Ron --
As a federal CRM person, I will give you my answer to your question as to
why federal agencies allow prehistorians to evaluate the significance of
historic-period sites. The answer IS simple. IMHO, and from my 20+ years
of observation in the profession, the answer is that the prehistorians have
accumulated all the high cards. Just take a look at the current Federal
Preservation Officers in the federal agencies -- even on SHPO staffs --
and 99% of them are prehistorians. One I personally know simply does not
see historical archaeology as REAL archaeology, and has never even been to
an SHA conference. These guys simply have acquired a stranglehold on the
CRM profession. Since they are also on the new-hire panels, they
perpetuate their own kind. How or when that will change is anyone's guess.
These are the people who will walk through, over or around an historic
cabin to get to a pile of flint flakes, are of which are eligible for the
NR, but not the cabin.
I have also frequently criticized the historical profession about their
tolerating this state of affairs. The SAA, for example, is very active in
defending their archaeology empire within in the CRM arena, the historians
aren't. Yet, I have professors in Public History programs come up to me at
conferences and ask why they can't get their students hired in CRM site
work. I tell them to raise their concerns to the AHA or the OHA, and ask
these groups why they sit back and let prehistoric anthro types dictate the
management and of evaluation of historic-period sites. The historians
should be doing that, and leave the lithic debitage to the prehistorians.
This goes back to my earlier comment about the need for "historical"
archaeologists to be firmly grounded in History. I once had a "historical"
archaeologist respond to my request for the historiography of a site by
bringing me a chain of title. Bizzz. Thank you for playing Dr. xxxxx, yes
-- this "historical" archaeologist had a phud -- but, wrong, that is not
the historiography of the site.
Anyway, to those who defend the anthro grounding for "historical"
archaeology, one can take their position to the logical conclusion and say
that those who are doing the archaeology of ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt,
etc., must be really doing lousy, terrible archeology, 'cause as far as I
know, most of them aren't coming out of anthro depts.
Deep 'nough.
Carl Barna
Lakewood, CO
Ron May
<[log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask]
> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: Historically trained archaeologists
HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
<[log in to unmask]
>
08/29/2003 06:53
PM
Please respond to
HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
As I read Mike Polk's comments on the various fields that might contribute
to training an archaeologist, it occurred to me that there will be a lot of
different vantages from which people will read his ideas. One of our
colleagues across "The Pond" found American's approach to studying activity
areas amusing because historic archaeology in England focuses on index
artifacts associated with stratigraphic change. A well-known Spanish-era
historian in New Mexico found my research on 18th century Spanish Majolica
to be fun but meaningless to his view on history. Bottle hunters who became
historians tend to discount just about anything theoretical anthropologists
attempt to study via archaeology. During my tenure with the County of San
Diego, most prehistoric archaeologists failed to report historic
archaeology sites and I had to embarass them by directing further studies.
Where do these folks come from? What do professional CRM companies want in
historic archaeologists? Why do federal agencies allow prehistorians to
evaluate historic archaeology? The answer is not simple.
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
|
