Jeff Morris wrote:>
> Excuse me Dan,
>
> But don't forget that some of us so called 'insufferable Brits', are also
> members of this list, although we more often refer to the subject as
> Post-Medieval rather than Historical Archaeology.
>
> I am sure many of the British team found the methods employed by the
> Americans to be just as infuriating as you found their machines, but
> remember a significant number of us Brits are taught to think that the
> post-Medieval and later periods are not of such importance as prehistory,
> the Romans, The Saxons or even the Medieval period.  Anything later than
> this is still largely considered to be the realm of historians.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> **************************************************************
> Jeff Morris AMInstCES PIFA     Email [log in to unmask]
> Wortley Top Forge Archaeological Survey
> Wortley Top Forge Industrial Museum
> Wortley Village
> Wortley
> Sheffield
> S30 7DN
>
> A Research Project of the South Yorkshire Industrial History
> Society (formerly The Sheffield Trades Historical Society)
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>
 
Jeff,
 
I apologize to you and others I may have insulted by my flip remark. I
was, however, attempting poke fun at the fact that the British team
members had very little patience with the St. Mary's methods. I myself
have been on the receiving end of that sort of criticism from British
colleagues who, I wager you'll agree, often seem to feel that their
North American brethren and sistren can't dig their collective ways
out of a paper bag!. The point is that the St. Mary's crew appeared to
be interested in seeing the techniques of the time team bunch in use,
and to make room for these methods in their project, while the British
team seemed only bemused by the careful attention to data recovery in
use by the Marylanders. Now if truth be known, I am one of many who
feel that St. Mary's City archaeology sometimes goes slightly
overboard in the methods department, but that, I feel, is their
business. And better to err on the side of caution, and all that.
 
The attitude YOU report about the assumed insignificance of American
colonial sites because they're just too young to be of interest is,
well, in a word, simply insufferable.
 
Dan