An Archaeology of the English Atlantic World, 1600 - 1700

An Archaeology of the British Atlantic World, 1600-1700 is the first book to apply the methods of modern-world archaeology to the study of the seventeenth-century English colonial world. Charles E. Orser, Jr explores a range of material evidence of daily life collected from archaeological excavations throughout the Atlantic region, including England, Ireland, western Africa, Native North America, and the eastern United States. He considers the archaeological record together with primary texts by contemporary writers. Giving particular attention to housing, fortifications, delftware, and stoneware, Orser offers new interpretations for each type of artefact. His study demonstrates how the archaeological record expands our understanding of the Atlantic world at a critical moment of its expansion, as well as to the development of the modern, Western world. "On February 25, 1577, the first vestiges of daylight began to streak across the eastern horizon off the tiny island of Chapera, one of two hundred islets making up the Pearl Island archipelago in Panama Bay. As he rose and scanned the ocean as part of his morning ritual, 40-year old Diego de Sotomayor noticed an unfamiliar speck bobbing in the growing daylight. Observing the object as it grew closer, Sotomayor realized that one of his worse fears may have come true. Approaching in a small, open boat was a company of strangers. Sotomayor knew he could not protect his family--his wife, their children, and his wife's parents--if the visitors were English."-- Provided by publisher