As one who originally trained as an historian, I am frequently
appalled at the way CRM archaeologists mistreat the historical
evidence.

You see them every rainy day at the state archives.  Some kid without
a clue is sent by the field director to "look up" the site history at
the state archives.  Historical background is what you do when you
can't do fieldwork.  Inevitably, if I'm in the building, some
frustrated archivist will come to me and ask what's going on with all
these dumb questions and stupid misinterpretations.

Historical research connected to archaeological investigations is a
specialized branch of the history profession, which is unfortunately
opaque to most trained historians, to say nothing of trained
archaeologists.  History departments can't teach it, because college
history departments are largely populated by a bunch of academics who
wouldn't distinguish a probate inventory from a first and final
account. The kids simply don't come out of college knowing how to do
the particularistic research we need.  Having tried to hire this work
done, I have largely given up.

Moreover, the CRM industry has never been able to assimilate
historians into the largely archaeological and anthropological upper
echelons of the pecking order.

In the first place, historical research should not be merely the
background to the dig. It is part of the mosaic that the PI must
eventually put together, and it requires no less skill and training
than, say, faunal analysis or flotation.  You can't send the field
crew to do the background on rainy days, but lots and lots of firms
do exactly that.

In the second place, a researcher must be well-versed in the local
political and social conditions, in order to understand the
conditions that created the document he is examining. Not
infrequently, CRM firms will send their historians to write the
background history for places they can't even pronounce.  You just
can't leap from state to state and expect to understand the nuances
of local history. Heck, it's sometimes difficult to change counties.


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