Intro to Historical Archaeology: Lecture Notes, 2/4/10
Archaeology of the Recent Past
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Study of a period
A “method” (inherently multidisciplinary)
Study of the modern world
Deetz’s “European expansion and its impacts on indigenous peoples”
Archaeology of capitalism
Archaeology of global expansion
What else defines “modern”?
History of the Field:
 Early historical preservation of “great men, great houses”: historic sites preservation:
specific people, specific events – Mount Vernon, Miles Standish’s house, the Alamo.
1880s-1920s (“Mount Vernon Ladies Association”, 1853)
 Big boost from Depression: WPA-funded work, like at Jamestown. Beginnings of ‘living
history’ museums like Williamsburg: nationalist themes
 Early 1960s: three sources of expansion – GI bill, CRM, investment in state and national
park systems. (1968 – Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology, birth of the Society for
Historical Archaeology)
 1976 and the bicentennial: shift away from nationalist, historicist themes to social,
cultural ones, especially the archaeology of minority, misrepresented groups
 1980s and the emergence of disciplinary maturity: first extra-US comparisons, shift to
archaeology of larger scale processes: industrialization, capitalism, global expansion.
 1990s and the rise of public archaeology, ‘heritage stewardship’, ‘sustainability and
preservation’.
 Millennialism and Diversity: “whose past”? How to make the past relevant to the present,
future. ( Bob Kelly quote in Little: “It seems too simplistic, but archaeology’s purpose
today is to play a role in ending racism. Everything else follows from this fact”. Or Neil
Silberman: “Everyone is ‘indigenous’. Everyone is ‘diasporic’.”)
Little: “Our Ambitions”: What does she mean by these?
Preserving and interpreting sites:
Rewriting documentary history:
Reconstructing ways of life:
Improving Archaeological Methods:
Understanding Modernization and Globalization: