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Insights of Afro-Latin American Archaeology

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Kathryn E. Sampeck
Kathryn E. Sampeck
Kathryn E. Sampeck
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Abstract

On September 15 and 16, 2017, the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University hosted a workshop of 20 archaeologists from across the Americas and the Caribbean. Workshop proceedings demonstrate how a focus on Afro-Latin America challenges crucial concerns in archaeology. Likewise, workshop discussions showed the transformative contributions that archaeology makes to Afro-Latin American studies, including deeper understanding of the dynamics of African diaspora, racialization, colonialism, early modern economies, social hierarchies and slavery, consumerism, aesthetic interventions, and contemporary struggles for sovereignty.
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Insights of Afro-Latin American Archaeology
Kathryn E. Sampeck
1
Published online: 5 February 2018
#Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract On September 15 and 16, 2017, the Afro-Latin American Research Institute
at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard Univer-
sity hosted a workshop of 20 archaeologists from across the Americas and the
Caribbean. Workshop proceedings demonstrate how a focus on Afro-Latin America
challenges crucial concerns in archaeology. Likewise, workshop discussions showed
the transformative contributions that archaeology makes to Afro-Latin American stud-
ies, including deeper understanding of the dynamics of African diaspora, racialization,
colonialism, early modern economies, social hierarchies and slavery, consumerism,
aesthetic interventions, and contemporary struggles for sovereignty.
Keywords African diaspora .Race .Latin America .Colonialism .Slavery.Activism
Introduction
Anniversaries invite reflecting upon the past to envision a better future. The year 2017
marks an important anniversary in the formation of Latin America and the development
of relationships of capitalism, globalization, and modernity. Five hundred years ago, in
1517, the expedition of Francisco Hernández de Córdoba made a precarious first landing
on the Mexican mainland, an initial step in a series of sustained endeavors to conquer,
occupy, and control the American continents. This anniversary presents several funda-
mental challenges to archaeological method and theory. Historical archaeologists have
devoted abundant attention to processes of colonialism at different times in different
parts of the world, yet archaeological study of colonialism in Latin America is often
silent about a persistent, pervasive, and crucial member in this encounter and shaper of
the course of colonial ventures in the Caribbean and the American mainland: Africans
and African creoles, people of African descent born outside of Africa. This silence is
Int J Histor Archaeol (2018) 22:167–182
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-018-0454-5
*Kathryn E. Sampeck
ksampec@ilstu.edu
1
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Illinois State University, Campus Box 4660, Normal,
IL, USA
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
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