Historical archaeology, almost by definition, involves research for which
texts and other kinds of material evidence survives. Anyone who is not
interested in looking at both sets of data, when a relevant problem is
encountered, is simply not interested in getting at the truth.
 
The issue of the type of evidence (text, versus other kinds of data) is,
however, largely irrelevant to the question of history versus
archaeology, as kinds of intellectual pursuits. I have had reason to work
in both fields for some time and feel very lucky to have learned the
pursuits of archaeology, history, and ethnohistory, from recognized
authorities in each field. As far as I can see, the claim that someone, by
virtue of being able to read, is a professional historian, is less than
fair. At the same time, archaeology is hardly a simple set of methods that
can be used to collect the "stage props of history." Quality archaeology,
like quality history, is grounded in well-conceived method and theory.
Gaining knowledge of these areas requires considerably more than a class
or two in graduate school (although this is a start).
 
I consider myself to be an anthropologist and a Latin-Americanist. I use
both archaeological and documentary data to approach questions involving
social history. The part of Latin America that I have been most focused on
is northern New Spain. I am deeply disturbed by both historians, who
continue to ignore almost all archaeological work in this area, and
archaeologists, many of whom claim to be specialists in Spanish Colonial
Archaeology, who have no desire to learn, or read, colonial Spanish
documents in the original language in which they were composed. I must
admit that I have read altogether too many archaeological reports that
depend on the subtle wording of a faulty English translation. If
you are serious about this field you have to study both Spanish and
paleography. It will help you a great deal if you have some understanding
of the historiography of Spanish Colonial topics. This will require that
you spend a considerable amount of additional time in graduate school.
Then again, no one said this was going to be easy.
 
Some "Spanish Colonial Archaeologists" that I know who have never gotten
beyond an English translation, justify their lack of knowledge, by
claiming that they always have a historian working on their projects. To
me, this has always seemed a rather pathetic solution. First of all, it
is rather like paying someone to make love for you. Second, unless you
bring a set of skills equal to that of the historian that you engage you
can never be an effective consumer of the information he/she provides. As
long as you are enslaved to an English-based set of concepts, it is hard
to imagine that you will ever come to understand much of the Spanish
Colonial world, in any way that is not altogether superficial.
 
Once an anthropologist crosses the boundary of language, paleography, and
historiography, then they can achieve a kind of study for which the
historians are, by virtue of their exceptionally narrow focus on texts,
almost completely incapable of undertaking. The human condition goes far
beyond the written word. Archaeology, in particular, provides a set of
tools that allow a researcher to penetrate the world of the "people
without history." Social historians, such as Braudel, recognize that the
dynamics of this world determined, to a considerable extent, what Childe
said "happened in history." It is already apparent that historical
archaeology, with all its limitations, is penetrating questions
about our common humanity which historians could never dream of.
 
If people in the field of historical archaeology are seriously interested
in uncovering the truth of past lives, then they must become better
historians than the historians. To do this requires that they surpass the
historian's skills in working with primary, unpublished sources. If this
objective can be achieved, perhaps some new kind of scholarship, that
takes as its inspiration the humanist outlook of people like Boas, can
come to replace the narrow set of voices that form much of the field of
history. God knows that the overwhelming number of historians, and
especially the prominent ones, are never going to consider material
evidence in a serious way. Whoever defines the overarching framework of
investigations of the past, that incorporates both sets of data, and both
conceptual frameworks, will, I believe, define the future of both endeavors.