Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Intimate encounters: an archaeology of sexualities within colonial worlds / Eleanor Conlin Casella and Barbara L. Voss -- 2. Sexual effects: postcolonial and queer perspectives on the archaeology of sexuality and empire / Barbara L. Voss -- Section I. Pleasures and Prohibitions: 3. Little bastard felons: childhood, affect, and labour in the penal colonies of nineteenth-century / Australia Eleanor Conlin Casella; 4. The currency of intimacy: transformations of the domestic sphere on the late-nineteenth-century diamond fields / Lindsay Weiss; 5. "A concubine is still a slave": sexual relations and Omani colonial identities in nineteenth-century East Africa / Sarah K. Croucher; 6. The politics of reproduction: rituals and sex in Punic Eivissa / Mireia López-Bertran -- Section II. Engaged Bodies: 7. Fear, desire, and material strategies in colonial Louisiana / Diana DiPaolo Loren; 8. Death and sex: procreation in the wake of fatal epidemics within indigenous communities / Kathleen L. Hull; 9. Effects of empire: gendered transformations on the Orinoco frontier / Kay Tarble de Scaramelli; 10. In-between people in colonial Honduras: reworking sexualities at Ticamaya / Russell N. Sheptak, Kira Blaisdell-Sloan, and Rosemary A. Joyce; 11. The scale of the intimate: imperial policies and sexual practices in San Francisco / Barbara L. Voss -- Section III. Commemorations: 12. Life and death in ancient colonies: domesticity, material culture, and sexual politics in the western Phoenician world, eighth to sixth century BCE / Ana Delgado and Meritxell Ferrer; 13. Reading gladiators' epitaphs and rethinking violence and masculinity in the Roman Empire / Renata S. Garraffoni; 14. Monuments and sexual politics in New England Indian country / Patricia E. Rubertone; 15. Gender relations in a Maroon community, Palmares, Brazil / Pedro Paulo A. Funari and Aline Vieira de Carvalho -- Section IV. Showing and Telling: 16. Sexualizing space: the colonial leer and the genealogy of Storyville / Shannon Lee Dawdy; 17. Showing, telling, looking: intimate encounters in the making of South African archaeology / Nick Shepherd; 18. Obstinate things / Mary Weismantel -- 19. Conclusion: sexuality and materiality: the challenge of method / Martin Hall.

"This volume examines human sexuality as an intrinsic element in the interpretation of complex colonial societies"--Provided by publisher.

"This volume examines human sexuality as an intrinsic element in the interpretation of complex colonial societies. While archaeological studies of the historic past have explored the dynamics of European colonialism, such work has largely ignored broader issues of sexuality, embodiment, commemoration, reproduction, and sensuality. Recently, however, scholars have begun to recognize these issues as essential components of colonization and imperialism. This book explores a variety of case studies, revealing the multifaceted intersections of colonialism and sexuality. Incorporating work that ranges from Phoenician diasporic communities of the eighth century to Britain's nineteenth-century Australian penal colonies to the contemporary maroon community of Brazil, this volume changes the way we understand the relationship between sexuality and colonial history"--Provided by publisher.