Cane River: the archaeology of “free people of colour” in colonial Louisiana

Abstract

The overseas dispersal and subsequent history of people of African descent – the African diaspora – has attracted much interest in recent decades from anthropologists, archaeologists and historians, particularly in the USA. But such studies have seldom been undertaken by archaeologists with experience of West Africa and its material culture. In a new project on the African heritage in colonial Louisiana, members of the Institute are collaborating with American colleagues to combine expertise on cultural contacts in the Americas between Native Americans, Africans and European colonists.