Archaeological Perspectives On and Contributions To the Study of Colonial American Gardens

Abstract

Archaeological excavations of colonial sites reveal both the diversity and uniformity characterizing colonial garden design. Although the American colonies stood on the periphery of Europe's empires, colonists turned to British and continental designs in town planning, architecture, interior furnishings, and gardens. In adapting these designs, they sought to make statements about their political, economic, and social status, and their cultural identity as colonials. This article provides an overview of the insights revealed by archaeological excavations of specific sites. The article discusses both the material data and the historical interpretations offered by archaeologists working on the gardens of North American colonists in towns and cities, on farms and plantations in the North and South, at military fortifications, and in other institutional contexts. 70 Landscape Journal Figure 5. Site map of the Miles Brewton house, Charleston, South Carolina, showing main house, outbuildings, gardens, and enclosing walls.

Landscapes of Power: Middle Class and Lower Class Power Dynamics in a New York Charitable Institution

“…The landscape changes suggest an understanding of social messages that can be conveyed through landscape design. Archaeologists have analyzed how the elite in the eighteenth century used landscape design to reflect or affirm their status (e.g., Baugher and De Cunzo 2002;Kelso 1990;Leone 1988). Archaeological research has also evaluated how both power and status can be reflected in nineteenth-century landscapes (Delle 1999;Spencer-Wood 2002;Yamin and Metheny 1996).…”

Production, Power, and the "Natural": Differences between English and American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century

“…As Sherenne Baugher and Lu Anne de Cunzo have emphasised, Americans took aspects of English and European gardens and adopted them, in new ways, to express their own identities, ideologies and lifestyles. 7 But it does raise the question of how far stylistic forms on the ground can be entirely and sufficiently explained in terms of the specific social environments in which we encounter them; and, conversely, whether rather different kinds of garden might, had cultural influence and transmission followed different pathways, have fulfilled the same social role.…”