Rethinking Colonialism: Comparative Archaeological Approaches

Historical archaeology studies once relied upon a binary view of colonialism: colonizers and colonized, the colonial period and the postcolonial period. The contributors to this volume scrutinize imperialism and expansionism through an alternative lens that rejects simple dualities and explores the variously gendered, racialized, and occupied peoples of a multitude of faiths, desires, associations, and constraints. Colonialism is not a phase in the chronology of a people but a continuous phenomenon that spans the Old and New Worlds. Most important, the contributors argue that its impacts―and, in some instances, even the same processes set in place by the likes of Columbus―are ongoing. Inciting a critical examination of the lasting consequences of ancient and modern colonialism on descendant communities, this wide-ranging volume includes essays on Roman Britain, slavery in Brazil, and contemporary Native Americans. In its efforts to define the scope of colonialism and the comparability of its features, this collection challenges the field to go beyond familiar geographical and historical boundaries and draws attention to unfolding colonial futures.

Craig N. Cipolla is curator of North American archaeology at the Royal Ontario Museum and member of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Becoming Brothertown: Native American Ethnogenesis and Endurance in the Modern World.

Katherine Howlett Hayes is associate professor of anthropology and affiliate faculty in American Indian studies and heritage studies and public history at the University of Minnesota. She is the author of Slavery before Race: Europeans, Africans, and Indians at Long Island’s Sylvester Manor Plantation, 1651–1884.