Archaeological Investigations at Salterstown, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland

While American historical archaeologists have made significant progress in their investigations of early seventeenth century English colonies in North America, English colonies of the same period occurring elsewhere have been largely ignored. The archaeological investigation of alternative English colonial contexts is a necessary first step towards an anthropological study of comparative colonialism. Salterstown was a seventeenth century English colonial plantation village in Ulster, now buried beneath a dairy farm. Investigations at Salterstown include archival research, oral history interviews and archaeological excavations over three seasons of fieldwork. Research has monitored the degree of transplantation of English material culture into the Ulster plantations. Native Irish late-medieval survivals and the development of syncretic vernacular traditions unique to Ulster have been recorded. Included are detailed discussions of plantation-period economics, settlement pattern, architecture, ceramics, livestock, footwear, lithics, tobacco pipes, glassmaking and other artifact types. Investigations at Salterstown highlight an early English colonial milieu offering an instructive alternative to North American colonial contexts.