But as we can not be experts on all subjects, we tend to specialize.  
And the vast majority of American archaeologists are trained as  
prehistorians. If they have historical training it does not include  
industrial processees. Too often "industrial archaeology" is all  
about workers' housing and other "domestic" subjects because that is  
what the archaeologists doing the work are trained to do. Many can't  
tell the difference, for instance, between metallurgical slag and  
clinker from coal. The first is, until the introduction of modern  
production control, an integral part of the process and often can  
provide more information than the metal produced. The later is just  
industrial waste. Generally interesting only because coal/coke is not  
used until various problems associated with it are sorted out.

Which does not mean that just looking at the process and the  
industrial structures and equipment is doing justice to the site  
either. You can't make a product without workers. But by the same  
token the workers wouldn't be there if there were no jobs.

I also have problems with restricting industrial archaeology to a  
time period. Iron blast furnaces, for instance, are industrial well  
before 1800. Whether Laphyttan in the 1200s (?) qualifies is  
problematic. There are also glassworks, merchant mills, tanneries,  
and iron bloomeries that are industrial in scale.

James Brothers, RPA
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On Sep 29, 2006, at 9:44, Nan A Rothschild wrote:

> bravo!
>
> Nan Rothschild
> On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, David Rotenstein wrote:
>
>> Not that my opinion counts for much, but labels like "industrial
>> archaeology", "historical archaeology", "industrial heritage",  
>> etc., are
>> kind of meaningless and their deployment is more akin to marketing  
>> and
>> symbolic jockeying for position rather than actual disciplinary  
>> boundaries.
>> "Industrial Archaeology" is a lot like using the word "blues" to  
>> pigeonhole
>> a particular musical genre and the culture that produces and  
>> consumes a
>> music: it's a label slapped onto a constellation of beliefs,  
>> behaviors, and
>> communication styles that allows the music and culture to be  
>> communicated
>> about and sold (via bin cards in record stores and ad campaigns).  
>> It just
>> goes to the point that archaeology is a tool for understanding human
>> behavior that may be used by historians, anthropologists,  
>> engineers, et al.,
>> and not a unified discipline. Archaeologists cannot assert  
>> ownership rights
>> (physical or intellectual) to the material they excavate and the  
>> barriers to
>> entry into the archaeology market are fairly low: anyone with an  
>> interest
>> and assets (some tools and access to an archaeological site or  
>> artifact) can
>> be an archaeologist, whether the folks with Ph.D.s and RPAs behind  
>> their
>> names validate the behavior or not.
>>
>> David Rotenstein
>>
>
> Nan A. Rothschild
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Director of Museum Studies
> Dept. of Anthropology
> Columbia University
> New York, NY 10027
> 212 854-4977
>
> Research Professor
> Dept. of Anthropology
> Barnard College
> New York, NY 10027
> 212 854-4315