Tracking the Atlantic Slave Trade Through Material Culture at Sites in Calabar and Old Calabar, Cross River State

The material culture dimensions of the Atlantic slave trade at its Nigerian sources have received surprisingly limited systematic archaeological investigation despite the intensive historical documentation of the trade's commercial and social history at Calabar and Old Calabar. This study tracks material evidence of Atlantic slave trade engagement through systematic analysis of artefact assemblages from four archaeological contexts in Calabar, Cross River State, spanning the period from approximately 1650 to 1850 CE. The analytical programme encompasses the study of trade objects including European-manufactured glass beads, manillas, spirits bottles, and ceramic wares alongside locally produced Efik ceramics and iron objects, using compositional analysis, typological dating, and spatial distribution modelling. European trade goods constitute between twelve and twenty-eight percent of total assemblage volume across the studied contexts, with the highest proportions in contexts associated with major trading house compounds. Typological dating of European ceramics and glassware using published reference sequences from Atlantic World sites in West Africa, the Caribbean, and North America provides chronological resolution independent of stratigraphic dating. The study identifies a significant material signature of intensified Atlantic engagement in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, corresponding chronologically with the period of peak Calabar slave export documented in shipping records. These findings make a substantive contribution to Atlantic World archaeology and the emerging global archaeology of slavery. Keywords: Atlantic slave trade, material culture, Calabar, Cross River State, trade goods analysis.