Uncommon Ground

Winner of the Southern Anthropological Society's prestigious James Mooney Award, Uncommon Ground takes a unique archaeological approach to examining early African American life. Ferguson shows how black pioneers worked within the bars of bondage to shape their distinct identity and lay a rich foundation for the multicultural adjustments that became colonial America. Through pre-Revolutionary period artefacts gathered from plantations and urban slave communities, Ferguson integrates folklore, history and research to reveal how these enslaved people actually lived. Impeccably researched and beautifully written.