I've tried to let others work this topic, but feel somewhat compelled to voice an opinion.
HISTARCH can be a valuable forum for scholarly discussion, and a valuable venue for assisting research. I have used y'all several times for specific research questions and generally find the knowledge base to be impressive and the willingness to help to be truly collegial.
That said, because Anita does not moderate the discussions with a heavy hand--and I am not suggesting that she should--sometimes the discussions devolve into inane arguments that profit no one. There are, indeed, some subscribers to HISTARCH who seem to have nothing better to do than watch their e-mail for something else about which to argue. While I certainly will not name names, I see some of the same names involved in such pettiness over and over again. That, apparently, is one result of a quasi-democratically operated forum such as HISTARCH. Not everyone has something significant to say, but everyone has the opportunity--even the right, as subscribers--to say something. And, lest it seem that I think myself better than others, I admit to having fallen into the trap of having to say nothing about something. Indeed, this may be one of those, and if so, I apologize ahead of time.
I just finished a paper by Barbara Voss in Current Anthropology in which she assesses Deagan's St. Augustine Pattern and its use in Spanish Colonial sites. Certainly no one would argue about whether investigating Spanish Colonial sites in North America fits into "historical archaeology." Yes? Okay, so one of the most interesting issues, from my perspective, that she brings up in this paper is the variety of interethnic interplay between Europeans (and she notes that many of the Spanish colonists were not, strictly speaking, Spanish except, perhaps, in common language), Africans, and Native Americans. That, of course, is not an observation new to her; it is, in fact, an important part of the St. Augustine Pattern. However, Voss wants us to push the colonist-indigenous dichotomy past a dichotomy, to see what the archaeological record can actually tell us about socio-cultural interplay. One critical aspect of following her request is that we will have to break down the barrier between cultures with writing and those without--one of the oft-cited criteria for separating historical from non-a-pre-historical archaeology. For instance, the Natives of New Mexico did not have systems of writing analogous to those found in Europe at the time of European colonization. However, European colonists were very quick to make use of the Natives for everything from where to live--the first colony in New Mexico was housed in an Indian Pueblo--to making pottery and farming fields and building houses. Whether they would have liked it or not, and whether it fits our classificatory preferences or not, as soon as I begin digging a Spanish Colonial site, that interplay drags the Natives into a historical archaeology. Indeed, if I don't give as full consideration to the Native materials on Spanish sites as I do the Spanish materials, I have artificially created an archaeological record that bears no resemblance to the one I actually investigated.
While I chose not to follow all of the Marco Polo discussion (so perhaps someone already made this point), it strikes me that we have a similar situation here, and perhaps an even more insidious one. When Marco Polo made it to China, he encountered a society that had a well-developed writing system. Indeed, several writing systems were contemporaneously in play between Europe and China. So, if Marco Polo's trip to China and back does not fall within the realm of history, in several social settings, what does? Surely we're not saying that history is not history unless it's Euroamerican history!
Are we asking Anita, or ourselves, to restrict HISTARCH discussions to identifying pottery types and bottle caps? Or is HISTARCH about promoting collegial, scholarly interaction among archaeologists, historians, archaeohistorians, and historical archaeologists who find common ground in our fascination with the past? If that fascination slops over someone's notion of what constitutes historical archaeology, so friggin' what? In fact, particularly when compared to some of the inanity that wanders through this forum, one of the most valuable aspects of HISTARCH is that we all get to be challenged regarding our notions of the nature of archaeology, the nature of history, and our interactions with both of them.
Anita, don't shut down HISTARCH because some subscribers are still trying to hang on to definitions of the discipline that they learned in college, or worse, that they taught in college. Keep it running because your colleagues need opportunities to interact with each other about the mundane and the challenging.
Thanks,
Jeff
 
Jeffrey L. Boyer, RPA
Project Director
Office of Archaeological Studies, Museum of New Mexico
mail: P.O. Box 2087, Santa Fe, New Mexico  87504
physical: 407 Galisteo Street, Suite B-100, Santa Fe, New Mexico  87501
tel: 505.827.6387          fax: 505.827.3904
e-mail: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> 
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. --Ellen Parr
 

________________________________

From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY on behalf of Anita Cohen-Williams
Sent: Mon 3/30/2009 4:51 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Should HISTARCH continue?



Considering all the discussion around whether or not Marco Polo should
be included in a discussion of Historical Archaeology (i.e.
archaeology of the modern world, 1400 forward), I am wondering if I
should continue running HISTARCH.

I have been running this discussion list alone since 1994 without pay
from any source, as a labor of love. I am not a professor nor
librarian in any university, the SHA does not pay me (although they do
use this forum), and I am not an employee of any governmental agency.
Nor am I paid to run ArchaeoSeek, although several people have stepped
up and donated monies for the $20 a month that it costs.

In light of that, and the fact that, while I do keep an eye on the
discussions and attempt to keep them on topic, this list is NOT
moderated nor censored. Considering the current tone of this latest
discussion, I am wondering if it all was a waste.

--
Anita Cohen-Williams
Organic SEO and Social Media Marketing
http://www.mysearchguru.com <http://www.mysearchguru.com/> 
Twitter: @searchguru
Listowner of HISTARCH

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