The Archaeology of the Clay Tobacco Pipe: Pipes and kilns in the London region

This thesis is based on the analysis of over 1,000 clay pipes, of the Colono type, found at three sites on the east coast of the USA within the Chesapeake Bay. The author discusses the archaeological context of the pipes and examines the types of decoration that are represented. He then places the pipes and their iconography within the cultural context of 17th-century Chesapeake. This area was a centre for plantation slavery and the increase in pipe-smoking corresponded with an increase in the slave population. The study argues that the slaves used the pipe decoration to aid the development of a new African-American ethinc identity. Includes an illustrated catalogue.