Journal Articles & Book Chapters by Sarah E Platt
Historical Archaeology, 2024
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
International Journal For Historical Archaeology, 2020
In 1949 a lumber executive and city alderman in Charleston, South Carolina named Alfred O. Halsey... more In 1949 a lumber executive and city alderman in Charleston, South Carolina named Alfred O. Halsey produced a visually unique map of the Charleston peninsula. The map highlights the fluctuations and changes of the urban landscape through time and traces the contours of historic events in the city. Although his depiction is compelling, tapping into a dialectical understanding of the city landscape, there are distinct cultural forgettings and silences in the map particularly in terms of the city’s long historical trajectory of racial inequality and systemic violence. The following discussion both unpacks Halsey’s dialectical vision of the peninsula, and indicate a space where archaeology can intervene in the gaps and silences in an act of memory-work.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The SAA Archaeological Record, 2020
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage, 2020
Colonoware, a low-fired earthenware made by enslaved Africans, African Americans, and Native Amer... more Colonoware, a low-fired earthenware made by enslaved Africans, African Americans, and Native Americans, is a crucial source for exploring the formation and materialization of colonial identities. Yet, the origins and ethnic associations of this enigmatic colonial potting tradition have long been debated. Recent ethnographic studies of African ceramic traditions have led to our reexamination of a surface treatment lately identified on colonoware vessels in South Carolina. Our analysis focuses on colonoware sherds from two eighteenth-century sites in Charleston as well as an additional unprovenienced vessel from the Horry County Museum. Through experimental replication and cross-regional comparison, this paper argues that the application of “folded strip rouletting” on colonoware in South Carolina is related to contemporaneous decorative techniques practiced in West and northern Central Africa. The sherds analyzed in this article thus represent the first clear published example of a decorative African potting technique identified in the colonial United States.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Talks by Sarah E Platt
Talk recorded as part of the DAACS Conversations series on legacy collections. Direct link: https... more Talk recorded as part of the DAACS Conversations series on legacy collections. Direct link: https://vimeo.com/625637338
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Conference Sessions by Sarah E Platt
The Society for Historical Archaeology Annual Meeting, 2021
With co-organizer Kelly Britt.
Events of the past year have brought into sharp relief the role ... more With co-organizer Kelly Britt.
Events of the past year have brought into sharp relief the role of cities as spaces of friction, where conflicting ideologies and worldviews are brought into close contact and long-standing vexations often explode into social movements of dissent, action, and subsequent change. The names of metropolitan centers often become referents to moments of intense injustice- such as Ferguson (the murder of Michael Brown), Hong Kong (infringements on sovereignty from China), Charlottesville (Unite the Right Rally), and Flint (tainted water crisis). These phenomena are hardly isolated to the present- historically moments of great upheaval have begun in cities- for example the Boston Massacre in 1770, the 1811-1813 Luddite Rebellion in Nottingham, UK, and the massacre of Black Wall Street in Tulsa in 1921. The session organizers invite participants to explore cities, however culturally defined, as sites of dissonance and dissent through time. International archaeologies of the past and the contemporary are both encouraged.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Society for Historical Archaeology Annual Meeting, 2018
Much of the focus of American southeastern historical archaeology has been upon plantation life a... more Much of the focus of American southeastern historical archaeology has been upon plantation life and the plantation system, with the experience of life in urban centers or other institutions often discounted as anomalous in an otherwise agricultural region. Increasingly, scholars have highlighted the critical blind spot this generates in grasping the social, political, and economic networks in the region. This is particularly salient for archaeological studies of urban spaces such as Charleston, Savannah, and others as well as related satellite institutions, which remain understudied despite the dynamism and importance of life beyond and between plantation landscapes. The papers here are intended to complicate the picture of the agricultural southeast and blur boundaries between town and countryside. Topics could include religious and military institutions, urban spaces and places, and the plantation through the lens of its relationship to other cultural forms in the region.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Cities, as archaeological sites, pose unique sets of methodological and interpretive challenges. ... more Cities, as archaeological sites, pose unique sets of methodological and interpretive challenges. The density of human occupation and activity, as well as the long-term accumulation of materials, results in deep, complexly stratified deposits with often enormous quantities of artifacts and data. Moreover, the peoples and activities reflected in these urban assemblages represent a cacophony of tempos and rhythms with which the archaeologist must contend. “Time” is inherent to the ways scholars have traditionally
described the histories of cities, often framing the urban landscape in terms of rapid transformation, long-term occupation, boom and bust cycles, and growth and decline. Yet no singular temporal narrative adequately captures these frenetic places, where multitudes of histories, materialities, and temporalitiesvie for the archaeologist’s attention.
To answer such challenges, we turn to the tempo of research itself, exploring the potential of slow approaches to untangle the sheer volume of experiences that comprise urban materiality. Such an approach might consider the body of a single individual or an artifact; an urban townlot or city block; an ordinance, a business, or institution; or the larger settlement, all while attending to wider global interactions. In this session, we encourage a broad definition of the urban, from ancient to contemporary cities. At the same time, contributors should not feel limited to urban landscapes in the past, but may also probe the expression of multiple temporalities and anticipated futures in contemporary urban spaces, particularly through heritage practices and archaeologies of the contemporary.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Blog Posts by Sarah E Platt
Available at The Charleston Museum website. Direct link: https://bit.ly/3AgiPUI
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Co-authored with first author Martha Zierden. Available at The Charleston Museum website. Direct ... more Co-authored with first author Martha Zierden. Available at The Charleston Museum website. Direct link: https://bit.ly/3izXteU
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Journal Articles & Book Chapters by Sarah E Platt
Talks by Sarah E Platt
Conference Sessions by Sarah E Platt
Events of the past year have brought into sharp relief the role of cities as spaces of friction, where conflicting ideologies and worldviews are brought into close contact and long-standing vexations often explode into social movements of dissent, action, and subsequent change. The names of metropolitan centers often become referents to moments of intense injustice- such as Ferguson (the murder of Michael Brown), Hong Kong (infringements on sovereignty from China), Charlottesville (Unite the Right Rally), and Flint (tainted water crisis). These phenomena are hardly isolated to the present- historically moments of great upheaval have begun in cities- for example the Boston Massacre in 1770, the 1811-1813 Luddite Rebellion in Nottingham, UK, and the massacre of Black Wall Street in Tulsa in 1921. The session organizers invite participants to explore cities, however culturally defined, as sites of dissonance and dissent through time. International archaeologies of the past and the contemporary are both encouraged.
described the histories of cities, often framing the urban landscape in terms of rapid transformation, long-term occupation, boom and bust cycles, and growth and decline. Yet no singular temporal narrative adequately captures these frenetic places, where multitudes of histories, materialities, and temporalitiesvie for the archaeologist’s attention.
To answer such challenges, we turn to the tempo of research itself, exploring the potential of slow approaches to untangle the sheer volume of experiences that comprise urban materiality. Such an approach might consider the body of a single individual or an artifact; an urban townlot or city block; an ordinance, a business, or institution; or the larger settlement, all while attending to wider global interactions. In this session, we encourage a broad definition of the urban, from ancient to contemporary cities. At the same time, contributors should not feel limited to urban landscapes in the past, but may also probe the expression of multiple temporalities and anticipated futures in contemporary urban spaces, particularly through heritage practices and archaeologies of the contemporary.
Blog Posts by Sarah E Platt
Events of the past year have brought into sharp relief the role of cities as spaces of friction, where conflicting ideologies and worldviews are brought into close contact and long-standing vexations often explode into social movements of dissent, action, and subsequent change. The names of metropolitan centers often become referents to moments of intense injustice- such as Ferguson (the murder of Michael Brown), Hong Kong (infringements on sovereignty from China), Charlottesville (Unite the Right Rally), and Flint (tainted water crisis). These phenomena are hardly isolated to the present- historically moments of great upheaval have begun in cities- for example the Boston Massacre in 1770, the 1811-1813 Luddite Rebellion in Nottingham, UK, and the massacre of Black Wall Street in Tulsa in 1921. The session organizers invite participants to explore cities, however culturally defined, as sites of dissonance and dissent through time. International archaeologies of the past and the contemporary are both encouraged.
described the histories of cities, often framing the urban landscape in terms of rapid transformation, long-term occupation, boom and bust cycles, and growth and decline. Yet no singular temporal narrative adequately captures these frenetic places, where multitudes of histories, materialities, and temporalitiesvie for the archaeologist’s attention.
To answer such challenges, we turn to the tempo of research itself, exploring the potential of slow approaches to untangle the sheer volume of experiences that comprise urban materiality. Such an approach might consider the body of a single individual or an artifact; an urban townlot or city block; an ordinance, a business, or institution; or the larger settlement, all while attending to wider global interactions. In this session, we encourage a broad definition of the urban, from ancient to contemporary cities. At the same time, contributors should not feel limited to urban landscapes in the past, but may also probe the expression of multiple temporalities and anticipated futures in contemporary urban spaces, particularly through heritage practices and archaeologies of the contemporary.