I've never found humor to transfer well via email on this group, so  
I'll stay on the serious side.  I know many of you personally, and  
you all know my respect for your work.  The comments below will not  
raise any hackles, I hope.

I've had several conversations at SHA meetings since joining the  
faculty at MTU where people tell me that they can find nothing  
intellectually useful in industrial archaeology journals.  I'm pretty  
sure that these people mean to say that they find nothing  
_theoretical_ of interest.  Intellectual maturity in archaeology  
means that we assume there is value in knowledge regarding industry  
and machines in the same way that historical archaeologists know that  
there is value to material culture research on bottles, beads,  
buttons, bullets, and bones.  Being able to study objects and  
understand the information they present, including chronological,  
typological, and use-oriented information, provides the most basic  
building blocks of our discipline.  We all agree upon the fact that  
this knowledge is important.

Many historical archaeologists (HAs) find industrial archaeologists  
(IAs) uninteresting beyond that because they do not see research in  
IA as directed at social interactions, nor do they think it focuses  
upon individuals.  Many HAs see IAs as "gear heads" who are only  
interested in studying the evolution of a particular technology or  
technological systems.  The converse of the coin is that many IAs  
find the fascination with social inequality, subaltern narrative,  
consumerism, and discourse theory in HA publications leave little  
room for actual discussions of data.  To a certain extent, this is  
reflected in the fact that Anthropological archaeology and social  
history did win the "hearts and minds" battle for historical  
archaeology, while IA is still largely dominated (in the US) by  
historians of technology and architecture people.  MTU is making a  
good dent sending out excellent people, many of which read this list,  
to be competent professionals.

Historians, particularly historians of technology, tend to write  
articles about people, places, or things.  They very rarely write  
theoretical articles, and when they do, they largely write  
historiographically rather than about "isms."  On the other hand,  
most of HA articles often include 1/2 of the text dedicated to  
theoretical debates.  The result is that IA people read HA  
discussions and find our "contextual archaeology" to often be very  
thin on context (would it contaminate you with "pattern analysis" if  
you showed a chart of the economic cycles in this county for  
comparison with your interpretations of how this household displayed  
their class identity?), while HA people read IA and see the work as  
empty of theoretical content (translated with the overly simplistic,  
"I can't see any people in this" or "I can find any utility or  
applicability to my work").

While each side of this debate in the US generally sees things this  
way, they also see themselves differently:

HAs believe that contextual and interpretive archaeologies are much  
better than our immature "pattern analysis" and we have evolved a  
sophisticated set of theoretical tools which are deeply rooted in  
contextual historical information.

IAs believe that their research, generally solidly centered on  
technological systems, is built upon theoretical complexity.  The  
heart of that complexity is the belief that technology and its  
systems are socially constructed by collections of individuals.

IA people hate social theory (particularly French theory).  HA people  
hate technical knowledge (they still use creamware, pearlware,  
whiteware).  HAs don't pay much attention to IA generally, while at  
the same time wondering why historians don't cite them.  IA people  
choose not to pay attention to HA's theoretical foci.

Much of the debate is based upon poorly understood constructions of  
otherness.  The best proof I have of this is that I have been doing  
basically the same research since I started graduate school in 1991.   
I've been using pottery to study how individuals navigate religious,  
economic, and technological systems.  When I was an MA student at  
Boston U, my work was "Archaeological".  While at Nevada in Reno, it  
was "Anthropological."  Now that I'm on the faculty at MTU, its  
"Industrial."

I've had no problem picking useful bits of fact and theory from all  
the disciplines.  You just have to listen to what people are trying  
to do with their work.

While I also have comments on Heritage and about gearheads, I've got  
to go do some actual work right now.

Best,
Tim


Timothy Scarlett
Assistant Professor of Archaeology
Department of Social Sciences
Michigan Technological University
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(906)487-2359 (office)
(906)487-2468 (fax)
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