Russian America and the Archaeology of Capitalism

Abstract

Historical archaeology is the “archaeology of capitalism” (Paynter 1988), including its evolution and expansion, economic and social impacts, and the material culture of the industrial age. As an integrated world system of capitalist economies coalesced during the late eighteenth century, Russian fur merchants pushed eastward from Siberia to Alaska, subordinating new peoples into global hierarchies of production, consumption, and power (Wallerstein 1974; Wolf 1982). The present study examines this momentous expansion from a single point in space and time–the Russian settlement at Three Saints Harbor on Kodiak Island, Alaska, founded by fur merchant Grigorii Shelikhov in 1784. Despite its small size and relatively brief span of occupation, Shelikhov’s outpost in America is a rich source of historical and archaeological information pertaining to the origins and development of Russian colonialism, and about the material ties between Russia and its distant Alaskan frontier. Studies at Three Saints address topics of broad significance to historians and anthropologists as they attempt to interpret the complex interactions that everywhere accompanied Western contact and capitalist transformation.