Agroindustrial Soilscapes in the Caribbean: A Geochemical Perspective from Betty’s Hope,Antigua

ABSTRACT

This research examines the chemical impacts to soils caused by the industrialisation (mechanisation and mass production) of sugar and rum manufacturing in the Caribbean during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Soils and sediments excavated from Betty’s Hope sugar plantation (1674?1944) are chemically characterised by mild acid extraction and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectroscopy. These data are integrated with analyses of soil properties, including colour, texture, pH and organic matter, to examine activity patterns in areas associated with a large multi-use building dating to the period of industrialisation. Quantitative analysis of the data employs zero-order and partial linear correlation, multidimensional scaling, principal components analysis and spatial interpolation using semivariogram modelling and Kriging. The results reveal the locations of activity areas inside the building, which aids in understanding its role in sugar and rum production. The research also reveals evidence for soil contamination by heavy metals (lead and mercury), suggesting that plantation sites from this period may be polluted with industrial wastes. These findings have implications for activity reconstruction in the archaeological past as well as environmental and community health issues today.     

English towns in the late middle ages: the case of Great Yarmouth

Historians are divided over the economic fortunes of English towns in the late middle ages. Many argue for a ‘general crisis’ while others emphasize the variety of urban experience. Great Yarmouth is a striking example of a town facing protracted difficulties. Its decline in relation to other English towns between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries is particularly marked. Fourth among provincial towns in the 1334 tax return, Yarmouth ranked eighteenth in 1377 and twentieth in the subsidies of the 1520s.Yarmouth's problems become apparent soon after 1350, but while the Black Death may have killed one-third of its inhabitants, it is not the main cause of the town's misfortunes. Yarmouth depended heavily on two industries: shipping and fishing. The former was undermined by the early stages of the Hundred Years War, and the latter by competition from the Low Countries. A silting harbour which drove away trade and the high cost of building and repairing the town walls added to Yarmouth's difficulties.Whether economic decline is measured in terms of totals, for example total volume of trade, or in terms of individual production or wealth, Yarmouth fared badly. In the second half of the fourteenth century, Yarmouth's trade was much reduced and the town's leading burgesses seem much poorer than their counterparts before 1350. While Yarmouth clearly was in decline from about 1350 onwards, the town's experiences cannot be used to prove the case for a ‘general crisis’. They have to be seen in the context of the continuing prosperity of Norwich and the revival of Ipswich.