Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award: The Development of Modern Commercialism

This doctoral dissertation project investigates the ways in which expanding markets and the commodification of labor and resources transform local, self-sufficient economies and societies. Commodification is at the core of the modern global economy and was a key development in the formation of market economies in the past. It has long been recognized that European colonialism unleashed commodification worldwide accompanied by new productive agendas, market-based consumer patterns, and even ecological rearrangements via species introductions, depletions, and extinctions.

Colonial conquest brought commodification and mercantilism to many parts of the world as part of spreading the first global economy, but did this process build on prior forms of commodification and specialization? How did local populations for example engage with the overarching Spanish market order, and conversely, how were market mentalities and practices shaped by native economic arrangements?

How were new hybrid productive structures and practices born in colonial settings as market logics met native patterns? These questions remain important subjects of investigation to better understand globalization dynamics, past and the present.

Using an archaeological perspective this research examines how indigenous economic practices, largely based on self-sufficiency, reciprocity and redistribution, confronted a mercantile praxis based on the commodification of labor and natural resources. The doctoral student examines an indigenous maritime hunter-gatherer community as this place was transformed into an important early colonial port.

Diverse archeological and archival lines of evidence on community composition, occupation specialization, production and consumption (from diet and personal possessions to fishing gear and impact on fishing stocks) are integrated to track changes in socioeconomic life and habitat of residents (both indigenous and colonial) from the prehispanic through early colonial periods. A well preserved archaeological setting provides an unparalleled opportunity to radiocarbon date at the fine scale important changes in these lines of evidence, generating critical information on the timing and sequences of change relating to commodification and market practices.

Such a study provides a vivid picture of an understudied settlement type - - the early colonial port - - as a revealing, diverse workforce community, and provides an archaeological case study at the dawn of commodification processes. This knowledge furthers comparative understanding of the dynamics of initial commercial nodes and the hybrid nature of the early colonial markets generally.

In addition, the close study of habitat change (marine and terrestrial) by the research team advances environmental archaeology on the topics of Anthropocene habitat change and overfishing. Collaboration with local institutions offer students research materials and training opportunities in archaeology and biochemistry.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.