To some extent ironworks are an understudied part of both Chesapeake and
American history. I think this is due in part to the way that archaeologists
are trained in the US. First and formost most of us are anthropologists. The
majority of archaeological training , courses and publications, are
prehistoric. While some departments offer some training in historic
archaeology (William and Mary offers as MA), this is almost exclusively on
domestic sites. There are very few courses on industrial archaeology and only
one degree (MA at MTU). Look at any recent issue of the SAA or SHA journals,
how many articles are there on industrial sites? Of those that do appear, how
many deal with the industry as opposed to workers' issues, housing, slavery,
or gender? The answer is practically none. Not surprizingly given their
training, archaeologist neither know how to excavate industrial sites, nor
want to. The kinds of things we are trainied to be interested in, what to
discuss, and the kinds of questions we ask cannot be dealt with on industrial
sites.
Another problem is that given the training American archaeologists receive,
the excavation of industrial sites, except where they ask non-industrial
questions are poorly executed. There are certainly exceptions. But I have
found major glaring errors, due to a lack of technological understanding, in
almost every excavation of an iron site performed in the US in the last 40
years. While the excavation technique is adequate, the almost total ignorance
of the technology of the production of iron results in multiple errors in both
artifact and structural interpretation. And this is not just confined to
rescue or contract archaeology, but is also true of research projects by
universities and colleges. For example, hardly anyone bothers with slag
analysis. This is akin to discarding debitage on a prehistoric site or not
doing analysis of pottery sherds.
James H. Brothers IV
|