I agree with Carl Barna; we need to do better jobs reaching out to our
colleagues. But I must add that it is not simply historical archaeologists
who don't reach out to historians. Often historians question the skills
and capabilities of archaeologists, and it can get old trying to justify
your very existence. I cannot tell you how many times I have had
historians in my field say things such as:

"There is nothing that we do that historians couldn't provide more detail
about."
"Oh, ceramics... you have an easy topic."
"You don't have sources about that rural farmstead because you don't know
your sources well enough."
"You don't have sources because you don't know the language well enough (I
also work outside of the US)."

Or my personal favorites:

"Don't anthropologists have any standards?" (This comment was over
citation style) and
"Hey, maybe archaeology can tell us something about this topic. Why isn't
anyone doing work on it?" (This was after a talk by a historian who spent
a summer "surveying" sites, picking up potsherds, and dabbling in a field
that he ignored and pooh-poohed 10 years ago.)

I agree that there is not enough interaction and interdisciplinary work
going on, but it's not only the archaeologists who aren't reaching out.
There is still the opinion that archaeology is the handmaiden to history.

Lynda Carroll
Project Director, Public Archaeology Facility
Department of Anthropology
Binghamton University, SUNY
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
(607)-777-4786
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