Bowls, Plates, and Teawares: Evaluating Ceramic Use at a Virginian Plantation through Use-Wear and Absorbed Residue Analyses

Abstract In the United States, fragments of ceramic bowls are commonly recovered from enslaved quartering sites in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, but they are relatively rare in Virginia. This article uses use-wear and absorbed residue analyses to explore why fewer bowls are found in Virginia and what this difference might say about enslaved foodways. Data for this study come from three late eighteenth- to mid-nineteenth-century sites at Belle Grove plantation (Frederick County, Virginia): an enslaved quartering site, the plantation’s manor house, and a dwelling inhabited by White employees. Although similar ratios of bowls, plates, mugs, teacups, and saucers are present at all three sites, use wear and absorbed residues indicate that enslaved people used mugs, teacups, and saucers in ways that were different from those of Belle Grove’s White inhabitants and that they likely served (semi-)liquid food from them. This research shows that enslaved Virginians often made choices about how to serve meals that differed from those made by enslaved South Carolinians / Georgians, likely due to differences in rationing practices in these states. More broadly, this study demonstrates how combining use-wear and absorbed residue analyses can expand American archaeologists’ ability to assess the role specific types of vessels played in past foodways.