Jake,
 
You bring up a good example of the "trouble with archaeology."  Oftentimes the
point of archaeology according to the public or even fellow researchers in
other fields is confused with the (or, a) point of art or architectural
history.  In these fields, the object is the end which they seek explain.
Archaeology, because it is anthropologically conceived, on the other hand sees
the object as the means to an end.  In a conference paper regarding the
application of National Register Criteron D to standing structures, Jeffery
Holland (SHA paper 1996) cites Kenneth Ames (1985, Material Culture: A
research guide, T. Schlereth, ed.) saying "historians use art to study the
past while art historians use the past to study art."  This schism, which can
be overcome, nevertheless hinders the communication betwen diverse scholars.
 
I for one love being an anthropologist.  It is people I am trying to
understand.  What they used to make themselves, including how they employed
architecture to house and facilitate their activities, form their social
spaces, and construct their cultural landscapes, is the point of our research.
Indeed, we need to know what our data is, meaning both its structure and the
function, before we can know anything else.
 
What is also interesting about this issue is the manner of reflexive
consideration that object-oriented approaches assume.  When the object is the
point of research does not the history that is being preserved or
reconstructed fail to have any depth at all?  Does it not simply exist solely
in the present, and, thus the history it is conceived to have remain
unconnected to the tissue of historical dvelopment or culture change?  And, if
so, does not this history lay close to the heart of constructivists who seek
to limit to the possibility of any public historical experience?  A tirade to
be sure, but the detail you seek in your work, in other words, the archaeology
you do works against this.
 
 
Chris Matthews