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Date: | Wed, 18 Jul 2007 23:20:47 -0400 |
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In a message dated 7/18/2007 11:05:58 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
We have stopped referring to "historic" artifacts and "historic artifact
analysis" and gone to "Euroamerican artifacts" and "Euroamerican artifact
analysis," admitting up front that items like Chinese porcelain and Haitian Phoenix
buttons are not technically Euroamerican artifacts.
That's our happy little story, and we're sticking with it.
Has your confusion now given you a headache? If not, then I haven't done my
job.
Ah, but Jeff, what do you do with a Puebloan (or Chinese or Apache or
Siberian) site comprised entirely of European style artifacts? What happens when
your "Chinese" trash pit is loaded with America-made items? Even more
confusing, what if the native people continued indigenous traditions by flaking glass
bottles and telephone pole insulators and porcelain plates into traditional
artifacts? If an Eskimo leaves a trashpit full of European goods, is he/she
still an Eskimo? And the models, oh my gosh, the models you can spin and twist
with all that fun stuff! Is it as simple as "deposition when people could
write, but did not leave written records?" Can social history or ethnology
testing apply in these circumstances? Moreover, would a faculty historian,
anthropologist, or museum curator even care?
Ron May
Legacy 106, Inc.
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