The Oxford Handbook of the Comparative Archaeology of Slavery

Across the globe today, hundreds of archaeologists are engaged in the study of slavery (now better known as enslavement) and its contemporary legacies. Many work collaboratively at times, either in the field or in the lab, but for the most part, these researchers tend to operate in sub-disciplinary silos whose parameters are defined both temporally and geographically: Ottoman Slavery, North American Slavery, Roman Slavery, and so on. The Oxford Handbook of the Comparative Archaeology of Slavery is an experiment in another way of working; its seventy-five expert contributors from across the globe have crossed the boundaries that define but can also constrain us, entering each other's worlds and asking what a comparative approach to enslavement in different times and in different places might offer the archaeological explorer. The contributors' dialogic, diachronic working practices have yielded a unique exploration of what was shared--and what was not--by different systems and practices of enslavement in the past. In turn, these findings cast new light on the experiences of slave owners; enslaved and freed people and their descendants; and on the archaeological analysis of slavery and its outcomes.

CHAPTER 1 - Introduction
CHAPTER 2 - Racialisation
CHAPTER 3 - Strangers in a Foreign Land: The Bioarchaeology of Slavery and Forced Migration
CHAPTER 4 - The Bioarchaeology of Captive-Taking and Enslavement
CHAPTER 5 - Sourcing Slaves
CHAPTER 6 - Making Slaves
CHAPTER 7 - Places of Agricultural Labour: Archaeological Approaches to Estates and Plantations
CHAPTER 8 - Enslavement and Domestic Space
CHAPTER 9 - Urban Slavery
CHAPTER 10 - Public Slaves
CHAPTER 11 - Slavery and Christianity
CHAPTER 12 - Representations of Slavery and Its Legacies
CHAPTER 13 - Made by the Enslaved
CHAPTER 14 - Defying Slavery
CHAPTER 15 - Burial Practices of Enslaved People
CHAPTER 16 - Manumission and Emancipation
CHAPTER 17 - Heritage as a Legacy of Slavery: Archaeological Engagements with Memory, Erasure, Territory, and Placemaking
CHAPTER 18 - Archaeologies of Unfree Labour and Liberal Fantasies of Abolition
CHAPTER 19 - Conclusion

Mark Paul Leone was an historical archaeologist who taught at the University of Maryland. He earned his graduate degrees in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He turned to historical archaeology while working in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University. In 1976 he moved to the University of Arizona, where he founded "Archaeology in Annapolis." He trained over 20 PhDs whose work is in historical archaeology. His books include The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital (University of California Press, 2005) and Black Faith: The Archaeology of Spirit Bundles in Annapolis and in Talbot County, Maryland (University of Virginia Press, 2025). He passed away in 2024, just as the Handbook was nearing completion. Jane Louise Webster is a Historical Archaeologist whose research and teaching has centred on both Roman and early modern slavery, often in comparative perspective. She has worked at the Universities of Leicester (1995-1999) and Newcastle (2004-2024), and from 2008-2024 was Senior Lecturer in Historical Archaeology at Newcastle. Between these posts, she held a Caird Visiting Research Fellowship at the National Maritime Museum, London. In 2023, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford. Her 2024 OUP book, Materializing the Middle Passage: A Historical Archaeology of British Slave Shipping, 1680-1807, won the 2024 Lyman Book Award for Maritime and Nautical Archaeology from the North American Society for Atlantic History and the 2025 Scholarly Book Award from the Society for American Archaeology.