Historical Archaeology

Charles E. Orser, Jr.

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317297062
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book provides a short, readable introduction to historical archaeology, which focuses on modern history in all its fascinating regional, cultural, and ethnic diversity. Accessibly covering key methods and concepts, including fundamental theories and principles, the history of the field, and basic definitions, Historical Archaeology also includes a practical look at career prospects for interested readers. Orser discusses central topics of archaeological research such as time and space, survey and excavation methods, and analytical techniques, encouraging readers to consider the possible meanings of artifacts. Drawing on the author's extensive experience as an historical archaeologist, the book's perspective ranges from the local to the global in order to demonstrate the real importance of this subject to our understanding of the world in which we live today.

The third edition of this popular textbook has been significantly revised and expanded to reflect recent developments and discoveries in this exciting area of study. Each chapter includes updated case studies which demonstrate the research conducted by professional historical archaeologists. With its engaging approach to the subject, Historical Archaeology continues to be an ideal resource for readers who wish to be introduced to this rapidly expanding global field.

Chapter 1 What Is Historical Archaeology?

DOI: 10.4324/9781315647128-2

In the year 1781, Thomas Jefferson, the future president of the United States, retired to the peace of his country estate at Monticello, Virginia, where he indulged a passion for academic research (Figure 1.1). Surrounded by “his family, his farm, and his books,” Jefferson sat down to compile a lengthy discourse, which he entitled Notes on the State of Virginia. He wrote of laws and money and of products “animal, vegetable, and mineral.” He was especially interested in the native peoples of his beloved state, and like many learned men of the time, he wondered about their origins. European settlers in America asked about the builders of the silent earthen mounds that dotted the landscape of the eastern United States. In some places, the mounds were majestic and flat-topped, in others small and rounded. Were the Moundbuilders a vanished race who had migrated to the New World, perhaps from as far away as the Holy Land? Had they constructed the great mounds after battling and subjugating the Native Americans around them? Or were the mysterious earthworks built by the fore-bears of the Native Americans who still lived in eastern North America? Were the mounds built by someone else entirely?

Figure 1.1 Thomas Jefferson, early American archaeologist (Burstein Collection/Corbis)

Jefferson was cautious and initially decided not to take a stand on the Moundbuilders’ origins. The debate raged for years among his friends, in the coffee houses of Philadelphia and Boston, and with antiquarians around the world. But unlike his contemporaries, Jefferson decided to use excavation to find conclusive information about the mysterious people.

Jefferson chose an earthwork near the Rivanna River, a small mound that was a “repository of the dead” (Figure 1.2). In 1784, his slaves dug a perpendicular trench through the earthwork so that he might “examine its internal structure.” He recorded layers of human bones at different depths, many lying in complete confusion, “so as, on the whole, to give the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or basket.”

Figure 1.2 Earthen mound in the eastern United States (From Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley by E. G. Squier and E. H. Davis, 1847.)

The story of America’s first scientific archaeological excavation, one of the earliest in the world, is well known. Jefferson was the first scientist to identify the Moundbuilders as Native Americans. He stands as the first person in the history of archaeology to make a careful and, for his day, scientific excavation of a Native American burial mound.

But even Jefferson, the great thinker that he was, would never have guessed that he and his contemporaries—the slaves who performed the digging, the carriage driver who drove him to the earthwork, and the merchant who sold him the paper on which to pen his pioneering

notes—would one day themselves become the subject of archaeological study. Little would Jefferson suspect that two centuries later, archaeologists would comb through the soils of his estate searching for the relics of bygone eras. Perhaps he would be surprised to learn that the many common, and to him, uninteresting objects he and his contemporaries used in their daily lives would be unearthed with the same care and wonder that he felt toward the smoking pipes and copper ornaments of the ancient North American Moundbuilders. Jefferson might even be delighted to discover that archaeology is now as much a part of the study of history as are historic buildings, faded documents, and government archives.

Dividing Human History

Eccentric pith-helmeted professors, ragged adventurers overcoming myriad dangers to retrieve a priceless relic, and excavations in the shadow of great pyramids are all popular images of archaeology. Most people know that archaeology deals with ancient history and with old things, but beyond that, they may know nothing more concrete about the discipline. Agatha Christie, the famed mystery writer and wife of acclaimed British archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, reinforced the idea that archaeologists are interested in old things when she remarked that she liked being married to an archaeologist because the older she became, the more he liked her!

Many people assume that archaeology focuses only on the old and the venerated, and the older the better. Nothing could be further from the truth. Today’s archaeologists study the entire range of human history, from our origins in East Africa more than 2.5 million years ago to Victorian railroad stations, nineteenth-century mining towns, and twentieth-century missile silos. Some archaeologists even spend their careers researching modern garbage dumps and landfills as a way of studying contemporary waste management. Others are studying World War II camps and fortifications, and even the remains of Cold War installations. Modern archaeology is not treasure hunting, nor is it the search for mysterious lost worlds; archaeology is simply the systematic study of humans in the past. This general definition covers not only ancient technology and human behavior, but also social organization, religious belief, material culture, and all aspects of human culture throughout history.

For convenience, archaeologists and historians often divide the enormous span of human existence into ancient history and modern history. These terms substitute for the once common “prehistoric” and “historic,” ideas once dividing prehistoric archaeology from historical archaeology. Careful thinking about the meaning of these terms, however, has meant that the old terms are no longer acceptable.

The division of time is merely an artificial convenience because history is actually an unbroken flow of time. All past times are history. Many archaeologists have chosen not to segment time at all, preferring to envision history as it is—one long continuous stream of days, months, seasons, and years. Some archaeologists have even written about the “death of prehistory.” The segmentation of time, no matter how artificial, however, merely facilitates analysis. Individual archaeologists generally do not study the entire span of human history. The past is too complex for easy interpretation, so individual archaeologists usually become specialists in one particular era of history.

Given the complexity of human history and the diversity of the world’s cultural traditions, artificial divisions help archaeologists segment time into broad categories. For the sake of this text, it is useful to divide human history into three broad categories: oral cultures, textual cultures of antiquity, and textual cultures of the modern era (Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3 Representation of oral, ancient textual, and modern textual cultures (Charles E. Orser, Jr.)

About 99 percent of all human cultures have used oral communication exclusively. Archaeologists in the past once referred to ancient, non-literate times as “prehistory,” and they described their field as “prehistoric archaeology.” Since about the 1990s, however, this term has been used less and less because archaeologists have acknowledged that non-literate cultures can still be found in a few places. These still-living cultures are clearly not part of “prehistory” because they share the world with us. Equating existing cultures with ancient times can be viewed as a subtle form of racism because some people may read “prehistoric” as “primitive.” For this reason, archaeologists must think differently about how to segment human history into convenient categories.

Archaeologists investigate how early oral societies all over the world came into being, how they differed from one another, and how they changed through time. The research constitutes the main source of information on the earliest development of cultures the world over. Cultural anthropologists still visit cultures that prefer to use oral communication over written texts. Even cultures that have adopted written language may still prefer to pass along their traditions orally.

Archaeologists know, however, that literate societies were created in antiquity. Writing appeared in Mesopotamia and in the Nile Valley about 5,000 years ago. Literate civilization developed in northwest India in about 2000 b.c.e., in northern China by about the same time, and among the Maya of Central America about the third century b.c.e.

Archaeologists have examined these textual cultures of antiquity for many years, and many of the world’s most spectacular discoveries have come from the earliest civilizations. The royal library of Assyrian King Assurbanipal from Nineveh, the gold-rich tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, the terra-cotta regiment buried at the tomb of Chinese emperor Xuang Ti in the second century b.c.e. are excellent examples. The investigation of these sites can be characterized as text-aided archaeology: archaeology carried out with the aid of historical documentation.

Many specialties exist within text-aided archaeology. Assyriologists, Egyptologists, Mayanists, and Sinologists (specialists in Chinese civilization) are just a few of the archaeologists who focus on single societies or even minute details of a single period. In addition, classical archaeologists study the civilizations of Greece and Rome, and European medieval archaeologists investigate the abbeys, ruined churches, and residential settlements of people throughout the continent. Scholars in these text-aided realms of research concentrate on architecture and changing art styles as well as on the economic and social circumstances of past life.

The archaeology of “modern” history—called “historical archaeology” and “modern-world archaeology”—is the archaeological study of people documented in recent history (generally conceived as the past 500 years). This includes Jefferson and his contemporaries and is the subject of this book.

Historical archaeology is the archaeology of the relatively recent past. It is a past including both the colonial and early modern history most people learn in school, as well as the well-remembered history unfolding in living people’s lifetimes. The latter is of vital importance. For historical archaeologists, the history that people carry around in their heads—their own personal experiences—is often as important, and sometimes more so, than the “official” histories in books. Historical archaeology breathes life into an arid history composed only of dates and names; it animates history with the lives of real people going about their daily tasks. It treats kings and queens (the rich and famous) the same as the common folk (the anonymous makers of history). Historical archaeologists study a multicultural past composed of Europeans, African Americans, Native Americans, Chinese, immigrants, prostitutes, merchants, convicts, and entrepreneurs; in short, all the people who built the “modern” world. Too often, the writers of history’s documents ignored the often-anonymous millions. Historical archaeology offers exciting opportunities to study changing social roles and the ways in which our world today was shaped by the actions and attitudes of the past.

A clear overlap exists between text-aided archaeology and historical archaeology. Historical archaeologists are text-aided archaeologists, but not all text-aided archaeologists are historical archaeologists. Both archaeologists employ the same techniques to locate historical records and the same critical methods to evaluate them. The difference is that historical archaeologists are interested in the most recent past, approximately the past 500 years or so. Text-aided archaeologists can be interested in ancient Egypt, medieval Germany, or nineteenth-century Japan.

Historical archaeology is important not only because it provides a means to examine the past, but because it also has the potential to teach us about our world. We may not be able to relate to the circumstances faced by people who lived many centuries ago—except on the most basic human level—but we can certainly achieve an understanding of the long-forgotten and often-compelling histories of once-anonymous folk from the eighteenth century. We are the descendants of these men and women.

British archaeologist Stuart Piggott once described archaeology as the “science of rubbish.” He is partially right. Historical archaeologists do spend much of their time looking into old garbage heaps and abandoned dwellings, and their interest in the mundane things of the past allows them to find value in the most prosaic details of day-to-day history. These are the minute aspects of daily life left out of government reports and census records. Excavations at Red Bay, Labrador, have revealed astoundingly comprehensive information about sixteenth-century Basque whaling in the Strait of Belle Isle off the coast of northeastern Canada. The survival of traditional African beliefs is revealed through telltale artifacts excavated in the Caribbean. Sites on both sides of the Atlantic document the African Diaspora in minute detail, towns in Mexico and Peru show how indigenous Indians interacted with Spanish officials, and the towns inhabited by Christianized Indians in New England reveal a history long forgotten by most of the public. Whatever the place and time, the trowels of archaeologists add an engrossing dimension to world history over the past 500 years. Their findings are not accessible through other means. Only excavation can provide the missing information.

The archaeology of ancient history documents the emerging biologic and cultural diversity of humankind. It shows us how our earliest ancestors faced and solved the challenges of daily existence. Many of these problems, except for their antiquity, are not all that different from the dilemmas of survival faced by much of humanity today. In contrast, historical archaeology, because of its more recent focus, holds a mirror directly before the face of the contemporary world and reflects the complex roots of our own increasingly diverse societies. This unique reflection is a vital tool for achieving a better understanding of ourselves. Small wonder, then, that the rapidly growing field of historical archaeology is becoming a useful tool for social scientists and historians alike.

The Roots of Today's Historical Archaeology

Historical archaeology has deep roots in the historical preservation movement. In its earliest days, historical archaeology was a full partner in the often-herculean efforts to interpret sites of national importance to an eager public. In the United States, archaeology at places like Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg, both in Virginia, provided many of the architectural details that made historic homes and their yards come alive for modern visitors. But architecture alone was not enough. It was clear that the lives of once-living men and women had to be included within the reconstructed buildings and landscapes. Modern historical archaeology grew out of this realization.

The new discipline borrowed much from all the other kinds of archaeology practiced before it, including many of its excavation methods and analytical techniques. But throughout its development, historical archaeology has also invented its own rich perspectives and methods. The definition of the discipline changed as the number of archaeologists engaged in the study of recent history increased. The varied interests of its rapidly growing number of practitioners have meant that the field presents an engrossing array of research opportunities and different ways of approaching history.

Historical Archaeology as the Study of a Period of History

In the beginning, many archaeologists saw historical archaeology simply as a study of a period of history. The Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology was the first professional organization dedicated to historical archaeology founded in the United States. When it was organized in 1960 at the University of Florida, its expressed purpose was to focus on the “historical” period, a time defined as “post-prehistoric” (literally meaning “after prehistory”). Soon afterward, archaeologist Robert Schuyler defined historical archaeology as “the study of the material remains from any historic period.” This viewpoint is consistent with the idea that human history is like a layer cake, with the bottommost, thickest layer being prehistoric times and the thin top layer being the historical period. In between prehistory and history is a poorly defined intermediate era that is neither prehis-tory nor history.

Such distinctions, though easy to understand, cause prob...