Trade and Discovery: The Scientific Study of Artefacts from, Post-Medieval Europe and Beyond ed. by Duncan R. Hook, David R. M. Gaimster

Abstract

750 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Trade and Discovery: The Scientific Study of Artefactsfrom, Post-Medieval Europe and Beyond. Edited by Duncan R. Hook and David R. M. Gaimster. London: The British Museum, 1995. Pp. 326; illustra­ tions, figures, tables, notes. (Price not available.) This volume presents twenty-four studies chosen from papers pre­ sented at a conference held at the British Museum in 1992, intended to show what archaeology and materials science can contribute to our understanding of trade in the era of discovery. Some studies are content to present scientific data on copper or glass from artifacts discovered at a given site, without providing a context from literature on the history of trade, and will thus attract the notice only of special­ ists. More interesting are the articles that do draw on different schol­ arly fields, especially those involving evidence of transoceanic trade. These fall into two main categories: some draw out the implications ofthe presence of certain artifacts at certain sites, others rely on new techniques that offer precise measurements of minute trace ele­ ments to determine the provenance of key materials. Among the essays that focus on the presence of artifacts is a study of European artifacts found at La Isabela, the first and short-lived Spanish settlement on Santo Domingo (1493-98). K. Deagan and J. M. Cruxent note that five years was apparently long enough for characteristically Spanish cooking vessels to give way to native coun­ terparts; the absence of water wheels, so ubiquitous in Spain at the time, may point to a dependence on slave labor. William R. Fitzger­ ald paints an interesting picture of the Gulf of St. Lawrence trade in furs, which spurted to new levels around 1580, stimulated by a rising European demand for beaver. The provenance of trade goods can be traced in the notarial records of French ports, copper ketdes of Basque origin giving way after a time to those of Flemish or Ger­ man manufacture; both types have been found as far inland as Ohio and southern Ontario, giving some idea of the range of native trade routes. In a broader study of French stoneware unearthed at sites in northeastern North America, Jean-Pierre Chrestien and Daniel Dufournier find confirmation for developments suggested by the European evidence; for example, the appearance ofFrench ceramic butter pots in the 18th century points to the apparent interruption of the traditional, wooden-cask trade in butter from Ireland to Brit­ tany. In the second group of essays, Bernard Gratuze and three col­ leagues discuss “The Origin ofCobalt Blue Pigments in French Glass from the Thirteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries.” Trace elements revealed by “instrumental fast neutron activation techniques,” matched against mining records, permit identification of two cobalt ores of Saxon origin, one extracted along with zinc and lead at Frei­ berg (13th to 15th centuries), another from new techniques of co­ balt mining at Schneeberg (16th to 18th centuries). The authors’ TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 751 suggestion that pre-13th-century cobalt blue glass involved a reuse of Roman materials is an interesting indicator of how late it was that medieval Europe cast off its ancient moorings. Also with several col­ leagues, Jean-Noël Barandon uses chemical analysis to quantify the importance of Potosi silver and Brazilian gold in the coinages of early modern Europe; for example, nine of eleven coins minted in Spain under Philip II (1556-98) contain silver from Potosi, while an estimated 61 percent of the gold in British coins of the first half of the 18th century came from Brazil. The macroeconomic implica­ tions of these data will be explored in a later study. In a study by P. T. Craddock and D. R. Hook, chemical analysis is used to shed some light on the provenance of copper used in largely undated West African bronze artifacts; local origin is indicated for the 9th to 11th centuries, and the composition of sample external copper sources comes from a trans-Saharan caravan that came to grief in the 12th century and from a Portuguese shipwreck of 1527. Here there is, however, a rare glitch in coverage of the historical record: Hungarian copper came to Antwerp not...