This article serves as an introduction to this guest-edited special issue of American Antiquity entitled “Global Archaeologies of the Long Emancipation.” We begin by discussing Rinaldo Walcott's notion of the Long Emancipation, noting how the failed promises of the legal ending of slavery led to sensations of freedom and ongoing forms of anti-Blackness. In response, Black communities have employed various strategies in pursuit of freedom. We then apply this argument to archaeological thought and practice, suggesting that archaeology is well positioned to provide evidence of Black creativity, action, and struggle in a variety of global contexts. The article closes with an overview of this special issue, which includes a brief summary of individual contributions.

In this article, I present the freedom narratives of the diverse enslaved Africans who were liberated from barracoons and captured slave vessels and resettled at Regent Village on the Sierra Leone peninsula in the nineteenth century. Following the British abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1807, the British Royal Navy patrolled the West Atlantic Sea and redirected illegal slave vessels to Sierra Leone, where the Vice-Admiralty Court (which became the Mixed Commissions in 1820) would set them free from slavery. While legally free from bondage, liberated Africans became colonial subjects living in a nascent British colony. What can historical archaeology reveal about the history of freedom among diasporic ethnic identities at Regent Village? I answer this broad question by drawing on historical and archaeological data to demonstrate how people navigated and transformed the village landscape, as well as the decisions and choices they made at the household level, focusing on selected two house loci, which serve as a case study. I concentrate mainly on the identities, experiences, and historical narratives of liberated Africans in the village and extend the discussion to the lives of their descendants who continue to negotiate issues of power and control in contemporary Sierra Leone.

Cremated bones are a commonly preserved material and often found in burial environments where unburned bone may not be preserved. As such direct radiocarbon dating of cremated bone could be essential in determining the chronology of an event. Pretreatment of cremated bone exploits the structural carbonate component of the bone which survives cremation. However, due to the low abundance (ca. 0.1%) of this component, the extraction of an amount of endogenous carbon sufficient for radiocarbon dating may represent a challenge. Here we investigate two modifications to the phosphoric acid digestion protocol used during the preparation of cremated bones at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU). The first of these was to use ultrasonication to release evolved CO2 from the viscous phosphoric acid and cremated bone mixture that is formed during digestion. The second was to double the amount of time during which evolved CO2 was removed from the reaction vessel by transfer into a cryogenically cooled ampoule. Ultrasonication of the digestion mixture failed to produce a significantly higher carbon yield, while double-time collection resulted in an average 21.5±13.8% increase of C yield without affecting the measured age. Extending the collection time can better enable reliable dating of small (less than 1 g) samples.

The Society of Antiquaries of London holds, under ms 86, an unconventional manuscript described in its catalogue as ‘brief notes on the Kings of Portugal’. The manuscript is in a mid-sixteenth-century hand and has personal annotations by William Cecil (1520–98), better known as Lord Burghley. It recounts the history of Portugal by reigns and belonged to Cecil’s personal library. Until now, no other extant example of a history of Portugal written in English in the sixteenth century was known. This article publishes the first transcription of this unique document, while analysing its contents and explaining its importance. The first section will discuss the history of the manuscript itself, explaining its owners, its likely date of composition and the problems relating to authorship. The second part will deal with the raft of reasons why we believe William Cecil ordered its composition. The third section will detail the major contents of the manuscript, discussing its most interesting details. Finally, the conclusion will reflect on why this manuscript is important for British history.

Toward the end of the first millennium ad, a burgeoning class of secular elites emerged throughout western Europe who developed local power centres to denote their prestige. Seigneurial investment was prioritised towards residences, as well as churches and chapels, the two elements often paired into single places in the landscape. In England, our understanding of these complexes is limited due to scant excavated evidence and skewed by the impact of the Norman Conquest, after which castles became the dominant form of aristocratic site. Previous approaches have often fetishised defensibility and promoted notions of national exceptionalism, but a more meaningful understanding of these places can be gained by adopting a broad chronological and thematic remit. Drawing upon the results of the AHRC-funded research project ‘Where Power Lies’, this paper offers a foundational evaluation of the landscape evidence for lordly centres, presenting data on their distribution in two regions, complemented by results from intensive investigation of case study locations (Bosham, West Sussex and Hornby, North Yorkshire). This allows a wider range of material signatures from lordly centres to be characterised, resulting in greater comprehension of how elites in England shaped and experienced a Europe-wide phenomenon.

In the 1890s, the slave and ivory trader Rashid bin Masoud established the settlement Kikole deep in what is now southwestern Tanzania. Kikole was strategically located near Lake Nyasa, a major slaving region. Masoud's followers residing at Kikole were typically referred to as his slaves by German colonists and missionaries. Local oral histories today, however, define these followers as askari (soldiers or guards) or mafundi (technicians or specialists; in this case, in using weaponry). This article considers how recent expanded excavations at Kikole can help us better understand Masoud's followers. Differences in housing investment and material access suggest status differences among residents: any single definition of Masoud's followers may be inadequate. A broader concern addressed in this article is how we define slavery itself.

This paper appraises the current reception of the early Tudor church musician and composer Robert Fayrfax and the information upon which it is based. The first section summarily introduces Robert and traces how the image of him developed. The second assesses this image in the light of armorial and other evidence. The third explores further material about Robert and his family contained in an important document. The fourth relates the findings to a wider context. The fifth investigates the interrelationship of two manuscripts once owned by Robert’s father.

This gazette presents to the reader outside Rome news of recent archaeological activity (July 2023–July 2024) gleaned from public lectures, conferences, exhibitions and newspaper reports.

This article presents an approach to study marronage from the perspective of critical social archaeology, which encompasses the perpetuation of several layers of racial violence endured by the Afro-Ecuadorian population as legacies of slavery and colonialism. Collaborative and community-based projects in the ancestral Afro-Ecuadorian territories of the Chota Valley and Esmeraldas, and in the city of Guayaquil, are a basis for mapping Afro-Ecuadorian resistance strategies in the hacienda, urban, palenque, and border contexts. Marronage, as a response to racial oppression and systemic exploitation, has transformed over time, demonstrating the agency of the Afro-Ecuadorian community against structural violence. Archaeology illuminates the Maroon experience and its legacy in ancestral historical memory by including a critical study of slavery in the household context of plantation settings, identifying the dynamics of oppression and resistance, mapping routes of fugitivity, and examining the networks connecting actions of marronage. This study is an essential step in reconstructing the neglected history of Afro-Ecuadorian resistance and its role in shaping Latin America.