In the 19^th century, more than 2.5 million Chinese left the Pearl River Delta to venture abroad, travelling in search of work and economic opportunity. There, they established new communities yet remained connected to their places of origin. Over time, these places gained a new designation – qiaoxiang – the home villages of overseas migrants. Sustained by remittances from abroad, qiaoxiang developed distinct kinship systems, architecture, and cultures that reflected these transnational networks.

A new interdisciplinary research program – the Cangdong Village Project – is using archaeological methods to better understand how daily life in qiaoxiang was transformed by migration. This research was first reported in American Antiquity (“The Archaeology of Home: Qiaoxiang and Nonstate Actors in the Archaeology of the Chinese Diaspora,” 83[3]: 407-426). Now, a bilingual website and documentary film are bringing this research to a broad international and interdisciplinary audience.

Cangdong Village is a historic qiaoxiang located in the Kaiping Diaolou and Villages UNESCO World Heritage District. While archaeologists have studied Chinese diaspora settlements in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand for over fifty years, this is the first study using archaeological methods to investigate historic qiaoxiang culture. Our primary goal is to gather new information about how village culture changed during peak migration in the late Qing (1875-1912) and early Republic (1912-1941) periods.

In December 2016, we mapped Cangdong Village, interviewed village residents about village land-use history, and conducted pedestrian survey to collect artifacts lying on the surface. We returned in December 2017 and conducted subsurface testing to locate buried deposits. Three of the four test units encountered intact historic deposits containing tableware ceramics, food containers, buttons and buckles from clothing, medicine bottles, and other items used in daily life. In all, over 14,000 artifacts were recovered.

The most surprising research finding is the presence of household goods manufactured in the United States and Europe. Alongside Chinese porcelain bowls and spoons, 19^th century residents of Cangdong Village used platters and other dishes produced in England’s Staffordshire region. Traditional Chinese medicines were augmented with patent remedies manufactured in California and Massachusetts. Metal buttons and buckles indicate the adoption of some articles of western-style clothing. These imported goods indicate that qiaoxiang residents were fully networked with the emerging global economy.

Cangdong Village is only one of several thousand qiaoxiang in the Pearl River Delta region. One of the Cangdong Village researchers, Laura Ng, is currently conducting research at Wo Hing, a qiaoxiang in neighboring Taishan County. Additionally, Australian researcher Denis Byrne and colleagues are undertaking a multi-year research program on heritage corridors connecting Australia and Zhongshan County, Guangdong Province. Together, these programs mark the beginning of a truly transnational archaeology of the Chinese diaspora.

The full article by Barbara Voss, published in issue 83:3 of Cambridge journal American Antiquity, is available to access free of charge for a limited time.