The Black Lives Matter movement and protests, the challenging of the continued presence of statues to commemorate oppressive and exploitative individuals and practices from the recent past, and serious attempts to decolonize university curricula are all part of a dramatic and much-needed shake up to thinking about history and associated subjects, and how they have been dominated by western, white, often male and elite views. For those of us who are western, white and elite in terms of education, yet have research interests in regions outside Europe (and North America), there are major questions and challenges around how we undertake this research working in collaboration with local colleagues and communities. The 21st century has seen a growth in collaborative research projects between academic archaeologists, and in projects that work with different local communities. Being inclusive is a major driver for new archaeological projects, and we recognize that the 20th century model of western, white experts helicoptering into exotic locations to carry out research (supported by local infrastructure), and then taking the results back to western universities, and writing them up for the benefit of western scholars and academia is no longer fit for purpose, and is actively detrimental to local colleagues, communities and the archaeology itself.

This volume is based on original research in the Caribbean, focusing on the islands of Nevis and St Kitts. As the editor notes in his preface, it brings together work begun in 2001 and from a conference in 2005, organized in collaboration with the historical societies for St Kitts and Nevis, and it has taken many years to come to fruition. The monograph contains papers resulting from a project funded by the British Academy looking at the historical archaeology of the Atlantic rim, undertaken by the University of Southampton in collaboration principally with National Museums Liverpool and Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery. The Liverpool involvement was directly linked to its International Slavery Museum, devoted to relating untold stories of enslaved people, both historical and contemporary. The Bristol element was devoted to recruiting five young people of African or Caribbean heritage to be involved both in the archaeological project and in working alongside young people from Nevis, the results and their experiences being disseminated more widely through BBC Bristol Online’s Black Echo (BBC 2001).

INTRODUCTION

A survey of the landscape of Mountravers and the plantations to north and south was the second of the two sample surveys undertaken for the British Academy funded colonial landscape project (Preface), the first being the survey of St Mary Cayon and Christchurch Nicola Town on St Kitts, already discussed by Philpott (Chapter 7). This chapter is written so as to complement rather than repeat the earlier chapters.

As on St Kitts, the survey was set within the strategic objectives set out in the Preface (p. xx), specifically here: -

• 1 To undertake a reconnaissance survey of the 17th-and 18th-century colonial landscape of the landscape of Mountravers and the plantations to north and south

• 2 To identify the extent to which plantation centres have been abandoned or have changed through time, from the 17th to the 20th centuries

• 3 To identify the archaeological and above ground remains of the slave villages for the plantations

The survey area (Fig. 12.1) was located within the recorded north and south boundaries of the plantations to the north and south of the Mountravers estate as defined in modern times. Chronologically, the survey concentrated on the periods up to the introduction of steam technology for sugar processing in the 19th century.

This paper summarizes archaeological investigations conducted from 2003 to 2006 at the site of Jamestown, a ‘lost’ commercial settlement on the leeward shore of the island of Nevis. According to local legend and lore, Jamestown vanished in 1690, destroyed by a tsunami. The town's end came, without warning, on April 5, 1690, ‘about five of the Clock in the Afternoon,’ an eyewitness would remember in a letter to a friend in London. ‘We heard a rumbling Noise, like that of distant Thunder,’ the eyewitness wrote, ‘from the Bowels of the great Mountain, … in the very Navil of the island.’ This earthquake was different from trembles that had rattled the island before. ‘So strong was the Motion,’ the eyewitness recounted, ‘that … [a] few Moments after the Noise began, … a … Earth Quake, which shook the whole island to that degree, that all the Houses in Charles Town that were built of Brick or Stone, dropt of a sudden down from the Top to the Bottom.’ The sea then suddenly receded, ‘for a time forfeit the Shoar for about three quarters of a Mile together, and left a great Number of Fish of a large size to lye gaping upon the Sand, till it returned again.’ This ‘violent Motion of the Water’ repeated ‘diverse times’, and we can imagine that when the sea ‘returned again’ it lifted and then slammed mats of debris against walls, houses, and anything else that lay in its path. No other reports of this earthquake or its effects survive (Fig. 9.1).

This study of post-medieval colonial landscape archaeology brings together two separate but linked strands of research. The first is a research project initiated in 2001, when the author was awarded a larger research grant by the British Academy to assess the archaeological evidence for the early colonial settlement and landscape of the two eastern Caribbean islands of Nevis and St Kitts, a pilot project for the historical archaeology of the Atlantic rim, to be undertaken in collaboration with Dr Mark Horton, then of the University of Bristol, and Bruce Williams, then manager of Bristol and Region Archaeological Services in Bristol City Museums. The second was the meeting held in conjunction with the research project and convened by the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology on Nevis in 2005, and initiated by the author who was at that time its President. The meeting was to coincide with the research then being undertaken as a result of the British Academy grant and to provide, through discussion and subsequent networking, an input to the scholarly publications which would in due course emerge. This aspect of the meeting has been entirely successful, and many of the contributors now remain in contact as a result. Scholars who participated in the meeting have also been busy drawing on these experiences and contacts and producing their own publications in the interim, some of which should be highlighted here for their important contributions to Caribbean studies.

THE BRITISH ACADEMY PILOT PROJECT

Background

The English Leeward Islands were colonized from the late 1620s onwards. By the end of the century the islands were densely settled and their wealth, shipped principally to Bristol and London, far outstripped that of the North American colonies in total. This is a remarkable story, explored by historians but scarcely at all through its archaeology. Much of what might be known of the early settlement of the islands still awaits telling. The archaeological examination of much of the colonial landscape, the plantations and fields of the 17th and 18th centuries, has still to be undertaken, enabling the material record to be considered alongside the meagre documentary sources, decimated by fire, hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves and other European powers.

INTRODUCTION

Research in the field of dementia has increased exponentially over the last 30 years, leading to a wealth of information on the epidemiology, psychology, neuropathology, biochemistry and genetics of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases. Interdisciplinary approaches have begun to combine the information gathered from the various fields of study into theories regarding the etiology, prevention and treatment of these disorders. This chapter will focus on the neuropathology of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and progressive supranuclear palsy, diffuse Lewy body disease, Huntington's disease, corticobasal degeneration, Pick's disease and prion disease. Vascular dementia is beyond the scope of this chapter and will not be discussed. The currently known neuropathological changes will be discussed in relation to the cognitive impairments of each neurodegenerative disease. Clinical and neuropathological criteria for the various neurodegenerative diseases are presented in Tables 3.1 and 3.2.

Due to the considerable overlap of clinical and neuropathological symptoms among neurodegenerative diseases, guidelines have been published to aid in the collection of information important for an accurate diagnosis. The American Academy of Neurology has recommended the following diagnostic tests be performed on patients with dementia to rule-out potentially treatable disorders: complete blood cell count, serum electrolytes, serum glucose, blood urea nitrogen, serum creatinine, liver function tests, syphilis serology and serum vitamin B12 level (Lanska 1996). Although in most clinical settings, detailed medical and neuropsychological information is often not gathered on each patient, collection of such data in research programs is important for providing clues to the causes and progression of various types of dementia.