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by rank was drawn up in 1718 and updated in 1755. Beginning with the governor-general of Netherlands India, it continued all the way down to the third watch. The upper echelons of Cape colonial society comprised the highest company officials, their friends and relations, a few of the wealthier local residents, and visitors who enjoyed relatively high social status in Europe. The “underclass,” as Hall uses the term, included everyone below a certain rank within the company, such as ordinary soldiers and sailors, and also people not on the company’s payroll who provided the community with menial services: artisans, fishermen, laundresses, seamstresses, and so on. Also included were the lowest of the low: slaves, Khoikhoi servants, habitual drunks, and vagrants. These were people who, for the most part, lived, labored, and hung about in the tawdry back streets and small alleyways not shown on the carefully gridded maps of the town the VOC presented to the civilized world (Hall 1991). Excavations over several seasons at 91 Bree Street have revealed how the neat and regular facade of this large, upperclass town house cloaked unsavory activities in the backyard where overcrowded outbuildings provided lodgings for those unable to afford anything better.

Site plan of Paradise. The Main House and Outbuilding One were excavated.

(Historical Archaeology Research Group, University of Cape Town)

The excavations mentioned above, as well as several others in both the city and its outlying areas, laid the foundation for analytical and interpretative work, some of which remains to be done and much of that which has been completed exists only in the form of unpublished theses and reports. An example is the work of Jane Klose, who has identified, classified, and cataloged excavated ceramics. This work is of global significance as it facilitates the comparison of Cape finds with those in other settings around the colonial world.

Before the advent of historical archaeology in South Africa, interest in Cape material culture centered on what came to be known as Cape Dutch architecture. Beginning in 1900, with the publication of drawings of old Cape houses by Alice Fayne Trotter, this interest has resulted in numerous popular books, compiled for the most part by architects. The value of these