Social Science Disciplines >> Anthropology>>Singleton

Singleton, Theresa
 
Associate Professor
(Ph.D. University of Florida, 1980)
Office: 403 Maxwell Hall. Phone: 443-2435.
E_mail: tasingle@maxwell.syr.edu

My areas of interest include historical archaeology, African Diasporas, Museums, North America, and the Caribbean. Throughout my career as an archaeologist, I have combined my research interests with developing museum collections, exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and publications geared toward general audiences.  I am particularly interested in comparative studies of slave societies in the Americas.  I began my study of slavery in coastal Georgia where African-Americans descended from the former slave population are known as the Gullah. (Gullah refers to both the creole language they speak as well as to the people themselves). Since that time, I have conducted research, contributed to exhibitions, and published on various aspects of African-American life in United States.

 

I am currently directing a research project in Cuba that involves: (1) excavation of a coffee plantation known historically as Santa Ana de Viajacas, and today, called cafetal del padre; (2) historical research of other coffee plantations located within the same jurisdiction.  Cuba imported about a million enslaved Africans, more than any other Spanish-speaking nation in the Americas. During the first half of the nineteenth century, many of these African captives labored on coffee plantations. Working in Cuba has presented numerous challenges primarily due to the U.S. trade embargo and travel restrictions to Cuba.  In spite of these obstacles, my Cuban colleagues and I have completed five field seasons of excavations and one field season devoted to a remote sensing survey (the use of geophysical methods to identify potential below-ground archaeological deposits). We are also working on a video project and exhibitions for Cuban audiences. In January 2005, we discussed our findings to date on Radio Habana, a radio program broadcast throughout Latin America.

 
Project Team for the 2004 field season. The project team consists of trained Cuban
archaeologists, volunteers, and members of the community who lived near the site.

 

Selected Publications

My publications include two edited volumes on the archaeology of the African Diaspora: The Archaeology of Slavery and Plantation Life (Academic Press, 1985), and I, too, am America: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life (University Press of Virginia, 1999), and numerous articles.

2006 Investigando la vida del esclavo en el cafetal del Padre Gabinete de Arqueología Boletín no. 4, año 4, 2005, Havana, Cuba.
2006

African Diaspora Archaeology in Dialogue. In Afro-Atlantic Dialogues:   Anthropology in the Diaspora. Ed. Kevin A. Yelvington, Santa Fe, New Mexico:  School of American Research  Seminar Series, 249-287.

2005

An archaeological study of slavery on a Cuban coffee plantation In Dialogues in Cuban Archaeology. Eds. G.La Rosa Corzo, A. Curet, And S. L. Dawdy. Tuscaloosa:  University of Alabama Press, 181-199.

2004

Before the Revolution: Archaeology and the African Diaspora on the Atlantic Seaboard. In North American Archaeology. Ed. T. Pauketat and D.Loren. Boston: Blackwell Publishers, 319-226.

2003

Descendant Communities:  Linking People in the Present with the Past. In Ethical  lssues in Archaeology. Ed. L. J. Zimmerman, K. D. Vitelli, and Julie Hollowell-Zimmer. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press, 143-152. (with Charles E. Orser, Jr.).

2001

Race, Class, and Identity among Free Blacks in the Antebellum South. In The Archaeology of Race and Identity. Ed. C. E. Orser, Jr Salt Lake: University of Utah Press, 196-207.

2001

Slavery and Spatial Dialectics on a Cuban Coffee Plantation, World Archaeology, 33(1):98-114.

2000

Breaking Typological Barriers:  Looking for the Colono in Colonoware, In Lines that Divide: Historical Archaeologies of  Race, Class, and Gender .Ed. J. Delle, S. A. Mrozowski, and R. Paynter. Knoxville: University Press of Tennessee, .3-21 (with Mark Bograd).

1999

The Slave Trade Remembered on the Former Gold and Slave Coasts Slavery and Abolition 20(1):150-169.

1998

Cultural Interaction and African American Identity in Plantation Archaeology. In Studies in Culture Contact:  Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology. Ed. James G. Cusick. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Papers No.25 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 172-187.

1997

Facing the Challenges of a Public African-American Archaeology. In  Historical Archaeology 31(3:146-152.

1997

The Interpretation of Slavery. In Presenting Archaeology to the Public. Ed. James. H. Jameson, Jr.  Walnut Creek, CA:  AltaMira Press, 193-204 (with Mark Bograd).

1995

The Archaeology of Slavery in North America." Annual Reviews of Anthropology 24: 119-140. 

1995

The Archaeology of the African Diaspora in the Americas. Guides to the Archaeological Literature of the Immigrant Experiences in America, Number 2. Society of Historical Archaeology, Tucson, Arizona, 82 PP (with Mark Bograd). 

This page current as of: September 1, 2006