane Berman and Perry L. Gnivecki
3 Treating ‘Trifles’: the Indigenous Adoption of European Material Goods in Early Colonial Hispaniola (1492–1550)
Floris W.M. Keehnen
4 Contact and Colonial Impact in Jamaica: Comparative Material Culture and Diet at Sevilla la Nueva and the Taíno Village of Maima
Shea Henry and Robyn Woodward
5 European Material Culture in Indigenous Sites in Northeastern Cuba
Roberto Valcárcel Rojas
6 Breaking and Making Identities: Transformations of Ceramic Repertoires in Early Colonial Hispaniola
Marlieke Ernst and Corinne L. Hofman
7 Rancherías: Historical Archaeology of Early Colonial Campsites on Margarita and Coche Islands, Venezuela
Andrzej T. Antczak, Ma. Magdalena Antczak and Oliver Antczak
8 Santa María de la Antigua del Darién: the Aftermath of Colonial Settlement
Alberto Sarcina
9 Material Encounters and Indigenous Transformations in Early Colonial El Salvador
William R. Fowler and Jeb J. Card
10 Hybrid Cultures: the Visibility of the European Invasion of Caribbean Honduras in the Sixteenth Century
Russell N. Sheptak and Rosemary A. Joyce
11 Exotics for the Lords and Gods: Lowland Maya Consumption of European Goods along a Spanish Colonial Frontier
Jaime J. Awe and Christophe Helmke
12 Resignification as Fourth Narrative: Power and the Colonial Religious Experience in Tula, Hidalgo
Shannon Dugan Iverson
13 Indigenous Pottery Technology of Central Mexico during Early Colonial Times
Gilda Hernández Sánchez
14 War and Peace in the Sixteenth-Century Southwest: Objected-oriented Approaches to Native-European Encounters and Trajectories
Clay Mathers
15 ‘Beyond the Falls’: Amerindian Stance towards New Encounters along the Wild Coast (
AD
1595–1627)
Martijn M. Bel van den and Gérard Collomb
16 Colonial Encounters in the Southern Lesser Antilles: Indigenous Resistance, Material Transformations, and Diversity in an Ever-Globalizing World
Corinne L. Hofman, Menno L.P. Hoogland, Arie Boomert and John Angus Martin
Epilogue: Situating Colonial Interaction and Materials: Scale, Context, Theory
Maxine Oland
Index
Scholars in archaeology and early history, graduate students, educated public with an interest in early colonial history of the Americas.