Conflict Archaeology, Historical Memory, and the Experience of War

Beyond the Battlefield

Mark Axel Tveskov, Ashley Ann Bissonnette

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780813069562
• eBook ISBN: 9780813070308
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Social Sciences

Countering dominant narratives of conflict through attention to memory and trauma

 

This volume presents approaches to the archaeology of war that move beyond the forensic analysis of battlefields, fortifications, and other sites of conflict to consider the historical memory, commemoration, and social experience of war. Leading scholars offer critical insights that challenge the dominant narratives about landscapes of war from throughout the history of North American settler colonialism.

Grounded in the empirical study of fields of conflict, these essays extend their scope to include a commitment to engaging local Indigenous and other descendant communities and to illustrating how public memories of war are actively and politically constructed. Contributors examine conflicts including the battle of Chikasha, King Philip’s War, the 1694 battle at Guadalupe Mesa, the Rogue River War, the Dakota-U.S. War of 1862, and a World War II battle on the island of Saipan. Studies also investigate the site of the Schenectady Massacre of 1690 and colonial posts staffed by Black soldiers.

Chapters discuss how prevailing narratives often minimized the complexity of these conflicts, smoothed over the contradictions and genocidal violence of colonialism, and erased the diversity of the participants. This volume demonstrates that the collaborative practice of conflict archaeology has the potential to reveal the larger meanings, erased voices, and lingering traumas of war.

 

A volume in the series Cultural Heritage Studies, edited by Paul A. Shackel

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• 1. Conflict Archaeology, Historical Memory, and Commemoration
• 2. Setting the Stage
• 3. The Changing Shape of Chickasaw and European Battlefie ld Narratives
• 4. Battle of Great Falls/Wissantinnewag-Peskeompskut: Historical Trauma and the Legacy of King Philip’s War (1675–1677)
• 5. Hauntology, Hagiology, and Archaeology on the Battlefields of Seventeenth-Century New Mexico
• 6. Skeletons in the Cabinet: Memory and the Human Remains Attributed to the Schenectady Massacre of 1690
• 7. Black Pioneers, Indigenous Renegades, and Confederate Officers: Microhistories of Oregon’s Rogue River War, 1855–1856
• 8. An Archaeology of Fear and Loathing: Building, Remembering, and Commemorating the Civilian and Military Fortifications of the Dakota–U.S. War of 1862 in Minnesota
• 9. Intervisibility, Invisibility, and Identity Conflict in the Dakota–U.S. War of 1862: The Wood Lake Battlefield
• 10. Remembering (and Forgetting) Black Men’s Service
• 11. Individual and Collective Memory of World War II in the Pacific: How Can Archaeology Contribute?
• 12. Pathways for History and Memory: Reflecting on the Past, Present, and Future of Conflict Archaeology
• List of Contributors
• Index