I thank Bentley and O'Brien (2024) for their cogent review of issues associated with inheritance and intention in cultural evolution. Intent is, of course, present in cultural process and that begs the question as to when and how we concern ourselves with it as a factor in cultural evolution (Rosenberg 2022). Intent underlies our understanding of both micro- and macro-scale processes of cultural evolution. Lamarckian microevolutionary process depends on decision-makers choosing whether or not to accept and sometimes alter cultural traits (Boyd & Richerson 1985). Zeder (2009, 2018) points out that even long-term change may be affected by conscious infrastructural investments that alter capacity for socioeconomic production and, subsequently, canalise later developments.

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.