Grounding Creolization: Ecology and Economy in Colonial New Orleans

在国家科学基金会的支持下，香农·李·道迪博士将带领一个由研究生和当地志愿者组成的团队在新奥尔良杰克逊广场圣路易斯大教堂周围的中心历史建筑群内进行挖掘。在过去的300年里，大教堂后面的花园场地一直是城市居民用于临时避难、园艺、营销和娱乐的灵活的绿色空间。通过检查这些活动的材料遗迹和应用高分辨率的实验室分析，这项研究旨在提高我们对非洲、美洲原住民和欧洲居民如何就园艺、医药、食品和国内技术交流想法的理解。一个更广泛的目标是从考古学上理解克里奥里化，即从多样化的殖民地人口中创造出一种新的文化。2008年，该遗址(名为圣安东尼花园)的开挖暴露了与两座早期法国时期建筑相关的非常完好的沉积物，其中一座建筑早于街道网格，可能是拓荒者在开垦土地阶段建立的早期小屋。该遗址的特点还包括丰富的文物和可识别的特征，可以追溯到17世纪初。文物遗迹表明，美洲原住民在建国初期发挥了比以前认识到的更突出的作用。扩大的挖掘和详细的文物分析将澄清这些矿床的性质。这项研究的学术价值既有理论上的，也有实质性的。为什么以及如何在新奥尔良早期发生克里奥尔化，以至于到了18世纪40年代，当地人被认为是唯一的克里奥尔人，而不是法国人、印度人或非洲人？异族通婚在路易斯安那州并不比其他法国和西班牙殖民地更普遍，传教努力也不是很激烈。虽然路易斯安那州经常被认为是克里奥尔文化的人种学例子，但对于为什么克里奥尔化在某些环境中发生而不是在其他环境中发生，缺乏理论上的解释。这个项目试图验证这样一种假设，即克里奥里化是在通过协作劳动促进物质知识和技术交换的条件下产生的，这似乎是路易斯安那州早期以自给自足的农业、走私和鹿皮贸易为基础的经济体系的一个显著特征。该项目是该市第一个全面考古研究计划的关键组成部分。它将为法国殖民时期的新奥尔良建立陶瓷、考古植物学和动物考古学数据的比较基线。此外，这将是第一次将植物硅体(类似于植物化石细胞)的分析应用于该地区的任何类型的地点。该项目的更广泛影响包括一项重大的公共宣传努力，包括现场讲解和参观这一参观人数众多的地标建筑，公开讲座，以及为博物馆永久展览做准备。结果将通过网站、技术报告、学术会议报告和出版物传播。来自芝加哥和新奥尔良的学生将接受考古培训，并邀请当地志愿者参与这个社区项目。

With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Shannon Lee Dawdy will lead a team of graduate students and local volunteers in excavations to take place within New Orleans's central historic complex surrounding St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square. The garden site behind the Cathedral has been a flexible green space used by city residents for temporary shelter, gardening, marketing, and recreation over the last 300 years. By examining the material remains of these activities and applying high-resolution laboratory analyses, the study aims to improve our understanding of how African, Native American, and European residents were exchanging ideas about gardening, medicine, food, and domestic technologies. A broader goal is to develop an archaeological understanding of creolization, or the creation of a new culture out of a diverse colonial population.Excavations in 2008 at the site (called St. Anthony's Garden) exposed remarkably well-preserved deposits associated with two early French period structures, one of which predates the street grid and may represent an early hut established by a pioneer during the land-clearing phase. The site is also characterized by rich deposits of artifacts and identifiable features dating from the early 1700s. The artifactual remains suggest that Native Americans played a much more prominent role in the early founding years than has been previously appreciated. Expanded excavations and detailed artifact analysis will clarify the nature of these deposits. The study's intellectual merits are both theoretical and substantive. Why and how did creolization take place in early New Orleans such that by the 1740s locals were identified as uniquely 'creole,' rather than French, Indian, or African? Intermarriage was no more common in Louisiana than in other French and Spanish colonies and missionary efforts were not intense. While Louisiana is often held up as an ethnographic example of creole culture, theoretical explanations for why creolization occurs in some settings and not others are lacking. This project seeks to test the hypothesis that creolization arises under conditions that foster the exchange of material knowledge and technique through collaborative labor, which seems to have been a distinctive characteristic of early Louisiana's economic system based on subsistence agriculture, smuggling, and the deer skin trade. This project is a key component of the city's first comprehensive archaeological research program. It will establish comparative baselines of ceramic, archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data for French colonial New Orleans. In addition, this will be the first time that analysis of phytoliths (akin to fossilized plant cells) will be applied to any type of site in the region. The broader impacts of the project include a significant public outreach effort, consisting of on-site interpretation and tours of this heavily-visited landmark, public lectures, and preparation for a permanent museum exhibit. Results will be disseminated through a web site, technical reports, and scholarly conference presentations and publications. Students from Chicago and New Orleans will receive archaeological training and local volunteers are invited to participate in this community project.