Mark Paul Leone

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.