EntriesHistorical Archaeology
Historical archaeology can, and has been defined in a number of ways. The simplest of these define historical archaeology as the study of the remains from any historic period. In other words, the culture being studied left behind a documentary or written record.
Professor James Deetz (dec.), a renowned historical archaeologist, defined historical archaeology as “the inclusive study of objects or remains originating from the eras of literate man.” While many cultures have left behind a documentary record, e.g. the Romans, Egyptians and Maya they fall outside the boundaries of historical archaeology. Historical archaeology generally tends to focus on colonialism in the New World, Africa and Australia, among others. In other words, those periods of time in the not too distant past.
For historical archaeologists historical or written records usually contributes as much to their research as excavations and the study of material culture. Written records come in many forms and include things like the Declaration of Independance, treaties between the Indians and US Federal Government, wills, letters, journals, property deeds, and yesterdays newspaper articles. (The American Studies Web provides some good examples of American historical records.) However, having written records can raise problems for historical archaeologist that are not faced by prehistoric archaeologists.
There are two types of historical record, primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are those that describe an event first hand. Secondary sources describe events that happened sometime in the past. Written records, and particularly those describing events often distort the facts due to the author’s personal, political or religious views. In other words, many historical records only provide a version of past events. This is why the examination of artefacts and excavation is important to historical archaeological research because they can provide insights not possible by just using written documents.
The work of the historical archaeologist is to bring together the information he gains from historical records and that obtained from excavations in an attempt paint a picture of common everyday life in the past and seek to understand the broader historical development of their own and other cultures.
There are many different areas studied by historical archaeologists including, industrial, African American, urban and battlefield archaeology amongst others. Even the rubbish we throw out has been studied by archaeologists. William Rathje, an archaeologist from the University of Arizona and Cullen Murphy initiated the Garbage Project some 20 years ago. Remember, it is the rubbish of former civilizations that archaeologists use to reconstruct most of what we know about the past, Through their examination of today’s garbage that Rathje and Murphy are able to tell us great deal about the present. They demonstrate what studying trash can tell us about a population’s demographics and buying habits. They dispel the common myths about our “garbage crisis”–e.g., fast-food packaging, disposable diapers, and about biodegradable garbage and the acceleration of the average family’s garbage output. They also suggest methods for dealing with garbage. So as you can see archaeologists can undertake research on just about anything that has been discarded. The new frontier for archaeology is space.
If you’re interested in a fascinating insight into American historical archaeology you can’t go past In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early American Life