This came to me, presonally, but I think it is supposed to be here.
 
Good comments!
 
 
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 15 Jun 94 19:47:23 EDT
From: Patrick Riordan <[log in to unmask]>
To: "\"Mary Ellin D'Agostino\"" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: African-American Archaeology Network
 
I'ma colonial historian. not an archaeologist.  But a few years back I got a
chance to help on a dig that identified DeSoto's 1529 winter camp.  Given all
the controversy  over DeSoto--Indian killer, disease vector, imperialist,
insensitive transformer of culture, violent and arrogant "explorer" that he
was--who would be qualified to work on that site?  Only native Americans?  Only
Spaniards? Only American Hispanics?   I agree with those who say that, in the
most radical sense,  history can be done by anyone who can read and write--and
is then subject to criticism from anyone with similar quaifications.  Quickly
one reaches refinements of technique and sophistication of perspective--one
learns to quantify, to hear the voice of the historically silent, to read
inferences from a text and transcend text, looking at image and material
culture.  But it comes to the same thing--you have to write it and wait for your
critics.  Isolating a discipline won't work.
 
Nevertheless, let's not lose sight of the historical reality--who is that has
really been excluded from digs in the past?  Whites? Hell no.  Isn't it the case
that we white males _did_ the excluding?  As in other disciplines, didn't we
exclude women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, etc.?
 
The disciplines were the worse for the exclusions--just as work on African
American sites may well suffer if any exclusionary arrangement comes to govern
their investigation.
 
I believe there is a code of ethics whenever human remains are encountered in a
dig, no?  Perhaps this would be a starting point for the development of a
multicultural declaration of sensitivity.
 
Patrick Riordan
Florida State
Kew, Richmond, Surrey UK
 
 
Patrick Riordan