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Date: | Tue, 1 Nov 2005 11:59:03 -0500 |
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On the other hand, Mary, is not "presentism" really a form of oral history?
We have been sharing our own experiences in different parts of America and
England at different time periods. One valuable lesson from sharing anecdotes is
that the same piece of glass in, say, the 1950s can have a wide range of
names and meaning in terms of valuation. In essence, we as adults are capturing
the social history of 1940s and later game playing. I can assure you that no
one is systematically capturing this information. I went to great lengths to
study this topic in the 1970s and 1980s (without the benefit of Internet) and
found interviewing people of all ages provided wonderful information on past
marble playing within their historic contexts. Most of the books on marbles
are produced by collectors who have no academic understanding of the issue
presentism and continually apply contemporary standards for past behaviors.
Even the books by archaeologists tend to be simple typologies with pretty color
photographs. The key to making our anecdotes useful for archaeology is to
compile these oral histories from people who lived the historic contexts.
However, I do agree with you that we should not take 1950s oral history and
using it to explain artifacts in older contexts. Witness, for example, the
comments about marbles found in Civil War contexts.
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
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