Bravo!  

Why the two should be considered in isolation has always been a mystery to me and represents Balkanization at its worse.  The two disciplines complement each other and add to and broaden each field's study.  The more they are combined the fuller picture of life at any particular site we shall have. 

Harding Polk II
Archaeologist
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Southwest Region
Albuquerque, NM






-----Original Message-----
From: Jake Ivey <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Mon, Aug 22, 2011 2:20 pm
Subject: Thad Van Bueren's Archaeology & Architectural History


I've been thinking about Thad's posting, and now I'm going back to it 
because I think the problem of interaction between historians, architectural 
historians, and archaeologists needs more comment. I'm going to throw a 
big chunk of text in here, taken from a report I wrote a few years ago in 
the 1990s, that discusses this point. It's from an architectural and 
archaeological history I wrote of the mission at Pecos Pueblo, in New Mexico. 
 
'The archaeological information was not only critical to our knowledge of the dates of use and sequences of construction of the buildings at the site [of the mission of Pecos], but also added to our knowledge of the history of the Pecos mission in areas that the historical records alone were silent. This is not an intuitive conclusion – it rather tends to surprise most people. 
  'In 1964, Ivor Noel Hume referred to historical archaeology as the “handmaiden to history” – where “handmaiden” meant “something whose essential function is to serve and assist...” Noel Hume reviewed the reasons for doing “historical site archaeology” and concluded that “the only reason for archaeological interest in the historical period is to obtain, not relics, but information.” This information was not new historical data, whereby archaeology would be another source of information like documentary history, but rather could be used to help “to reconstruct and interpret the social history” of a given period. Beyond this, archaeology and history complemented each other, he said – “the two disciplines combine to give the past a new dimension.” That is, “by accepting and using the techniques and products of archaeology the historian is ... able to broaden his own knowledge,” while at the same time making “his studies more readily acceptable to the general public” by giving the historian’s text-based research a physical aspect in terms of sites, building remains, and the artifacts of daily life of a time or person. 
  'This concept expressed by Noel Hume in 1964 that archaeology was principally a technique that would “serve and assist” the historian was a restatement of the perception of the relationship between archaeology and history encountered throughout most of the twentieth century in this history of the archaeology and architecture of Pecos. That is, the historical documents revealed everything important about a site, and archaeology simply provided artifacts and structures from the lives of those who lived at the site, while at the same time preparing it for public display. The possibility that archaeology could be a separate and powerful source of historical information was simply not a part of the thinking of most of those involved in historic sites research. 
  'As we have seen, however, no documentation adequately records the history of a place. Even in a document-rich environment like the history of the missions of San Antonio, Texas, or the mission system of California, a great deal has to be inferred beyond the specifics of the documentary record. At San Antonio, for example, the physical record of the construction and changes to the missions, as revealed by an intensive examination of the surviving structures of the mission buildings, and the archaeological evidence for structural change found in the ground, allowed an interpretation of the architectural history that was not possible from documents alone=