Under the direction of Dr. Patricia McAnany, professor of anthropology at Boston University, Mr. Daniel Finamore will conduct archaeological research to collect data for his doctoral dissertation. His work will focus on the New River Valley of coastal Belize and include the excavation of a series of logging camps occupied during the eighteenth century. Coastal Belize was settled primarily by English seafarers and was a colony of Great Britain. Although originally egalitarian, an economically stratified community developed and this process was furthered by the importation of black slaves. The economy of the colony depended largely on logging, and tropical wood was harvested and shipped to Europe. As coastal supplies diminished, the focus shifted inland, and canals were dug to permit trees to be floated to rivers and hence to the coast. To this end, inland camps were established. Mr. Finamore is interested in these because he believes they will shed light on the relationships and economic interactions between different colonial groups. Camps differ in nature. Some were occupied primarily by slaves and others by small or large property holders. Mr. Finamore has located a series of sites based on English documents, and he plans to excavate a sample to collect and note variation in material culture. This in turn will shed light on different lifestyles and interactions among groups. This research is important for several reasons. It will shed additional light on a little known period of Middle American prehistory. It will also increase our understanding of long- term, inter-ethnic interactions in frontier situations. Similar highly volatile contexts still exist today in areas such as Amazonian Brazil and the Philippines, and the results of Mr. Finamore's work will be directly relevant to our understanding of them. Finally, the project will further the training of an extremely promising young scientist.
