Since the 1970s, scholars working on African Diaspora archaeology have attempted to link material objects recovered from North American contexts to African parent cultures. One common symbol found on a variety of objects was the X or cross motif, sometimes placed within a circle. Originally recognized on colonoware in South Carolina, initial interpretations suggested that the symbol was derived from Ghana. However, after a series of publications by art historians documenting the Bakongo Culture of West Central Africa in the 1980s, subsequent archaeological interpretations shifted to assign this singular African culture and its underlying belief system as the exclusive origin for these symbolic expressions. This study contextualizes the religious belief systems and their manifested symbols throughout Africa and the British Isles and suggests several alternative African cultures as the source to explain the presence and meaning of the cross, and cross and circle, form within these New World contexts.

AUTHOR

James M. Davidson is a professor of Anthropology and Historical Archaeology at the University of Florida, specializing in the African Diaspora within the United States.

REVIEW

‘Davidson’s work is a landmark publication that reviews the use of cross, and cross and circle, marks in various countries and contexts and then drills down on the African diaspora association of these marks and the claims of their affiliation to the Bakongo. It reveals the complexity of interpreting symbols and the flaws in a tunnel vision approach that excludes alternative analyses.’ JW Joseph, PhD, RPA