A Venezuelan household clearance assemblage of 19th-century British ceramics in international perspective

In 2010, the authors undertook the analysis of a 19th-century assemblage of ceramics excavated in 2004 in the Venezuelan city of Barcelona. The pilot study was designed to address the hitherto underappreciated importance of South American evidence towards global studies of 19th-century British material culture. Analysis of the assemblage demonstrated that it contained a mid 19th-century household clearance component comprised of British-made ceramics. This article describes the basic typology of the household clearance component, and the scale of the replacement of Spanish-tradition materials with British-made ceramics in the post-independence period. Some preliminary conclusions based on this ongoing research are also offered.