I second Linda Derry's praise of Mary Praetzellis's session on
"Archaeologists as Storytellers." It was not only thoroughly enjoyable, but
highly informative. Lu Ann De Cunzo pointed out in her taped paper that
anyone who's tried to write a story knows how hard it is, so this is hardly a
way out of  doing real work. To do it well takes hard science in addition to
imagination, and by my way of thinking it's one of the most effective ways of
communicating the plethora of information we come up with as historical
archaeologists.  But more important, I think it forces us to look at our data
from a different perspective, a view that encourages us to interpret and
synthesize all the facts and figures. It's easy to cover ourselves with
qualifiers when we're writing technical reports--I've often qualified myself
right out of saying anything at all! Constructing a narrative forces us to
commit ourselves, a position not many of us are comfortable with. But you can
always write more than one story.
 
Some of the best work I've seen recently in archaeology has used a form of
narrative or storytelling to present serious interpretations of professional,
scientific research. Janet Spector's "What this Awl Means" and Carmel
Schrire's "Digging Through Darkness" come to mind.  But then, this is really
how I see Deetz's synthetic work as well, so perhaps it's not so new after
all.
 
Storytelling obviously can't replace all the technical reporting we do, but I
think we should consider it as a particularly potent means of understanding
our data and communicating our results to each other and the public. I walked
away from Mary's session on Storytelling reminded of what got me into
archaeology in the first place--the lure of the tangible, I suppose; the
notion that I might be able to grasp some real sense of past life.
 
It was fascinating to see the different ways the session contributors came up
with to tell their stories.  Some constructed whole narratives read in
regional voice, some used quotes from contemporary literary sources, some
created characters and performed theater, some used the words of oral history
informants as a backdrop to a more traditional data presentation. Many of the
contributors created strong and distinct voices for characters well founded
in historical and archaeological data. As you can see, I really loved the
whole thing--in fact, I take it as a mandate to do more with my research.
 And I'm not just saying all this because Mary is my boss (although I sure am
glad she is)! How did other people feel about it?
 
Grace Ziesing, Oakland, California
Anthropological Studies Center
Sonoma State University Academic Foundation, Inc.
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