Journal of Caribbean Archaeology Copyright 2019 ISBN 1524-4776 ARCHAEOLOGY OF PIRACY BETWEEN CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE NORTH AMERICAN COAST OF 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES: SHIPWRECKS, MATERIAL CULTURE AND TERRESTRIAL PERSPECTIVES Jean Soulat Laboratoire LandArc – Centre Michel de Boüard, Craham UMR 6273 Groupe de Recherche en Archéométrie, Université Laval, Québec 29, rue de Courbuisson 77920 Samois-sur-Seine – France
[email protected] John de Bry Center for Historical Archaeology 140 Warsteiner Way, Suite 204 Melbourne Beach, Florida 32951 – USA
[email protected] The archaeology of piracy in the 17th and 18th centuries remains a poorly developed discipline in the world. American universities in connection with local authorities were the first to fund and support such research programs on the east coast of the United States and the Caribbean. The study of the shipwreck of the pirate Edward Teach (Blackbeard), the Queen Anne's Revenge 1718, is a very good example of this success. However, a work of crossing archaeological data deserves to be carried out for all the sites brought to light, in particular in the Caribbean area, on the North American coast, without forgetting the Indian Ocean. The synthetic work of Charles R. Ewen and Russell K. Skowronek published in 2006 and 2016 by the University of Florida is an important first step. They treat shipwrecks as well as land occupations, and go back for a long time on the percceived ideas related to the true image of Pirates. However, there is a lack of material culture studies from these sites probably related to the lack of scientific publications of these objects.