Historical Archaeology in South Africa: Material Culture of the Dutch East India Company at the Cape - Paperback

by Carmel Schrire (Editor)

This volume documents the analysis of excavated historical archaeological collections at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. The corpus provides a rich picture of life and times at this distant outpost of an immense Dutch seaborne empire during the contact period. Representing over three decades of excavation, conservation, and analysis, the book examines ceramics, glass, metal, and other categories of artifacts in their archaeological contexts. An enclosed CD includes a video reconstruction plus a comprehensive catalog and color illustrations of the artifacts in the corpus. The parallels and contrasts this volume reveals will help scholars studying the European expansion period to build a richer comparative picture of colonial material culture.

Author Biography

Carmel Schrire is a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University. She was born in Cape Town, South Africa and completed her studies at the University of Cape Town and the University of Cambridge before receiving her Ph. D. from Australian National University. Her early research interests were in prehistoric archaeology, and she did her doctoral research in Australia's Northern Territory on the way in which modern Aboriginal behavior can help interpret prehistoric remains. In 1984 she initiated a program in the historical archaeology of European contact and settlement at the Cape region in South Africa. Her 1995 book Digging through Darkness: Chronicles of an Archaeologist explores the dehumanizing effects of colonialism and racism on both colonized and colonizer. In 2004, she excavated the the house of the "Last Jew of Auschwitz" in Oswiecim, Poland.