James Deetz was an American anthropologist who researched the early life of the first groups of Americans upon settlement. In this text, it is prudent to identify how he developed multiple techniques and data items to establish a detailed historical account of the early Americans. It is crucial to specifically discuss the tobacco industry, its factors, and how history played up to being what it was.
James Deetz came up with a method to know the tobacco industry’s growth extent by measuring the bore size of the olden tobacco stem (pipes). In the area known as Flowerdew hundred, James Deetz excavated a couple of tobacco stems in their research. He noticed that there was a variation in the size of the bore stems and thought to himself that maybe there is a correlation between the bore stem size to the year it was created in the past. Therefore, this initiative led to various discoveries that James later made.
True to his words, he matched the bore sizes to historical data that was available, and it all matched up different bore sizes belonging to different periods in history. This data was amassed, and the formula was created, the earlier the bowl, the wider the borehole: from 4/64ths of an inch to 9/64ths of an inch “(Deetz, 2010). Flowerdew was an area known for its large farms used to grow tobacco. During its course of time, it changed hands a couple of times from a large farm owner to smaller farm owners, then back to its original size after it was bought up and amalgamated back again (Mcmillan et al., 2014). The planters were of African origin and slaves offered free labor to the large farm owners.
In the late 1700s, a boom in the tobacco market began; American tobacco farmers took to their heritage and named an area of farm Georgia. This was after a string of British kings who ruled from 1719 to 1800. Tobacco was now grown for a profit rather than a way of living for the common folk. This resulted in a significant cultural shift among its folks. The system of operation was transitioned from an asymmetrical point to a balanced position. Previously farming was left to huge corporate groups, but now individuals who owned farmlands did it (Shott, 2012). In the former times, also known as the medieval times, the farm owners did the farming labor, but now it was done by the African slaves, who were a cheaper source of labor than their Caucasian counterparts.
In medieval times, the farming system was traditional with no new technologies being applied, but the farming systems were modernized after the transition. The major market of the former farms was the local population, and as time passed, a new market was discovered, the whole world, so it gradually changed from local to global. Different markets operate in various ways; the markets of the past operate in the mannerism of the past, and it is no lie that intermediaries of that time had no huge market, but with time their stroke of genius came to them, and they discovered that they had a huge market (McMillan et al., 2014). Therefore, they changed from organic buying of tobacco to bulk ordering, as it was cheaper for their endeavors as businesspersons.
References
Deetz, J. (2010). In small things forgotten: an archaeology of early American life. Anchor.
McMillan, L. K., Hatch, D. B., & Heath, B. J. (2014). Dating methods and techniques at the John Hallowes site (44WM6): A seventeenth-century example. Northeast Historical Archaeology, 43(1), 152-171. Web.
Shott, M. J. (2012). Toward settlement occupation, span from dispersion of tobacco-pipe stem-bore diameter values. Historical Archaeology, 46(2), 16-38. Web.