Examines human sexuality as an intrinsic element in the interpretation of complex colonial societies.

1. Intimate encounters: an archaeology of sexualities within colonial worlds Eleanor Conlin Casella and Barbara L. Voss; 2. Sexual effects: postcolonial and queer perspectives on the archaeology of sexuality and empire Barbara L. Voss; Part I. Pleasures and Prohibitions: 3. Little bastard felons: childhood, affect, and labour in the penal colonies of nineteenth-century Australia Eleanor Conlin Casella; 4. The currency of intimacy: transformations of the domestic sphere on the late nineteenth-century diamond fields Lindsay Weiss; 5. 'A concubine is still a slave': sexual relations and Omani colonial identities in nineteenth-century East Africa Sarah K. Croucher; 6. The politics of reproduction: rituals and sex in Punic Eivissa Mireia López-Bertran; Part II. Engaged Bodies: 7. Fear, desire, and material strategies in colonial Louisiana Diana DiPaolo Loren; 8. Death and sex: procreation in the wake of fatal epidemics within indigenous communities Kathleen L. Hull; 9. Effects of empire: gendered transformations on the Orinoco frontier Kay Tarble de Scaramelli; 10. In-between people in colonial Honduras: reworking sexualities at Ticamaya Russell N. Sheptak, Kira Blaisdell-Sloan and Rosemary A. Joyce; 11. The scale of the intimate: imperial policies and sexual practices in San Francisco Barbara L. Voss; Part III. Commemorations: 12. Life and death in ancient colonies: domesticity, material culture, and sexual politics in the western Phoenician world, 8th¿6th century BC Ana Delgado and Meritxell Ferrer; 13. Reading gladiators' epitaphs and rethinking violence and masculinity in the Roman Empire Renata S. Garraffoni; 14. Monuments and sexual politics in New England Indian country Patricia E. Rubertone; 15. Gender relations in a Maroon community, Palmares, Brazil Pedro Paulo A. Funari and Aline Vieira de Carvalho; Part IV. Showing and Telling: 16. Sexualizing space: the colonial leer and the genealogy of Storyville Shannon Lee Dawdy; 17. Showing, telling, looking: intimate encounters in the making of South African archaeology Nick Shepherd; 18. Obstinate things Mary Weismantel; 19. Conclusion: sexuality and materiality: the challenge of method Martin Hall.