Chapter 16
Historical Archaeology:
Insights on American History
Outline
• Historical Archaeology: Just a “Handmaiden
to History”?
• Hidden History: The Archaeology of AfricanAmericans
• Correcting Inaccuracies
• Re-Examining America’s History
• Conclusion: Historical Archaeology’s Future
Historical Archaeology
• Looks at material remains from past societies
that also left behind written documentation
about themselves.
• The first historical archaeology in America
took place about 150 years ago.
• James Hall, a civil engineer, and direct
descendant of Miles Standish, located the
foundations of the Standish homestead in
Duxbury, Massachusetts and, in 1853, he
conducted detailed excavations there.
Historical Archaeology
• During the first half of the 20th century,
historical archaeologists labored mostly to
supplement historical records.
• This perspective is evident in public
interpretive projects, such as Plymouth
Plantation, Colonial Williamsburg, and the
Little Bighorn battlefield.
• Such projects concentrated on a very few
selected sites, particularly houses of the rich
and famous, forts, and military sites.
Historical Archaeology
Comes of Age
• Mainstream historical archaeology began to
look at the larger social context, rather than at
historical significance.
• In the 1960s, historical archaeology began to
focus on historically disenfranchised groups,
seeking to uncover the history of AfricanAmericans, Asian-Americans, Native
Americans during the historic period, and
Hispanic-Americans.
Characteristics of Historical
Archaeology
• Modern historical archaeology often has
a strongly postprocessual flavor.
• Deal with time periods that are
considerably shorter than those of
prehistoric archaeology.
• Historical archaeology is often very
close to us—temporally and
emotionally.
Themes in Historical
Archaeology
• The study of historically disenfranchised
groups.
• Questions about the recent past that history
books answer unsatisfactorily.
• The nature of European colonialism (the
developing capitalism of that time) and its
effects on indigenous peoples.
Map of Monticello
New York City’s
African Burial Ground
• In 1991, the bones of 427 enslaved Africans,
interred by their community and forgotten for
centuries, were discovered beneath a parking
lot in downtown New York City.
• In 1626, the Dutch West India Company
unloaded its first shipment of enslaved
Africans in New Amsterdam (today’s New
York City): 11 young men.
New York City’s
African Burial Ground
• The Dutch were experiencing a labor
shortage in their colonies, and found slave
labor to be the answer to building and
maintaining the colony.
• 18th century New York law prohibited the
burial of Africans in Manhattan’s churchyards.
• New York’s African population established a
cemetery outside of the city and from 1712 to
1790, the community buried between 10,000
and 20,000 people.
New York City’s
African Burial Ground
• Dr. Michael L. Blakey’s analysis of some 400
individuals from the burial ground found that
half the population died before age 12.
• Some were clearly worked to death:
– Enlarged muscle attachments
demonstrated continual demands on their
physical labor.
– Bones showed cranial and spinal fractures
from excessive loads on the head and
shoulders.
Fort Mose: Colonial America’s
Black Fortress of Freedom
• Fort Mose, 50 miles south of the GeorgiaFlorida border was the first legally
sanctioned, free African-American community
in the country.
• Beginning with the founding of Charles Towne
by the British in 1670, Spain employed free
Africans to further its colonial objectives by
having them populate and hold territories
vulnerable to foreign encroachment.
Fort Mose: Colonial America’s
Black Fortress of Freedom
• Both free and slave Africans were used in
military operations, a black militia having
been established in St. Augustine.
• By 1673, the Spanish crown declared that all
escaped fugitives from British plantations
were to be granted sanctuary and, eventually,
freedom in Spanish Florida “so that by their
example and by my liberality, others will do
the same.”
Medieval Mind-set
• The culture of the early (pre-AD 1660)
British colonies that emphasized the
group rather than the individual and in
which the line between culture and
nature was blurred; people were seen
as conforming to nature.
Georgian Order
• A worldview (ca. 1660/1680–1820) arising in
the European Age of Reason and implying
that the world has a single, basic immutable
order.
• Using the powers of reason, people can
discover what that order is and control the
environment as they wish.
• The Georgian order is informed by the rise of
scientific thought and by the order in
Renaissance architecture and art.
Future of Historical
Archaeology
• Historical archaeology is today one of the
most rapidly expanding and exciting
directions in Americanist archaeology.
• Challenges to existing histories and the
recovery of the history of disenfranchised
groups—will generate debates and dialog for
years.
Quick Quiz
1. _____ _____ looks at material remains
from past societies that also left behind
written documentation about themselves.
Answer:
historical archaeology
• Historical archaeology looks at material
remains from past societies that also left
behind written documentation about
themselves.
2. In the 1960s, historical archaeology
began to focus on:
A. Elite colonial settlements.
B. Diary entries of colonial women.
C. Historically disenfranchised groups.
D. All of the above.
Answer: C
•
In the 1960s, historical archaeology
began to focus on historically
disenfranchised groups.
3. Fort Mose is important because it is
considered:
A. The first legally sanctioned, free AfricanAmerican community in the country.
B. The burial site of hundreds of former
slaves.
C. The only former fort that preserved
historic documents such as diaries and
civil records.
D. All of the above.
Answer: A
• Fort Mose is important because it is
considered the first legally
sanctioned, free African-American
community in the country.