ANTHROPOLOGY 576L
ARCHAEOLOGICAL AREA STUDIES - HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
Fall 2012 – Monday 9:40-12:40 Sci 1 143
Instructor - Randy McGuire
Office Hours: T 2-3 PM, W 10-11 AM, or by appointment
Office Sci 1 135, 777-2100
rmcguire@binghamton.edu
This four credit graduate seminar introduces the student to the growing field of historical archaeology.
Historical archaeology uses material culture to study American history. It brings a unique perspective to the dayto-day life of the people who made history in the Americas.
Graduate standing is required for the course but no prior course work in archaeology is necessary. I will
assume that each student has a basic grounding in American history. The course will prepare graduate students in
archaeology to formulate research questions for historic sites in North America. It will give students in the other
three subdisciplines an introduction to archaeological research and it will address a variety of concerns that cross
cut the subdisciplines. Graduate students in history can take the course to learn about the advantages and
limitations of an archaeological approach to the study of American history.
The course is organized into three sections. The first section will cover some of the major theoretical
approaches to historical archaeology. The second section will address a series of topics that have been important
in Historical archaeology. These will include gender, class, race, and world expansion. The last section will
apply theory and consider these topics in a series of case studies spanning US history.
My experience has always been that the students make or break a seminar. We will be meeting 3 hours a
week to engage in a dialogue on the issues raised for that week. To this end it is absolutely imperative that you
come to class prepared. This means that you must do the readings, but more importantly, you must THINK
about the readings before you come to class. I will try to give you an idea of the issues and questions before each
session to help you do the readings.
Course Requirements
There will be a research paper required of each student in the class and each student will do a 20-minute
presentation to the class based on their paper. The research paper will count for 65% of your grade and the
presentation will count for 15%, leaving 20% to be determined by class participation and effort. The topic of the
term paper is very open but it must relate to historical archaeology and must require you to do some type of
creative analysis. We will discuss the research project in detail at the first class meeting. During the class
meetings of October 15, I will ask each of you to present a brief summary of what your paper will be about. At
that time, I will expect everyone to have a well-formulated research question, each person to have a clearly
defined research goal, and some preliminary research to have been done. Each student will present a 20-minute
paper to the class on his/her project during finals week. These presentations will follow the format of the Society
for Historical Archaeology meetings.
Textbooks
There are 3 texts for Anthro. 576L:
Deetz, James
1996 In Small Things Forgotten. 2nd edition, Anchor Press, New York
Hall, Martin and Stephen W. Silliman
2006 Historical Archaeology. Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.
Leone, Mark
2005 The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis. University of
California Press, Berkeley.
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Archaeologists rightly consider Deetz's book a classic and it is probably the most widely read book to
ever to come out of historical archaeology. As a case study it gives us a good example of a structuralist approach
to historical archeology. We will be using the recently released revised and expanded version. The papers Hall
and Silliman do a good job of defining where the field is at the beginning of the 21st century. They also provide a
variety of theoretical perspectives and studies on a wide range of times and topics. As such they are a good
introduction to the field. Leon’s book is a major work reporting on one of the most important projects in
Historical Archaeology. Other readings will be available through Blackboard.
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SCHEDULE
Sept. 10
What is Historical Archaeology?
Archaeology Adrift debate - Historical Archaeology 35(2):1-30.
What Are We Learning From Publicly Funded Historical Archaeology – Historical Archaeology
41(2):54-83 - Forum
Hall and Silliman – Ch. 1 & 16
Dawdy, Shannon Lee
2010 Clockpunk Anthropology and the Ruins of Modernity. Current Anthropology 51(6):761795.
No Class – Rosh Hashanah holiday
Sept. 17
Sept. 24
Methods: Artifacts & Documents
Deetz 1996 - ch. 1
Joyse, Rosmary
2006 Writing Historical Archaeology. In The Cambridge Companion to Historical
Archaeology. Ed. By Hicks and Beaudry , pp.48-68. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hall and Silliman – Ch. 3
Little, Barbara
2007 Topical Convergence: Historical Archaeologists and Historians on Common Ground.
Historical Archaeology 41(2):10-20.
2009 What Can Archaeology Do for Justice, Peace, Community, and the Earth? Historical
Archaeology 43(4):115-129 Forum
Oct. 1
Structuralist Approaches
Hall and Silliman ch 13
Leone, Mark
1996 Paca’s Garden. In Images of the Recent Past. Alta Mira Press, ed. By C.E. Orser,ch 15,
Walnut Creek.
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Read ch 15 Leone, Paca’s Garden
Deetz, James
1996 In Small Things Forgotten. 2nd edition, Anchor Press, Garden City.
Oct. 8
Critical Archaeology and Marxism
Hall and Silliman ch. 5 & 7
Potter, Paker B. Jr.
1992 Critical Archaeology: In the Ground and on the Street. Historical Archaeology
26(3):117-129.
Matthews, Christopher, Mark Leone, & Kurt A. Jorden
2002 The Political Economy of Archaeological Cultures: Marxism and American
Historical Archaeology. Journal of Social Archaeology 2(1):109-134.
Gable, Eric and Richard Handler
1996 After Authenticity at an American Heritage Site. American Anthropologist
98(3):568-578.
McGuire, Randall H. and Paul Reckner
2002 The Unromantic West: Labor, Capital, and Struggle. Historical Archaeology
36(3):44-58.
Oct. 15
the Annapolis Project - Discussion of Research Projects
Leone 2005 – entire book
Wilkie, Laurie A., and Kevin M. Bartoy
2000 A Critical Archaeology Revisited. Current Anthropology 41(5):747-777.
Oct. 22
Architecture and Landscapes
Hall and Silliman Ch. 4
Hicks, Dan and Audrey Horning
2006 Historical Archaeology and Buildings. In The Cambridge Companion to Historical
Archaeology. Ed. By Hicks and Beaudry , pp.273-292. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Moshenska, Gabriel
2010 Charred Churches or Iron Harvest? Journal of Social Archaeology10(1):5-27.
Johnson, Matthew
2005 On the Particularism of British Landscape Archaeology. International Journal of
Archaeology 9(2):111-122.
O’Neill, Bruce
2009 The Political Agency of Cityscapes. Journal of Social Archaeology 9(1):92-109.
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Oct. 29
Gender
Hall and Silliman Ch. 6
Wall, Diana
2000 Family meals and evening parties: Constructing domesticity in nineteenth-century middleclass New York. In Delle, J. A., Mrozowski, S. A., and Paynter, R. (eds.), Lines that Divide:
Historical Archaeologies of Race, Class, and Gender, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville,
pp. 109–141.
Beaudry, Mary C.
2011 Stitching Women’s Lives: Interpreting the Artifacts of Sewing and Needlework. In
Interpreting the Early Modern World. Edited by M.C.Beaudry and S. James, pp. 143-158,
Springer, New York.
Rothchild, Nan
2006 Colonialism, Material Culture, and Identity in the Rio Grande and Hudson River Valleys.
International Journal of Historical Archaeology 10(1):73-108.
Rotman, Deborah
2005 Newlyweds, Young Families, and Spinsters: A Consideration of Developmental Cycle
in Historical Archaeologies of Gender. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 9:1-36.
Voss, Barbara
2008 Domesticating Imperialism: Sexual Politics and the Archaeology of Empire. American
Anthropologist 110(2):191-203.
Nov. 5
Class
Hall and Silliman Ch. 8 & 10
Cook, Lauren J., Rebecca Yamin, and John P. McCarthy
1996 Shopping as Meaningful Action: Toward a Redefinition of Consumption In
Historical Archaeology. Historical Archaeology 30(4):50-65.
Wurst, LouAnn & Randall H. McGuire
1999 Immaculate Consumption: A Critique of the “Shop till you drop” School of
Human Behavior. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 3(3):191-199.
Voss, Barbara
2008 Gender, Race, and Labor in the Archaeology of the Spanish Colonial Americas. Current
Anthropology 49(5):861-894.
Nov. 12
The African Diaspera
Hall and Silliman 12
Singleton, Theresa A.
1997 Facing the Challenges of a Public African-American Archaeology. Historical
Archaeology 31(3):146-152.
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Jones, Siân
1999 Historical Categories and the Praxis of Identity: The Interpretation of Ethnicity in
Historical Archaeology. In Historical Archaeology: Back From the Edge. Ed. By P.P. Funari,
M. Hall, & S. Jones., pp. 219-232, Routledge, London.
Franklin, Maria and Larry McKee
2004 African Diaspora Archaeologies: Present Insights and Expanding Discourses. Historical
Archaeology. 38(1):1-9.
Macl, Mark E. and Michael L. Blakey
2004 The New York African Burial Ground Project: Past Biases, Current Dilemmas, and Future
Research Opportunities. Historical Archaeology 38(1) :10-17.
Wilkie, Laura
2004 Considering the Future of African American Archaeology. Historical Archaeology
38(1):109-123
Nov. 19
World Expansion
Hall and Silliman Chs. 2, 11 & 15
Gonzáles-Ruibal, Alfredo
2009 Vernacular Cosmopolitanism: An Archaeological Critique of Universalistic Reason. In
Cosmopolitan Archaeologies. Ed by Lynn Meskell, pp. 113-139, Duke University Press,
Durham.
Silliman, Stephen
2010 Indigenous Traces in Colonial Spaces. Journal of Social Archaeology10(1):28-58.
Nov. 26
Native Americans & Missionization
Hall and Silliman Ch 14
Saunders, Rebecca
2012 Deep Surfaces: Pottery Decoration and Identity in the Mission Period. Historical
Archaeology 46(1):94-107.
Lightfoot, Kent G.
1995 Culture Contact Studies: Redefining the Relationship Between Prehistoric and
Historical Archaeology. American Antiquity 60(2):199-217.
Lightfoot, Kent G.
1998 Daily Practice and Material Culture in Pluralistic Social Settings: An
Archaeological Study of Culture Change and Persistence from Fort Ross, California.
American Antiquity 63(2):199-222.
Pavao-Zuckerman, Barnet
2011 Rendering Economies: Native American Labor and Secondary Animal Products in the
Eighteenth-Century Pimería Alta. American Antiquity 76(1):3-23.
Matthews, Christopher N. and Kurt A. Jordan
2012 Secularism as Ideology: Exploring Assumptions of Cultural Equivalence in Museum
Repatriation. In Ideologies in Archaeology. Ed by R. Bernbeck and R.H. McGuire, pp. 212-232,
University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
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Dec. 3
Community and Activist Archaeology
McGuire, Randall H.
2008 Archaeology as Political Action. University of California Press, Berkeley. Read Ch. 2 pp.
51-97
Shackel, Paul
2011 Pursuing Heritage, Engaging Communities. Historical Archaeology 45(1):1-9.
Gallivan, Martin, Danielle Moretti-Langholtz, and Buck Woodward
2011 Collaborative Archaeology and Strategic Essentialism: Native Empowerment in Tidewater
Virginia. Historical Archaeology 45(1):10-23.
Gadsby, David R. and Robert C, Chidester
2011 Heritage and “Those People”: Representing Working-Class Interests Through Hampden’s
Archaeology. Historical Archaeology 45(1):101-113.
Carmen, John
2011 Stories We Tell: Myths at the Heart of “Community Archaeology”. Archaeologies
7(3):490-502.
Clark, Bonnie J. and Eleanor Conlin Casella
2009 Teaching Class Conflict. In The Archaeology of Class War: The Colorado Coalfield Strike
of 1913-1914. Ed by K. Larkin and R.H. McGuire, pp.331-350, University of Colorado Press,
Boulder.
Dec. 10
The Archaeology of Industry and the Modern World
Hall and Silliman Ch. 9
Hardesty, Donald L.
1998 Power and the Industrial Mining Community in the American West. In Social
Approaches to an Industrial Past. ed. by A.B. Knapp, V.C. Pigott, & E. W. Herbert,
pp. 81-96, Routledge, London.
McAtackney, Laura
2011 Peace Maintenance and Political Messages: The Significance of Walls During and After
the Northern Irish “Troubles”. Journal of Social Archaeology. 11(1):77-98.
Gonzáles-Rubial, Alfredo
2008 Time to Destroy: An Archaeology of Supermodernity. Current Anthropology 49(2)247279.
Yazdi, Leila Papoli
2010 Public and Private Lives in Iran: An Introduction to the Archaeology of the 2003 Bam
Earthquake. Archaeologies 6(1):29-47
Bagwell, Margaret
2009 After the Storm, Destruction and Reconstruction: The Potential for an Archaeology of
Hurricane Katrina. Archaeologies 5(2):280-292.
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