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.     

‘Waiting for Jardiwanpa’: History and Mediation in Warlpiri Fire Ceremonies

Warlpiri fire ceremonies, including Jardiwanpa, have been documented in various ethnographies and films for over 100 years. Focused on the documented history of these rituals in Yuendumu, and through ethnographic observations from recent decades, I analyse the transforming meanings of fire ceremonies in contemporary Warlpiri lives. I demonstrate that there have been post‐settlement shifts in ritual purpose due to sedentarisation and the increased connections that Warlpiri people have made to a broader world. I note in particular that, when monetary payment for performing Jardiwanpa for filmic representation became standard practice in the 1990s, the intricacies of the Dreaming were no longer central, nor were the original purposes of conflict resolution and the opening up of marriage restrictions. Several films have been made of fire ceremonies, resulting in fixed representations of what otherwise are emergent practices. This has impacted the ways in which these rituals can be held today, and Warlpiri people have had to creatively re‐negotiate a space for Jardiwanpa and similar fire ceremonies.