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A few random notes on the academic type question
First, I refuse to address a thread titled "Hysterical Archaeology" The term
is has long been used as an insult in my neck of the woods.
Robert Schuyler's Historical Anthropology is a much better estimation of
what I think we should be doing. As far as what we study under the historical
archaeology umbrella I would say it is the archaeology of Colonialism. Everyone
it touched is a subject. I think we realized back in the 70s that there were
a lot of people in the colonies of all origins who were illiterate. Thus
writing has nothing to do with it.
The reason I like to think of myself as an anthropologist is that it makes
anything humans do (or use) fair game for study. We are not restricted to a
particular set of resources, Thus it liberates us from disciplinary bounds..
Calling it historical anthropology simply emphasizes the historical aspect
Re: the CRM issue, One of the only things I really liked that Ian Hodder did
in the 1980s was his book :Archaeology as long term land use history"
Actually I mainly like the title, because it describes what I have to do at
virtually every site I excavate. Though not a CRM project, the Johannes Kolb site
(38da75.com) is a perfect example. I was interested in a 1730s frontier
settler. Unfortunately he settled on one of the only habitable landforms in the
area, because people were there 12000 years before him, and 200 years afterward.
Nobody can be an expert in everything, but you do at least have to give each
component the respect it deserves. It has always struck me as a shame when
good sites get dug by unqualified people, but then, the people reviewing the
reports usually aren't experts either. What's the solution?
Re: the original question. Though I agree that historical archaeologists
should be as good historians as they are archaeologists, I'd say that putting
one in a history department - unless its just a four or five person department-
would be a waste of the person and their hopes for tenure. As a non academic
(from the outside) I see a lot of boundary drawing, and boundaries have to be
protected. If you want more soldiers you have to promote from within...
time for a beer. You have one too, if you'd like...
Carl Steen
************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
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