| This study seeks to understand transformations in the modern capitalist World-economy during the North Atlantic. It specifically treats the material culture of four French shipwrecks dating from 1700 to 1760: la Dauphine (1704), l'Alcide (1747), l'Aimable Grenot (1749) et le Machault (1760). The starting point of this study is the standardization of European material culture and the growing interstate exchanges in an ever-stronger and integrated World-economy, or economic globalization. This study is built progressively, from the low-level analysis of shipwreck assemblages to their global interpretation in conceptual terms, using three functional artefact groups: cargo, shipboard equipment and personal objects. The author seeks to identify the shipboard function of different artefacts and find their provenance, in order to study the production, the commercialization and the diffusion of the different productions found on the shipwrecks. He seeks a closer understanding of the trends and dynamics underlying the European Atlantic economy during the 18th century, when the most powerful states of Western Europe fought for military and economic control of the continent.;Keywords: Maritime Archaeology; Historical Archaeology; Shipwrecks; Material Culture; Historical Capitalism; Economie-monde; History; France; New France. |
