The Archaeology of Africa and the African Diaspora Conference

Just last week Howard University hosted one of the first archaeology conferences of its kind. Entitled, "Windows from the Present to the Past: The Archaeology of Africa and the African Diaspora," the three-day conference consisted of a number of presentations by faculty, students and retired scholars. I co-authored two papers for the conference, one on African American heritage tourism and our research on Gambia's James Island and another on our on-going research at Walter C. Pierce Park and the disenfranchisement of African American public space. Both presentations were well received, the former of which I delivered. Also during the course of my research for the Gambian paper, I came across this article on African American tourism, Cuba and Joe Louis; very interesting I believe.

The conference was a milestone. As I stated earlier, I believe it is one of the first of its kind. It was very inspiring to see the newest research pertaining to African and the diaspora as well as meet other aspiring black archaeologists -- although we are still few and far between. There were three presentations that really stood out to me: Paul Mullins, Anna Agbe-Davies and Merrick Posnansky.

Dr. Mullins spoke about African American consumerism from emancipation into the early 20th century. He stressed the importance of a piano as a status symbol and it really helped me to connect some dots. For one, my mother always said she wanted a piano in the house and I had never understood why. On another note, it really helped me to understand the history of the birth of Jazz. If we see blacks in Chicago, Harlem and other metropolitan areas start to accumulate wealth (and pianos) two to three generations after emancipation, then their children learn how to plan those pianos. We arrive at a very prominent jazz scene emerging in the early 1920s.

Dr. Agbe-Davies is conducting archaeology on a home in Chicago that once served to board single black females during the great migration. I thought it was interesting the way she used the Chicago Defender to develop ideas about community. Combing through hundreds of articles she sees differences in the way Black Chicagoans conceptualized community in 1926, 1966 and 2006.

Finally Dr. Merrick Posnansky delivered the keynote address which I found very inspiring. During his keynote, he called for the need for not only more African and African-American archaeologists but also a larger concentration of research on the African Diaspora in Brazil and throughout the Indian Ocean region. He also recommended that more students, after taking a year or two to discover what you want to study, look to Africa for possible dissertation projects.

Another thing that really stood out to me was the repeated mention of a need to established some sort of African-American (or diaspora) heritage organization and the need for a National Graves Protection and Repatriation Act for blacks in America. As it currently stands there is no organization tasked with preserving African American heritage sites, and number of skeletal collections around the country -- including the Smithsonian -- house African American skeletal remains without the knowledge of their descendants.

More work remains and knowing that there are others out there conducting the same work, reinfuses a sense of purpose. Much thanks to the professors of Howard University's Anthropology and Sociology department -- both past and present -- for their continued dedication to the students and for making this conference come into fruition. The proceeds from the conference will go toward establishing three scholarships for Howard University students to conduct further research. I hope we can have another conference within the coming years perhaps at Fisk, Lincoln, Hampton, Spelman or Morehouse?

Archaeology at UWI

My apologies for the recent lack of posts. I am trying to get back into the flow. After the winter break I joined a group of archaeologists digging here in Jamaica. Members from the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS) came down from Virginia to continue excavations on the University of West Indies, Mona Campus. The university has an interesting history. During the enslavement period it housed three different plantations and served as a refugee camp during World War II. The purpose of the excavations this year was to continue to try and locate the dwelling of the enslaved Africans who lived and labored both at the Papine plantation and the Mona plantation. The hope is that the archaeological record will be able to provide information about the manner in which they lived that is not readily available through written documents.The field school lasted about a month, of which I joined in the last week. Most of the participants were employees from DAACS, second year archaeology students who were required to volunteer for class and other Jamaican archaeologists. Using the aid of old maps and information from past excavations we set out to locate the enslaved Africans' living quarters by digging shovel test pits (STPs) every six meters. The theory is that as we get closer to the old habitation site we will see a heavier concentration of artifacts. The finds were interesting. We came across beads, smoking pipes, broken glass bottles, ceramic fragments (most likely made by the enslaved population), iron nails, and various other related items. All of these will be taken back to Virginia for cataloging and analysis then returned to Jamaica.
Working on the dig proved a humbling experience. I met some really interesting people and learned a lot about archaeology in Jamaica. I also got a chance to try my hand at cataloging artifacts, which although not as fun as digging is equally as important. I'm going to try to see if it is possible to come down for more excavations next year.

More information on the excavations from last year can be found here.