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HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
2013
VOLUME 47 NUMBER 1
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
SOCIETY for
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
SOCIETY for
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
VOLUME 47 NUMBER 1
2013
www.sha.org
CONTENTS
Vol. 47 No. 1 2013
GLOBALIzATION, IMMIGRATION,
TRANSfORMATION
AlasdairBrooksandEleanorConlinCasella, Guest Editors
INTRODUCTION
The World Is What It Is: The Role of Subjectivity 1
and Personal Experience in Global Historical Archaeologies
Alasdair Brooks
ARTICLES
Argentina and Great Britain: Studying an Asymmetrical 10
Relationship through Domestic Material Culture
Daniel Schávelzon
Great Zimbabwe in Historical Archaeology: Reconceptualizing Decline, 26
Abandonment, and Reoccupation of an Ancient Polity, A.D. 1450–1900
Innocent Pikirayi
Globalization, Immigration, and Transformation: 38
Thoughts from a European Perspective
Natascha Mehler
Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka: Globalization, Immigration, 50
and Transformation in the Underwater Archaeological Record
Somasiri Devendra and Rasika Muthucumarana
Colonialism and the Peel Island Lazaret: Changing 66
the World One Story at a Time
Jonathan Prangnell
Living Side by Side: Approaching Coexistence through Narrative 80
Giovanna Vitelli
Pieces of Many Puzzles: Network Approaches to 90
Materiality in the Global Era
Eleanor Conlin Casella
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Historical
Archaeology
Volume 47, Number 1 2013
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FRONT COVER: The Pioneer Statue, Broad Street, Old Portsmouth, England.
(Photo by Alasdair Brooks, 2010.)
Contents
Volume 47, No. 1, 2013
CONTRIBUTORS
INTRODUCTION
The World Is What It Is: The Role of Subjectivity and Personal Experience in Global Historical Archaeologies
AlAsdAir Brooks 1
ARTICLES
Argentina and Great Britain: Studying an Asymmetrical Relationship through Domestic Material Culture
dAniel schávelzon 10
Great Zimbabwe in Historical Archaeology: Reconceptualizing Decline, Abandonment,
and Reoccupation of an Ancient Polity, A.D. 1450–1900
innocent PikirAyi 26
Globalization, Immigration, and Transformation: Thoughts from a European Perspective
nAtAschA Mehler 38
Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka: Globalization, Immigration, and Transformation in
the Underwater Archaeological Record
soMAsiri devendrA And rAsikA MuthucuMArAnA 50
Colonialism and the Peel Island Lazaret: Changing the World One Story at a Time
JonAthAn PrAngnell 66
Living Side by Side: Approaching Coexistence through Narrative
giovAnnA vitelli 80
Pieces of Many Puzzles: Network Approaches to Materiality in the Global Era
eleAnor conlin cAsellA 90
CONTRIBUTORS
Alasdair Brooks, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, University Road,
Leicester LE1 7RH, United Kingdom.
Eleanor Conlin Casella, Department of Archaeology, School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures,
Manseld-Cooper Building, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.
Somasiri Devendra, 194/3 Quarry Road, Dehiwala, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Natascha Mehler, Institut für Ur- und Frühgeschichte, Universität Wien, Franz-Klein-Gasse 1, A-1190
Vienna, Austria.
Rasika Muthucumarana, Maritime Archaeology Unit, Central Cultural Fund, Baladaksha Avenue,
Galle, Sri Lanka.
Innocent Pikirayi, Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Pretoria, Private Bag
X20, Hateld, Tshwane, 0028, South Africa.
Jonathan Prangnell, School of Social Science, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia
4072.
Daniel Schávelzon, Centro de Arqueología Urbana, Pabellón 3, Ciudad Universitaria, (1429) Buenos
Aires, Argentina.
Giovanna Vitelli, Ashmolean Museum, Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PH, United Kingdom.
1
Alasdair Brooks
The World Is What It Is:
The Role of Subjectivity
and Personal Experience
in Global Historical
Archaeologies
ABSTRACT
The 2013 Society for Historical Archaeology conference
plenary session (sponsored by the Society for Post-Medieval
Archaeology) was held on the themes of “globalization, immi-
gration, transformation.” Representatives of all six permanently
inhabited continents presented brief case studies derived from
their work on those continents, before engaging in discussion
of the conference themes from their different, complex, and
multilayered international perspectives. The present issue of
Historical Archaeology offers more detailed case studies from
the original speakers (in one case with a coauthor). This intro-
duction seeks to place these multifaceted approaches within
a framework foregrounding the role of personal experience
as an explanatory approach to understanding the differences
within a global historical archaeology that is not just global
and multicultural in theme, but also in practice.
Introduction
The Nobel laureate Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad
Naipaul, better known as V. S. Naipaul, was
born on the Caribbean island of Trinidad to
Hindu parents of Indian descent in 1932. He
won a scholarship to Oxford University at the
age of 17 and has since mostly lived in the
United Kingdom, though with short periods
living or traveling in several other countries,
including Uganda, Argentina, and the United
States (French 2008). He has written extensively
on colonial and postcolonial issues, both in c-
tion (Naipaul 1961, 1971, 1979) and nonction
(Naipaul 1962, 1969, 1990).
Both Naipaul’s personal status as an informal
laureate of postcolonial literature and his com-
plex international background make him, to an
extent, a personication of many of the themes
inherent in a publication related to the 2013
SHA conference plenary session: “globalization,
immigration, transformation.” His particular
inspiration to this introductory discussion lies
in the opening phrase of his classic novel of
post-independence central Africa, A Bend in
the River: “The world is what it is” (Naipaul
1979:1); which it is, but it is not the same
world for everyone. The global world may exist
objectively, but all experience it subjectively.
The central premise of this introduction is
that our personal experiences, both the manner
in which we archaeologists have lived in the
modern world and where we have lived in the
modern world, inevitably color our perception of
and approach to archaeologies of globalization
and immigration, and the transformations brought
about by both. In a plenary session and publica-
tion where each permanently inhabited continent
is represented by an archaeologist based in that
continent (or, in the case of Vitelli, was based
on that continent when invited to participate),
and where each of those colleagues is explicitly
addressing some of those plenary themes, it is
worth considering how this observation on per-
sonal experience and subjectivity might impact a
critical understanding of an historical archaeology
that is not just global in perspective, but is also
genuinely global in approach.
The Plenary Theme: “Globalization,
Immigration, Transformation”
The 2013 conference plenary session theme
of “globalization, immigration, transformation”
was—like many SHA conference themes—delib-
erately vague in specifics, while nonetheless
encompassing topics of central importance to
historical archaeology. This is not the place to
repeat the ongoing disciplinary discussions of
whether historical archaeology is a matter of
European colonial expansion and capitalism,
entails a specic methodology, or whether the
term “historical archaeology” itself has any
real global meaning as a period-based concept
beyond the Americas and Australasia, given the
longer historical traditions of the “Old World”
(Orser 1996:23–28; Funari 1999; Hall and Silli-
man 2006; Connah 2007; Courtney 2009:93–94).
For the purposes of the plenary—and this
issue—the contributors implicitly recognize an
archaeology of the modern globalized world,
Historical Archaeology, 2013, 47(1):1–9.
Permission to reprint required.
2HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
which for the purposes of common ground we
choose to call “historical archaeology,” even
while also recognizing and respecting that there
are grounds for each contributor to disagree on
the precise period parameters and local terminol-
ogy used to dene that archaeology.
Regardless of specific definitions, the con-
tributors also recognize that globalization and
immigration, and the transformations wrought
by both, are central to the archaeology of the
modern world, wherever practiced. However,
no attempt has been made here to impose a
particular theoretical perspective on the con-
tributors to this volume. Whether postmedieval
globalization, and the impact thereof, is broadly
considered an implicit outcome of the expansion
of European capitalism and commodification
(Leone 1995; Johnson 1996; Mrozowski 1999),
or is studied in specic contexts such as maritime
archaeology (Dellino-Musgrave 2006; Elkin et al.
2011), or the rise of a shared global international
material culture (Schávelzon 2005; Croucher 2011;
Brooks and Rodríguez Y. 2012)—or indeed both
simultaneously (Staniforth 2003)—the shared
acknowledgement of the increased role of global
trade and cultural links in the post-1500 period
is as important in the present volume as the
particular approach taken towards making that
acknowledgment.
The goal of this introductory discussion,
however, is not just to consider globalization
as a phenomenon of the past that impacts the
archaeological record of the modern world, but
also as a phenomenon of the present that impacts
how we as archaeologists perceive and approach
the practice of historical archaeology. The impact
of globalization is not simply a matter of how
objects came to be consumed and discarded in
different parts of the world, or how sites associ-
ated with one culture might be transposed to a
region previously alien or even unknown to that
culture, but is a living impact that continues to
inuence the perspectives of individual archaeolo-
gists, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Immigration is the second of the plenary
themes, though whether immigration is, in the
context of historical archaeology, separable
in either cause or effect from globalization is
debatable. In a period of large-scale forced and
voluntary immigration, it may not even be useful
to separate the two concepts. Given that the
overwhelming majority of the population of the
Americas and Australasia—two of the regions
where historical archaeology is most devel-
oped—is descended from willing and unwilling
(and in some cases unwitting) immigrants, the
consequences of that immigration nonetheless
remain central wherever historical archaeology
is practiced.
The forced immigration of millions of enslaved
Africans has rightly received considerable atten-
tion, whether via the study of African Ameri-
can culture in the Americas, both North and
South (Ferguson 1992; Kelly 2008; de Souza
and Agostini 2012; Symanski 2012), the mate-
rial remains of the slave trade in Africa itself
(DeCorse 2001), or the use of enslaved labor
in European colonies in Africa (Markell et al.
1995). Because of the convict system, the impact
of forced immigration and forced labor has also
been an important theme in Australian historical
archaeology (Lawrence and Davies 2011:17–41),
and this too has been explored through a global
perspective (Casella 2005). The demographic
impact was undoubtedly much smaller than with
the slave trade, and important legal distinctions
existed between enslavement and convict status,
but it has been arguably no less iconic in inu-
encing local public perceptions and archaeological
practice in the regions where it was most inu-
ential (Jackman 2009).
Within “free” emigration, however, there were
also gradations of status, many of which have
been studied through archaeology. Without attempt-
ing to build a formal hierarchy or typology of
immigration along similar lines to Gosden’s classi-
cation of different forms of colonialism (Gosden
2004:24–40), there are clear differences of status
between a Highland Scot facing emigration due
to the Highland Clearances (Symonds 1999), reli-
gious groups seeking religious freedom in North
America (Thomas 1994; Kozavich 2006), the
adventurers who set up the rst Spanish and Brit-
ish colonies in the Caribbean and North America
(Deagan 1995; Kelso 2006), or the European and
Chinese economic migrants of gold-rush Australia
(Lawrence and Davies 2011:162–172). The above
is only a very partial list, but it does help to dem-
onstrate the complexities involved in identifying
the causes of the global emigrations and diasporas
of the post-1500 world.
Yet it is also worth stressing the personal
dimension of immigration and historical archae-
ology. Most of the contributors to this issue
3
ALASDAIR BROOKS—The World Is What It Is
have, at some point in their lives, been immi-
grants living outside their native country and
culture, in some cases multiple times. In addi-
tion to the present author, this includes Vitelli,
Prangnell, Casella, Mehler, and Pikirayi. One of
the remaining two authors has meanwhile explic-
itly considered experience of his grandparents,
who migrated to Argentina as persecuted Eastern
Europeans “condemned to poverty, marginal-
ity, and social misery,” as an inuence on his
archaeology (Schávelzon 2002:x). It is perhaps
unlikely that this distribution is representative of
the discipline as a whole, and the experiences of
the contributors to the present issue have varied
considerably, but clearly immigration is not an
issue restricted to past societies; it can impact
modern archaeologists as well.
The nal part of the plenary session theme,
“transformation,” is the hardest to define nar-
rowly. All of the themes of globalization and
immigration discussed have led to a series of
transformations, whether demographic, political,
economic, or cultural, many of which have been
explored in detail by archaeologists—indeed these
transformations arguably form much of the cen-
tral corpus of the historical archaeology literature.
The rest of this introduction, however, considers
not the impact of past transformations on archae-
ology, but the transformations of perspective for
the archaeologists, brought about by immigration
and globalization as living processes.
The Place of the Self within
Global Historical Archaeologies
The emphasis of personal experiences of glo-
balization and immigration, the extent to which
we, both as individuals and archaeologists, per-
sonally experience our global world leads into a
consideration of how those experiences condition
how we understand historical archaeology to be
a global discipline. Our physical geography to
a certain extent impacts our mental geography.
Or, in Debord’s original 1955 formulation of
psychogeography, we can consider the impact
of the “effets précis du milieu géographique,
consciemment aménagé ou non, agissant directe-
ment sur le comportement affectif des indivi-
dus” (specic effects of a geographical milieu,
whether consciously organized or not, acting
on the emotions and behavior of individuals)
(Debord 1955:11).
Those who prefer archaeological theory over
French Marxist situationists may consider this as
a type of archaeological phenomenology of the
modern self. In European archaeology, phenom-
enology, the consideration of “sensory aspects
of past human experience that cannot easily be
addressed by traditional archaeological methods”
(Hamilton and Whitehouse 2006:32), is tradition-
ally associated with the analysis of the past and
usually attempts to understand how prehistoric
peoples experienced landscapes, particularly
(though not exclusively) monumental Neolithic
landscapes (Tilley 1994; Johnson 1999:192;
Brück 2005; Hamilton and Whitehouse 2006:33).
Outside archaeology, the concept of “phenom-
enology” has far deeper roots in 18th- through
20th-century European thought, particularly in
Germany and France (Zahavi 2008:661), and
has proven relevant to and been criticized
within a broad range of disciplines (Best 1975;
Schlimme et al. 2010). This is not the place to
unpack the broad church of non-archaeological
phenomenology in all its complexity, particularly
since the focus of this introduction is more on
the subjectivity of personal experience generally
rather than phenomenology specically, but—at
the risk of oversimplifying—“[p]henomenology’s
emphasis on the importance of the rst-person
perspective” (Zahavi 2008:664) is relevant here,
particularly as regards the examination “of
assumptions which uncritically inform theoretical
models of human subjectivity; and ... the sense
of being able to recount the necessary condi-
tions of possibility in human subjectivity for
any knowledge claim to take place” (Schlimme
et al. 2010). Or, as Best stated in the context
of sociological applications (albeit as criticism):
“Reality, truth, and rationality are defined in
terms of the meanings the individual places on
his situation and his actions” (Best 1975:133).
The concept of the impact of personal experi-
ence on archaeological interpretation therefore
need not necessarily be confined to the past
(whatever the period), the Other, or overtly
sensory experience. If it is accepted that—para-
phrasing Debord—the geographical environment
of individuals in the present impacts the behav-
ior of those individuals, and that phenomeno-
logical approaches to archaeology can enrich
understanding of contextual analysis (Brück
2005:32), then, in the context of different global
approaches to historical archaeology, the impact
4HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
of archaeologists’ own experiential environment
on their understanding of the global post-1500
modern world can also be considered.
Whatever the specific theoretical roots, a
similar sense of critical self-awareness, whether
directed towards the rst-person individual or
the discipline as a whole, has a long tradition
in archaeology. From Clarke’s call for a “criti-
cal and self-conscious concern with the kinds
of information which archaeological methods
might yield about the past” (Clarke 1973:14)
through to Graham’s recent argument that “being
critical about what we think we know—and
by this I mean how we go about knowing—is
as important as being critical about what we
know [emphasis in original]” (Graham 2011:11),
critical and experiential self-awareness has a
decades-long tradition in many of the different
regions where archaeology is practiced. When
it comes to examining how we, as historical
archaeologists, have engaged with the global
world, however, there is scope for combining
a critically aware non-archaeological phenom-
enology with a psychogeography of place, but
applied to the practitioner rather than landscapes
of the past. In other words, understanding how
approaches to global archaeology differ from
country to country—and from individual to
individual—necessitates not just reexive self-
awareness, but an understanding of how our
own geographical environment conditions how
we approach that global archaeology.
But perhaps I am guilty of projecting here;
that by talking of disciplinary self-awareness I
have in fact lapsed into a personal self-aware-
ness. This is central enough to my point that I
hope I will be forgiven for transitioning into the
rst person for part of this discussion. Charles
Orser was once infamously accused in the
book-reviews section of Historical Archaeology
of writing a book about himself; that, among
other things, A Historical Archaeology of the
Modern World (Orser 1996) placed far too much
emphasis on the rst person and said as much
about its author as it did about global historical
archaeology (Thurman 1996:90). Yet using the
concept of a psychogeographical phenomenology
of the self set within the context of a global
historical archaeology, this is arguably neither
a bad nor even a necessarily avoidable thing.
Arguably, my own personal background and
experiences, for example, strongly predispose me
toward an inherently global research approach.
I have lived in ve different countries on three
different continents; worked professionally in a
further two; and visited over 40 on every per-
manently inhabited continent; though since some
of those countries no longer exist, a precise
count is difcult. I went to secondary school—
high school—in three different countries; I have
an American undergraduate degree, two British
postgraduate degrees, and held two Australian
postdoctoral fellowships. I am married to an
Australian citizen whose family consists of
Russian-speaking immigrants and refugees from
Eastern Europe; my own brother is a U.S. citi-
zen whose accent is utterly different from my
own. My publication record encompasses case
studies from the UK (Brooks 2003), Australia
(Brooks et al. 2011), and Venezuela (Brooks
and Rodríguez Y. 2012), as well as work on
comparisons between different regions (Brooks
2002, 2009; Brooks et al. [2013]). The titles of
these papers and chapters return again and again
to “international perspectives,” the “view from
afar,” and “from the inside looking out”; one
of my earliest journal papers was on the inter-
nationalization of Celtic myth (Brooks 1997).
I write this not to self-indulgently promote
my own research, but rather to hypothesize
that my very specic background of personal
experiences not only inclines me towards taking
a global perspective in my own work, but that
the manner in which I have experienced the
world has formed a core component in leading
me towards considering a global approach to
be natural and inherently necessary, rather than
something that has to be conceptualized and
dened as merely desirable. From the perspec-
tive of the issue themes, my living in a global-
ized world, spending more than half of my life
in countries other than the one I was born in,
has also formed both my subconscious mental
map of the world and the way I approach the
archaeological world.
This awareness of the impact of my physical
geography on my own disciplinary practice can
potentially be applied more broadly within histor-
ical archaeology. A quick comparison between the
continental United States and the European Union
will serve as an example. Both are roughly the
same size. One is a single nation with a de facto
single national language (notwithstanding a rich
heritage of indigenous and immigrant languages
5
ALASDAIR BROOKS—The World Is What It Is
other than English, and historical French—and
Spanish-language traditions in specic regions)
and land boundaries with only two other nations.
The other is a sometimes fractious economic
zone with some semifederal characteristics that
currently contains 27 separate nation states and
23 separate working languages (not to mention
another ve semiofcial regional languages, and
up to 150 unofcial local languages with vary-
ing degrees of status and protection within EU
and national law). From the perspective of this
introduction, this might lead to the question of
whether archaeologists from the United States
and Europe—and indeed the other continents rep-
resented in the present volume—understand the
plenary session themes in quite the same way.
This is not to crudely imply that the archaeolo-
gists of one continent are somehow more insular
or international than another. Staying with the
United States/Europe example (and with apolo-
gies to Canadians and Mexicans for focusing so
narrowly on the United States), clearly there are
North American historical archaeologists who are
keenly aware of and interested in the rest of the
world. Orser went from an initial career focus on
the Midwest (Orser 1981) to strongly advocating
a global perspective (Orser 1996). South strongly
backed the need for an awareness of the work
undertaken by South American colleagues long
before it was fashionable (Funari 1997:196).
Other North American colleagues—such as Ken-
neth Kelly and Chris DeCorse—are strongly
involved in the historical archaeology of Africa
(DeCorse 2001; Kelly 2002). As this introduc-
tion is being written, current SHA president Paul
Mullins is temporarily based in northern Finland.
Nonetheless, I posit the hypothesis that col-
leagues working outside North America, particu-
larly outside the United States, are more likely to
consider data from nations outside their own in
comparative analysis, not because one worldview
is superior to another, but rather for the simple
reason that how we archaeologists experience the
world conditions how we practice professionally.
For example, because there are more, smaller,
countries in Europe, and because many of those
countries have frequently changed their borders,
have ceased to exist and then been reformed, or
have simply been created entirely in the post-
1500 period, it is simply functionally easier for
a Continental European to consider data that
transcends modern national boundaries on an
everyday basis in a manner that is quite different
from the experiential environment of colleagues
working in the United States. This discussion
has focused on international and transcontinental
comparisons, but much of this is no doubt also
applicable to regional conceptual differences or
indeed of regional conceptual similarities that
transcend national borders.
The Present Volume
These observations on the subjectivity of
personal experience directly impact how the
multifaceted approaches to the archaeology of
globalization, immigration, and transformation
presented in this volume might be understood.
This is a matter of both physical geography
and conceptual framework. The contributions
can be broadly grouped into three groups of
two papers each.
The rst two authors, Schávelzon and Pikirayi,
engage directly with themes of globalization
and transformation, but not necessarily with the
issues of personal experience and subjectivity
raised in this introduction. Nonetheless, their
Southern Hemisphere perspectives on these issues
are important to their case studies. Traditionally,
Northern Hemisphere discussions of method and
theory in South American historical archaeology
have tended to engage with North American
archaeological practice, despite the colonial links
with Spain and Portugal, and the postcolonial
economic role of the United Kingdom; as recently
as 1997 Funari could outline an historiography of
South American historical archaeology where the
English-language inuences were entirely North
American (Funari 1997). This may say as much
about the far-greater North American past engage-
ment with theory than the relative importance of
analytical data, yet Schávelzon reminds archae-
ologists that, from an Argentinean perspective,
the most important economic and political links
between 19th-century Argentina and the North
Atlantic World were with the United Kingdom.
An unspoken question here is whether there
should also be greater research links between the
two countries that reect this past context.
Pikirayi’s contribution meanwhile demon-
strates and reinforces that a consideration of
the growth of the early modern world from
a southern African perspective challenges the
traditional Eurocentric consideration of early
6HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
modern globalization as being centered on
European expansion. Certainly Europeans—spe-
cically the Portuguese—are important to the
understanding of Great Zimbabwe’s place in the
early modern world, and its abandonment, but
the transformations wrought at Great Zimbabwe
by shifts in intercontinental trade networks were
underway before European involvement and the
16th century.
The middle two papers, from Mehler and the
Sri Lankan contributors, Devendra and Muth-
ucumarana, are quite different in tone but share
an engagement with how localized experiences
and traditions can influence the practice and
research themes across regional archaeologies.
In the case of Mehler, while she begins with a
discussion of personal context, the core of her
discussion focuses on the broader disciplinary
environment. In particular, she brings atten-
tion to the paradox that globalization, and the
industrialization that accompanied globalization
in much of Europe, also led to the growth of
nationalism, which in turn impacted archaeologi-
cal practice. The transformations brought about
by globalization and immigration are tradition-
ally held to break down barriers and spread
cultures, objects, and peoples, but here global-
ization is seen helping to build barriers, and
archaeology is placed at the service of narrow
national political ideologies.
Devendra and Muthucumarana meanwhile
explicitly place their discussion of the impact
of post-1500 globalization on the Sri Lankan
maritime archaeology record within the distinc-
tive local practice of guru-shishya paramparawa,
translated here as “teacher-pupil continuum.”
This leads to a somewhat more anecdotal
approach than with the other papers in the issue,
but appreciation of the role of this important
local tradition is key to understanding their
approach. It is also clear that, while they abide
by the date, they consider unduly restrictive
the post-1500 cut-off often held to dene the
emergence of the modern world. From a Sri
Lankan perspective, globalization and immig-
ration brought about by the island’s role as a
center of long-distance transcontinental trade led
to transformations centuries before Columbus.
The last two authors, Prangnell and Vitelli,
address the issue of subjectivity and personal
experience directly, particularly in how their own
experiences as immigrants inform their approach
to archaeology. The two contributions present a
contrast. One is from an immigrant (Prangnell)
who has fully assimilated into the Australia he
arrived in as a child, the other is from an immi-
grant (Vitelli) who has not only been overtly
“reluctant” to assimilate into the United States
and Canadian societies she is representing in the
present volume (and was living in when invited
to contribute to the present volume), but has
recently returned to work in her native Europe.
Yet despite these quite different personal experi-
ences of immigration to new continents, both
argue that this personal experience has driven
them towards a consideration of the historical
archaeology of indigenous communities on their
adopted continents. Supercially, this may appear
to be a paradox, but the specic areas of engage-
ment with indigenous communities their world-
views have directed them to study are quite dif-
ferent. Prangnell’s background drives him towards
a focus on the narrative of oppression within the
Australian Aboriginal experience, whereas Vitelli
seeks to recalibrate “the dominant perspective
of relations as based on conict and contested
space” as just one outcome of indigenous/Euro-
pean contact.
Conclusion
That an historical archaeologist living and
working in Sri Lanka might prioritize different
themes to and prioritize different approaches than
an historical archaeologist living and working
in Argentina is perhaps not itself a revelation.
But there are broader implications to both the
present issue specically and an internationally
aware historical archaeology more generally,
especially given the extent to which readers
of this journal tend to be anglophone North
Americans. As the introduction to this discussion
noted, historical archaeologists continue to debate
whether historical archaeology is a matter of
European colonial expansion and capitalism, a
specic methodological approach, or whether the
term “historical archaeology” itself has any real
global meaning as a period-based concept beyond
the Americas and Australasia. If, however,
historical archaeologists do accept that one of the
key elements that denes the eld is its global
perspective, then it should also be considered how
historical archaeology is understood, perceived,
and practiced not just by archaeologists working
7
ALASDAIR BROOKS—The World Is What It Is
outside their home countries, but also by the
growing body of historical archaeologists whose
worldview is shaped by the country in which
they practice. A global perspective does not just
mean digging locally and thinking globally; it
also means understanding how our own personal
backgrounds can impact both how we dig locally,
and how we think globally. One of the characters
in V. S. Naipaul’s A Bend in the River, the
British-educated East African Indian, Indar, says:
I’m a lucky man. I carry the world within me … I can
choose. The World is a rich place. It all depends on
what you choose in it (Naipaul 1979:159).
The world is indeed what it is, and to engage
with it requires, on some level, an act of choice;
yet it remains an act of choice inseparable from
our own personal experiences and our own per-
sonal environment.
Acknowledgments
The 2013 SHA conference plenary session
was made possible thanks to generous funding
from the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology,
which cosponsored the session. Funding was also
received from the Curry-Stone Foundation and
the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
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50
Somasiri Devendra
Rasika Muthucumarana
Maritime Archaeology and
Sri Lanka: Globalization,
Immigration, and Transformation
in the Underwater Archaeological
Record
ABSTRACT
Assuming that maritime archaeology conducted in Sri Lanka
is new to most readers, the present paper has been written
with a dual purpose. First, it tries to give some background
to the birth and growth of the discipline in this country and
shows its involvement in ICOMOS––ICUCH (International
Council on Monuments and Sites––International Committee
on the Underwater Cultural Heritage) activities. Second, it
tries to deal with the focus of the 2013 SHA conference by
addressing three sites, each of which can be developed into a
case study relating to the conference themes. Sri Lanka was
always a place where East/West shipping interacted, whether
before or after A.D. 1500, and was also always conscious of
the looming presence of India. This paper, however, deals only
with material aspects in the period after 1500.
Introduction
The present discussion—the result of a col-
laboration between an elderly pathnder and a
youthful practitioner—will address the confer-
ence themes of “globalization, immigration,
transformation” not directly but indirectly, let-
ting the material presented do the speaking.
Devendra, who introduced maritime archaeology
to Sri Lanka, “signs-off” with this paper, while
Muthucumarana hopes to carry the torch into
the future; together they here share their experi-
ences and insights. Hence, this discussion falls
into the genre of the guru-shishya paramparawa
(teacher-pupil continuum): learning passed down
the generations. In the context of this issue, this
approach draws heavily on the personal recol-
lections and experience of an individual who
was at the center of the discipline’s develop-
ment in Sri Lanka over the last few decades,
with additional commentary from someone that
individual has mentored. To the extent that this
may entail a slightly more anecdotal approach
than is typically the case in Historical Archaeol-
ogy, this should be seen as connecting a speci-
cally Sri Lankan academic tradition with Alasdair
Brooks’s stress on the role of personal experience
in global and regional historical archaeologies, as
outlined in the present issue’s introduction.
Sri Lanka has both documentary (Geiger
1912:54) and archaeological evidence (Kapitan
2009:168–170) for a civilization that spans over
two-and-a-half millennia. The period after A.D.
1500 is, to us, but “yesterday”; long before
this date regional maritime contact is recorded
on potsherds and in rock inscriptions, retrieved
inland watercraft that have been dated to nearly
500 B.C., and there is at least one maritime
wreck site that promises to be Asia’s oldest.
Thus, with regret, only Sri Lanka’s “yesterday”
will be dealt with in this paper. Regretfully, too,
only a small sample of relevant sites and studies
can be included here (Figure 1).
The Development of Underwater
Archaeology in Sri Lanka
The rst exposure of Sri Lanka to underwa-
ter archaeology was in the very early 1960s,
when a team of sports divers, including the late
Rodney Jonklaas, the late Mike Wilson, and the
late Arthur C. Clarke (perhaps better known
to many Historical Archaeology readers as a
science-ction author), discovered an unknown
wreck in the “Great Basses” (a rocky outcrop
off the southeast coast, topped by a lighthouse).
This contained sacks of silver coins that had
been minted in Surat, India. What is now the
Sri Lanka Archaeology Department (but was
then the Ceylon Department) was at that point
unacquainted with maritime archaeology and,
when informed by Clarke and Wilson that the
respected maritime archaeologist Peter Throck-
morton was available to assist with research,
invited him to conduct an underwater survey,
an invitation which he accepted. Throckmorton
(1964) himself wrote that while researching
Roman wrecks in the Mediterranean he heard
of two ”treasure hunters” who had discovered
a wreck in Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then still
Historical Archaeology, 2013, 47(1):50–65.
Permission to reprint required.
51
SOMASIRI DEVENDRA AND RASIKA MUTHUCUMARANA—Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka
FIGURE 1. Map of Sri Lanka, showing all places mentioned in text. For the purposes of scale, Sri Lanka is ca. 434.5 km
(270 mi.) long from north to south. (Map by Somasiri Devendra, 2012.)
52 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
called) and established communications with
Clarke. Newspaper features were published
locally, and scholarly reports published abroad
(Clarke 1964; Throckmorton 1971). Even before
this scholarly work was produced, several popu-
lar travelogues on the region, notably Clarke’s
The Reefs of Taprobane (1957), had whetted
public appetite for information on the region,
and Clarke also arguably whetted public greed
in The Treasure of the Great Reef (1966). This
project, however, did not herald a beginning of
a substantial program of maritime archaeology,
remaining an isolated incident. Furthermore, in
its naïveté the department lent Clarke several
lumps of concreted coins for study abroad. He
never returned them. There is one lump at the
Smithsonian Institution: ofcial and unofcial
attempts to have it returned (Paul F. Johnston
2003, pers. comm.) failed. The whereabouts
of the greater part is known, but it cannot be
accessed (Sri Lanka Archaeology Department
1992, 1993, 1994a, 1994b).
In its annual reports for 1962–1963 (Goda-
kumbura 1964) and 1967–1968 (de Silva 1970),
the department referred to the need to introduce
maritime archaeology in Sri Lanka on a more
systematic basis, but nothing more substantial
resulted. Several other interested parties took
tentative action to expand the discipline, but
it was only with the formation of a Maritime
Archaeology Unit (MAU) by the department in
1998 that the discipline was given a rm and
lasting foundation. The MAU was later moved
to and now functions under Sri Lanka’s Central
Cultural Fund (CCF).
Before this, however, one of the rst attempts
at a substantial maritime excavation in Sri
Lanka was the Colombo Reefs Archaeological
Survey of 1989, the initiative of P. U. Weer-
awardena of the department, Mark Redknap
of the Nautical Archaeological Society and
the National Museum of Wales, and Devendra,
representing the nongovernmental Maritime
Heritage Trust (MHT). This project inadver-
tently helped to demonstrate the challenges of
undertaking research in Sri Lanka in this period.
Briey described as “a survey of underwater
archaeological sites within a context of reef
environment and geomorphology,” the project
won funding from the Royal Geographical
Society, the British Academy, and the British
Museum (Redknap 1990). The “Drunken Sailor”
rock off Galle Face, Colombo was chosen as a
site, not so much for its intrinsic archaeological
importance but rather because of the prevailing
security concerns, as the state was under attack
by both Sinhala and Tamil terrorists at that time
(Winslow and Woost 2004). MHT undertook to
obtain all necessary clearances. There were no
precedents for such a project, and the multi-
tude of ministries, departments, and authorities
that had to be accessed and negotiated with
was legion. The lack of regulations covering
archaeology in territorial waters and the volatile
security conditions worked against this initiative.
The team and equipment arrived in the country,
but only the use of a magnetometer was per-
mitted: diving on the site was not. Thus, when
part way through the exercise the magnetometer
malfunctioned, the project had to be abandoned
(Redknap 1990:185–208). Fortunately, 20 years
later Devendra conducted a heritage environ-
mental impact assessment of the South Colombo
Port Project, thereby eventually saving the site
(Devendra 2000:1–43).
On the positive side, however, was the public
interest generated by the aborted Colombo Reefs
work. At the Sri Lanka Archaeology Depart-
ment’s Centenary Seminar, the papers read by
Redknap (1990) and Devendra et al. (1990:123–
138) on the importance of Sri Lanka’s maritime
heritage received wide acceptance. At the end of
the conference, a resolution was adopted that rec-
ommended “that the Archaeological Department,
at the start of its second century, establishes a
marine archaeology unit with all the necessary
statutory powers to assume control of and to
initiate all marine archaeological activity in the
country.” The same resolution went on to propose
“that the unit should interact with all statutory
bodies, academic institutions, NGO organizations
and remain the dominant institution administering
such a discipline” (Devendra 1993:10).
Not long after, ICOMOS created a Scien-
tic Committee on Maritime Archaeology, and
Devendra was appointed to the working commit-
tee tasked with bringing it to life. What resulted
is now the ICOMOS International Committee on
the Underwater Cultural Heritage (ICUCH), of
which Devendra remains a member. Sri Lanka,
which hosted its rst two-day workshop as part
of the ICOMOS 10th General Assembly and
International Symposia (30 July–7 August 1993)
and a business meeting in November 2003,
53
SOMASIRI DEVENDRA AND RASIKA MUTHUCUMARANA—Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka
title to the site (in terms of international law)
were made mandatory. An example of need for
the latter was provided:
In the Avondster project such a question did arise, but
was settled before it became a problem. The Nether-
lands’ government claimed the wreck; as the successor
to the Dutch East Indies Company (V.O.C.) but this
claim is not sustainable in Sri Lanka. Apart from Sri
Lanka’s national claim to all property lying in its ter-
ritorial sea (vide the Maritime Zones Law of 1976 and
the 1998 Amendment to the Antiquities Ordinance),
there was an older claim. Britain had annexed several
Netherlands’ oversea possessions during the Napoleonic
wars but, when the time came the British, under the
Treaty of Amiens of 17 March 1802, restored all these
to the Netherlands and Spain, respectively, save for Sri
Lanka (Ceylon) which, under Clause 5, states:
“The Batavian Republic cedes and guarantees in full
property and sovereignty to his Britannic Majesty all
the possessions and establishments in the Island of
Ceylon that before the war belonged to the Republic of
the United Provinces and to their East India Company”
(Devendra 2001).
British possessions in the island and pre-
vailing territorial seas were transferred to Sri
Lanka in 1948. The Netherlands therefore had
no viable claim.
The Avondster project itself did, however,
take place successfully. The justication was the
signicant presence of several VOC ships in the
bay, which was articulated thus:
On a methodological level, the VOC wrecks in the
context of the harbour and city of Galle offer interest-
ing possibilities to relate history and archaeology. The
presence of four or ve identied and well-documented
wrecks within this harbour [Geinwens (1776), Doljn
(1663), Barbesteijn (1735), Hercules (1661) and Avond-
ster (1659)] offers the potential for a broad interdis-
ciplinary study of the ships, the harbour, the city and
the organization of the VOC. In a broader perspective,
this case study can answer questions about the Asian
shipping network and its organization. Therefore the
Galle Harbour Project offers a chance to study VOC
shipping in its Asian context. The ships discovered so
far represent different aspects of the Dutch trade with
Asia; being well documented and from an important
period, they can shed light on the function and activi-
ties of the harbour (Green et al. 1998:46).
Post-1500 Maritime Sites in Sri Lanka
Having described some of the disciplinary
and historical context for the development
of maritime archaeology in Sri Lanka, the
following section consists of an account by
beneted from the work of ICUCH, including
the ICOMOS Charter and the United Nations
Educational, Scientic and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) Convention.
About the same time, the Archaeological
Department, the CCF, Sri Lanka’s Postgraduate
Institute of Archaeology University of Kela-
niya, and the Maritime Archaeology Department
of the Western Australian Maritime Museum
(MADWAM) pooled their resources to set up
a multipurpose pilot project to train maritime
archaeologists, provide conservators with skills
specic to maritime archaeology, and, addition-
ally, compile a database of shipwrecks in Galle
Harbor (where the expansion of the existing port
was being contemplated). Project management
and recruitment of volunteer counterpart divers
were undertaken by the MHT and the Sri Lanka
Sub Aquatic Club (SLSAC); Jeremy Green of
MADWAM gave leadership and direction (Green
and Devendra 1993:123–124). The pilot project
proved successful, and it was expanded into
a continuing program, within funding limits.
Several seasons of work followed, the most
important being a side-scan sonar survey of
the seaoor of the Bay of Galle for sites of
archaeological interest (Green et al. 1998:2–49).
From among the 26 significant sites (of a
possible 160), the 17th-century wreck of the
Dutch East India Company, or VOC, armed
merchantman Avondster was chosen as the most
promising and led to an agreement between Sri
Lanka and the Netherlands for the rst maritime
archaeological excavation in this country. This
wreck (described in more detail below) is of
specic relevance to the present volume, as it is
not only a physical manifestation of globaliza-
tion within the maritime archaeology of south
Asia, but also demonstrates how 17th-century
globalization continues to impact not just the
archaeological record, but also the very process
of heritage management in modern Sri Lanka.
A signicant point of law surfaced during the
discussions of how to undertake research on the
site. Sri Lanka had designed an application for
an excavation license, based upon the guidelines
in the annex to the UNESCO Convention on the
Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage
(Devendra 2001; Parthesius et al. 2003:76–81).
Among the guidelines to the comprehensive
application form, the need to provide the exact
location of the site (for protection purposes) and
54 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
Muthucumarana (for whom the Avondster was
his rst major project, and who is now a senior
member of the MAU), with some input from
Devendra, of some of the more signicant post-
1500 maritime sites in our country.
The Avondster (1659)
The Avondster was originally discovered
during eldwork designed to train a core group
of Sri Lankan archaeologists and conservators
in underwater archaeology. The training work
was collaboratively done by a team from West-
ern Australia and Sri Lankan governmental and
nongovernmental institutes. The Avondster, one
of several Dutch East Indiamen wrecked in the
vicinity of Galle Harbor, was identied from
archival evidence (Green et al. 1998:22–23).
The Avondster is an important site for many
reasons. It is a ne example of shared heritage
between Sri Lanka and the Netherlands. It also
had its links to England, in that the Avondster
was originally an English ship, captured and
modied by the Dutch and originally used for
the Batavia–Netherlands run. According to the
VOC archives, the vessel was 30 m long and
constructed in two decks. She is rst recorded as
the John and Thomas, owned by the English East
India Company at the time she was captured by
the Dutch in 1641. She was renamed the Avond-
ster and dispatched to Batavia. Reflecting the
general fortunes of the East India Company, she
made two relatively straightforward out-and-back
voyages and was then deployed increasingly in
the regional trade, making only one more voyage
to England in 1650.
After she was captured during the First Anglo-
Dutch War, the Avondster was sent to the Nether-
lands and stayed for a few months in 1654; there
was probably some retting and modication at
this stage. Then she was commissioned for the
trade between Europe and Asia, mainly to Bata-
via but also to Japan, and was carrying valuable
cargo and important people. There are records to
prove that she had even provided passage to ele-
phants. Repairs being costly, she was relegated,
after a long career, to short-haul coastal voyages,
and wrecked on 2 July 1659 while anchored in
Galle Harbor. When she sank, the Avondster was
still in the service of the Dutch East India Com-
pany (Green et al. 1998:21–26,50–60; Parthesius
et al. 2003).
The choice of the Avondster as a maritime
archaeology research site was initially based
mainly on the physical condition of the site
rather than the identity of the ship. After the
ship was discovered in 1993, the site was
surveyed; it became clear that the wreck was
increasingly exposed through changes in the
dynamics of the seabed, and it was considered
important to implement a rescue archaeology
project to safeguard this important site. None-
theless, it took until 2001 before the excava-
tion of the Avondster was initiated. It was
funded by the Netherlands Cultural Fund and,
as noted above, was primarily undertaken as a
capacity-building exercise for maritime heritage
management in Sri Lanka (Parthesius et al.
2003:4–5). The Sri Lankan MAU was mobilized
for the project, and a team of archaeologists and
conservators were trained to implement effec-
tive and professional maritime archaeology for
the country. From 2001 until the end of 2004
important sections of the ship were excavated
and conserved in situ (Figure 2). The purpose
of this account is to give an outline, from a Sri
Lankan perspective, of the main archaeological
research undertaken on the Avondster.
Three major excavations were undertaken
at the bow, stern, and amidships, respectively.
During the excavation of the bow area a large
quantity of coiled rope was located, protected
by layers of sand. In addition, a collection of
pulley blocks, wheels, deadeyes, and cannonballs
were found. The rope and wooden artifacts
appeared to be well preserved but, in fact,
were quite vulnerable to damage. Furthermore,
the rope was spread all over the bow section,
complicating the eldwork. The excavation area
was subsequently covered to protect the site
for future research (Figure 3) (Parthesius et al.
2003; Parthesius 2007a, 2007b).
The excavation of the midship area was both
the most necessary—from a rescue perspective—
and most successful excavation undertaken on
the Avondster. The team managed to reach the
hull at the base of the vessel and excavate a
cross section of the ship. When this was done,
a barrel was found at the western border of the
trench. The excellent condition of this barrel
suggested that the original contents might be
preserved, and it was left in situ for future
research. Many artifacts associated with the crew
were recovered, such as spoons, plates, Asian
55
SOMASIRI DEVENDRA AND RASIKA MUTHUCUMARANA—Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka
FIGURE 2. Exploration of the Avondster. (Photo by Rasika Muthucumarana/Maritime Archaeology Unit, 2002.)
56 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
and European storage jars, ceramics, an iron
pot, dunnage, and conch shells. Of the cargo, a
signicant quantity of areca nuts, coal, and barrels
with pine resin were recovered (Parthesius 2007a,
2007b). All of these artifacts, including the ship
itself, help to demonstrate in material form the
growing global links and transformations that
European trade was bringing about in this period.
For example, the Dutch bricks used in the ship’s
galley (Figure 4) and the typical British “hanging
knees” provide evidence of the Dutch ret and the
English origins of a ship that sank off the coast of
Sri Lanka. After recording the bottom of the ship,
the trench was covered over, and a layer of plastic
netting was placed over the excavation area to
delineate the boundaries for any future eldwork.
The excavation of the stern was carried out in
November/December 2004, in the last part of the
four-year project. The same technique was used as
for the amidships excavation. The excavation con-
tinued from the starboard side of the ship where
degraded frames and ceiling planking of the hull
were uncovered. The initial plan had been to exca-
vate the trench from starboard to port following
the structure of the vessel, but poor visibility and
the complications that might have been caused
by working on more complex and undisturbed
layers caused the team to occasionally move to
more trouble-free areas. Signicant quantities of
rope, musket balls, wood planking, and shipboard
equipment were found.
In total, more than 2,074 artifacts were recov-
ered from the site and conserved at the MAU
laboratory. The eldwork produced considerable
data on the construction and form of the ship, the
contemporary material culture on board the vessel,
and, more broadly, important information on mari-
time interactions between the 17th-century Dutch
Republic and Sri Lanka in a period of growing
global contacts between different cultures. As
less than 30% of the site has been excavated,
it retains the potential to answer future ques-
tions and reveal more information about this
important phase in Sri Lankan and Dutch his-
tory (Figure 5).
Following the excavation, the entirety of the
site was covered with plastic netting for protec-
tion and future investigations. Since then, the
FIGURE 3. Avondster test trench, showing artifacts in an undisturbed state. (Photo by Patrick Baker/MAU, 1996.)
57
SOMASIRI DEVENDRA AND RASIKA MUTHUCUMARANA—Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka
FIGURE 4. Avondster: Dutch ship’s galley built during the ret after the ship’s capture. (Photo by Patrick Baker/MAU, 2001.)
FIGURE 5. Avondster project site plan. (Plan courtesy of the MAU, 2004.)
58 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
practice of in situ conservation has become an
integral component in the practice of marine
archaeology in Sri Lanka in an effort to protect
a vitally representative part of cultural heritage
for the future.
The “Silver Wreck” (1702)
Muthucumarana has also had an opportunity
to explore a site (or what remained of the
site) that had rst been discovered by Arthur
C. Clarke in the 1960s; it also exemplifies
Clarke’s ambiguous role in the development of
underwater archaeology in Sri Lanka. Since the
1960s the site has become a focus of treasure
hunting—almost a paradise for modern under-
water piracy. This activity was initially led by
Clarke, via a commercial company he started in
the U.S., the Great Basses Treasure Company (a
subsidiary of the Spanish Main Treasure Com-
pany), specically to nance and prot from the
looting of the site (Clarke 1966). Many local
imitators followed and divided the site and its
artifacts among themselves. With the arrival of
state-regulated maritime archaeology nearly 50
years after Clarke’s initial discovery, the site
came under administrative control, and Muth-
ucumarana’s account, below, gives an overview
of this later period of state regulation.
The circumstances under which the Great
Basses “Silver Ship” was found in the 1960s
have been described above. The ship, of the
type commonly called “Surat junks,” was car-
rying a cargo of silver coins packed in sacks.
Such coins were not used as currency; their
value, rather, was as bullion—in other words,
in the intrinsic value of the metal. All the coins
were from India’s Mogul Empire, then at its
peak under the rule of Aurangzeb, and all bear
the same face value and date: 1702. They were
minted in Surat, in the west of India (Figure 6).
The wreck is situated between two reefs just
beneath the Great Basses lighthouse (Figure 7).
Large quantities of silver have been taken off
the island and sold by divers. Some coins are
found in the Smithsonian, courtesy of Clarke,
FIGURE 6. “Silver Wreck”: sample of coins collected by the MAU. (Photo courtesy of the MAU, 1993/1994.)
59
SOMASIRI DEVENDRA AND RASIKA MUTHUCUMARANA—Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka
but the great majority was stolen, advertised
for sale, described as from “the land of Arthur
C. Clarke” (Joseph P. Trabuco Auctioneers, Inc.
1993), and sold to or kept in private hands. To
this day, there are websites that use Clarke’s
name to sell artifacts—or “sunken treasure”—
from the site to the general public (Taj Mahal
Sunken Treasure 2012). Many of the artifacts
have been made into jewelry and are sometimes
secretly sold in Sri Lanka even today.
The wreck has been visited and documented
several times during the last two decades by
the MAU, once with archaeologists from the
Maritime Archaeology Department, MADWAM.
This was done at the request of the Sri Lanaka
Archaeology Department in response to Clarke’s
bid to regain de facto ownership of the site and
salvage the “tons” of silver said to be there still.
Due to rough seas, high oxygen concentration,
and the warm temperature of the water, MAU
found that all the organic remains of the wreck
were long gone. Eighteen large cannon and three
iron anchors are the only evidence visible to the
naked eye today. As divers continue to nd silver
coins from the seabed between these two reefs,
there may well be other artifacts located in the
vicinity, though this requires further research.
Where the Avondster offers material evidence
of the inuence of globalization in 17th-century
Sri Lanka, the “Silver Wreck” offers a more
ambiguous example of the impact of immigra-
tion on the archaeological record in the modern
world. Clarke’s arrival in Sri Lanka may be an
atypical example of a single immigrant, but the
nature of the looting and popularization of the
site were only possible in the modern global-
ized world. It may be mentioned, in passing,
that there had been others who tried to tempt
the authorities, such as Eric Surcouf (Sri Lanka
Archaeology Department 1990) and Mike Flekker
FIGURE 7. “Silver Wreck”: view of part of the site. (Photo courtesy of the MAU, 2009.)
60 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
(Sri Lanka Archaeology Department 1994c), but
none actively harmed the archaeological environ-
ment in the same manner as Clarke.
European Shipwrecks of the 20th Century
Muthucumarana’s personal knowledge of Sri
Lanka’s maritime heritage also extends to later
ironclad ships. While these have yet to be
examined archaeologically, a few of these are
described here in order to show the potential
of Sri Lankan maritime archaeology and the
general inuence of post-1500 globalized trade
and colonialism on Sri Lanka’s underwater
archaeological record.
Many 18th- and 19th-century shipwrecks of
ironclad ships can be found along the coastal
belt of Sri Lanka. Most of these are British mer-
chant ships and warships of the Second World
War. Among these there are some significant
historical ships like the SS Conch, and the linked
sites of HMS Hermes and HMAS Vampire.
The Conch (sunk 1903) was one of the
world’s rst oil tankers, and was built by W.
Gray & Company of England in 1892. Such
ships were built with large tanks inside the ship
in order to carry oil in bulk safely. The Conch
was part of a eet belonging to M. Samuel &
Company, which later became the Shell Oil
Transporting Company (Muthucumarana 2010).
She sank near Akurala, on the south coast of
Sri Lanka, on her way to Madras in India from
Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast. The
site is very famous among wreck divers inter-
nationally, partially because of its history, but
also because of its location in clear blue water.
It is believed to have no archaeologically sig-
nicant artifacts now—having being stripped of
all portable items—but a systematic study can
yet yield archaeologically signicant information
about the ship as a whole (Figure 8).
HMS Hermes was the world’s rst ship to
be specically designed and built as an aircraft
carrier (Friedman 1988:73). Launched in 1919,
FIGURE 8. The SS Conch. (Photo courtesy of the MAU, 2006.)
61
SOMASIRI DEVENDRA AND RASIKA MUTHUCUMARANA—Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka
she served in the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy
for 23 years; she was docked in Trincomalee,
Sri Lanka, after the fall of Singapore to the
Japanese in February 1942. Carrying vintage
biplane Swordfish torpedo bombers, she was
realistically not a serious threat to the Japanese
during World War II, nor was the small British
eet based in Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then
known) of which she was a part. The same
Japanese eet that had mounted the attack on
Pearl Harbor entered the Indian Ocean under
Vice Admiral Nagumo’s command in 1942 to
seek out the remnants of the Allied eet. This
Japanese fleet bombed Colombo Harbor on
Easter Sunday, 1942, and then moved on to
Trincomalee. Heeding the order to leave the
harbor and seek safety at sea, Hermes steamed
out escorted by HMAS Vampire, leaving her
aircraft on shore. Both were spotted by Japanese
aircraft off Batticoloa (south of Trincomalee),
bombed, and sunk on 9 April 1942. Hermes
sank with the loss of 307 men, including the
captain; Vampire’s captain and seven crewmen
were also killed (Green and Souter 2005). The
wreck of the Hermes is lying on the seabed at
more than 50 m in depth, while the Vampire
has never been located. The CCF collaborated
with Prospero Production to make a 2004 video
on the search for the Vampire called Vanishing
Ships of War, in collaboration with the Finance
Corporation of Australia; it was telecast on the
Discovery Channel Canada and ABC Television
in Australia. A semictionalized account of the
start and progress of maritime archaeological
work on Galle Harbor called Teardrop of Trea-
sure was produced at the same time.
The fates of the Conch and the Hermes show
how the global 20th-century world is still mani-
festing the consequences of the “vaulting ambi-
tion” (to take a phrase from Shakespeare) that
had originally brought Vasco da Gama to the
Indian Ocean. Then, as in the 20th century, the
desire for trade and political aspirations were
the motivators. While these sites have yet to be
excavated, they offer considerable potential for
exploring these themes in south Asia.
The Ambalangoda Wreck Site
While the focus of discussion has previously
been European-associated sites in Sri Lankan
waters, these are not the only post-1500 sites in
the region. The story now shifts to another wreck
site, this time that of a ship of south Asia that
might—or not—be of Sri Lankan origin.
In April 1998 fragments of timber and other
artifacts were recovered from the shore in
Ambalangoda (southwest Sri Lanka, near Galle)
where a fisheries harbor was being planned.
Fishermen and their families would collect and
sell these artifacts. Timber had apparently been
found on the shore previously, but in 1998
artifacts were particularly evident and collecting
increased, resulting in widespread reportage in
newspapers (Devendra 2007:276–277), radio, and
television. Devendra alerted Gihan Jayatilaka
and Nerina de Silva, a diver and conservator
working on the Galle Harbour Project, who
were coincidentally passing by the site (Jayati-
laka and de Silva 1998). They found that the
potential site had been covered by sand. How-
ever, the people in the shing village were not
unwilling to talk or show some of the artifacts
they still retained. Large quantities of cowries,
one of a set of weights, ivory-handled tongs for
handling pearls, small coconuts typical of the
Maldives, pottery sherds, pieces of Chinese por-
celain, a well-worn quern, and fragments of coir
rope were seen and photographed. An image
of an unknown god had been sold. This mate-
rial culture was quintessentially south Asian,
but the vessel appeared to postdate 1500, as
evidenced by the descriptions of the sold arti-
facts, including a cannon, a boatswain’s spike,
a small cannonball, and, most interestingly, an
astrolabe. Fortunately, it was still possible to
photograph many of these objects (Figure 9).
Although the 1998 report recommended that the
site be brought under the protection of heritage
legislation, nothing was done due to the planned
sheries harbor.
In 2007, however, the MAU was able to
access the site when the contractor’s construc-
tion dredger began to bring up artifacts. The
MAU team surveyed the area and talked to
local residents who had been collecting hun-
dreds of kilograms of cowry shells stored in
large copper jars. Copper plates and jars were
found, some of the plates inscribed with Arabic
letters (Figure 10). There were rumors in the
local community that bronze cannons had also
been found, but none were seen by the research
team. Unfortunately, local government ofcials
were not keen to hand over the items to the Sri
62 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY 47(1)
FIGURE 9. Ambalangoda site: some privately owned artifacts from the site (camera-lens cover indicates scale). (Photo
courtesy of Nerina de Silva, 1998.)
FIGURE 10. Ambalangoda site: copper plate inscribed in Arabic. (Photo by Rasika Muthucumarana/MAU, 2007.)
63
SOMASIRI DEVENDRA AND RASIKA MUTHUCUMARANA—Maritime Archaeology and Sri Lanka
Conclusion
Through the examples above an effort has been
made to show how aspects of “globalization,
immigration, transformation” have been revealed
through the work of Sri Lanka’s Maritime Archae-
ology Unit. All the sites described here demon-
strate some aspects of globalization. The Avondster
and the vessel from the Ambalagoda site, while
built in very different contexts, also show how
sailors transform their craft and themselves in this
period, marking the beginning of the end of many
vernacular nautical material culture traditions. All
of these sites also show how immigration was
not only a movement of people, but of technol-
ogy, trade interests, political domination, Christian
fundamentalism, and brave new ideas.
In keeping with the focus of the Society for
Historical Archaeology, only the post-1500 period
has been discussed here; that arbitrary date merely
marks (questionably) the arrival of European colo-
nialism to Sri Lanka. But it is worth stressing in
closing, that, prior to this date, Sri Lanka had also
been an important center in a global trade world
stretching from Rome to China, from India to
Indonesia, from Indonesia to Madagascar and East
Africa. The waters of this area were crisscrossed
by “sewn” ships and land routes by caravans of
the “ships of the desert”; by traders and by travel-
ers, by mariners, merchants, and monks. The ships
of all countries were the vehicles of globalization
both in the postmedieval and premodern world,
and they carried on board everything—good or
bad—that globalization entailed. Aboard them
was also an immigrant population that added to
the gene pools of all the countries on which they
touched, and even created new mestizo communi-
ties that preserve a version of the culture of their
fathers. All this Sri Lanka has experienced and
accepted the inevitability of transformation as, in
the major religion of the country: “Change” is the
“still point of the turning world.”
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gAlle, sRi lAnkA
