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The archaeology of Mauritius

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2015

Krish Seetah
Krish Seetah*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA (Email: kseetah@stanford.edu)
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Abstract

The archaeology of Atlantic slavery has been widely studied in recent years, but less attention has been paid to the post-slavery system of indenture that transported contract labourers from South Asia, China and Africa to new lands. Colonial Mauritius has left abundant archaeological remains, not least the cemetery for slaves and freed slaves established at Le Morne in the nineteenth century. Analysis of aDNA has demonstrated that individuals buried at Le Morne were of Madagascan and East African (probably Mozambican) origin, testifying to the long-distance movement of slave labour.

Keywords

Indian OceanMauritiuscolonial period archaeologyslaveryarchaeology of indenture
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 346 , August 2015 , pp. 922 - 939
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2015 

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