I am one of those rare creatures that is both an historian and an
archaeologist. I agree that this is an interesting topic that need some
attention. But I also think that there are several flawed premises built
into the whole issue. The most important centers on the word "use" in Geoff
Carver's original posting (no fault there of course). "Use" implies that
data sets are universal, transparent, and not subjected to little hidden
manipulations. It furthermore implies that the findings, concerns, and
methods of one discipline can be simply transferred to those of another. I
have come to see history and archaeology as two distinct ways of viewing the
past that often have little to say to each other.
    Historiography--the debates--are the stock-and-trade of the historian.
Very little archaeological literature has entered into the debates that are
at the core of what historians do. For the most part archaeologists only
enter into historians' debates at the tail end--often by picking up on an
interpretive portion of the literature and then calling it historical
context. Witness the authority that Edmund Morgan's accommodation thesis
holds in the greater Chesapeake archaeography. But the thesis is an end
product of debate and too often treated not as a conclusion open to debate
but instead the solid background against which archaeological evidence is
interpreted.
     It makes more sense to me for archaeologists to use archaeological
evidence to establish (in conjunction with primary and secondary literature)
their own historical contexts and perhaps broadside historical debates with
a volley of new conclusions which are not dependant on the tail end of
historical debates.

Philip Levy ABD
College of William and Mary