Scott Stephenson writes:
 
I would be interested in seeing some discussion of the issue of
"appropriating" cultural heritage as it applies to Historical
Archaeology--specifically people's feelings about how far we
can legitimately extend the issue of "appropriation" when
dealing with primarily European material. If we accept that
native people and African-Americans own the remains of their past,
can we extend this to class? {Would archaeologists have to
demonstrate proletarian heritage to excavate tenement
housing in Boston?] Is it acceptable for the daughters of
Italian immigrants to excavate the remains of 17th century
Virginia plantations?  Catholics digging in Puritan garbage?
(can you imagine the sermons THAT would have generated!)
 
***
 
I think that Puritans digging Catholic garbage would be far more
scandalous (and interesting). But, not to skirt the issue...
 
In Historical archaeology we are continually skirting the
interpenetration zone of history (studying "us") versus anthropology
(studying "them"). But, these days, anthropologists also study "us"
and historians have always studied (and appropriated?) the stories of
others. Clearly this not a problematic of theory so much as of
cultural politics. Nor is it trivial. The point is that all scholarly
studies are situated. Critical awareness by the interpreter and those
who read or hear (and add to) the interpretations is desireable. The
notion that nobody can speak for or about a group which does not
recognize his/her membership is a power claim, and one which can be,
and usually is, counterclaimed. Native American claims on their
heritage proceed from a sense (often shared by archaeologists and
others) that "they" have not had the opportunities to create their
own histories. The pragmatic non-Machievellian answer is that efforts
are needed to assure that plural histories have plural
interpretations. I am a white male, son of a Jewish Southern mothern
and a Scots-Irish Methodist Northern father. Can I claim some right
to dig 17th-c. Virginia plantations? You bet.