I wasn't going to weigh in on all this, but as one who has been around since 
the beginning, as it were, it might do to offer a bit of historical 
perspective.
    Historical archaeology got its start in the United States under that 
rubric in large part, as I recall, as a reaction to the almost complete 
dominion over the archaeological enterprise by so-called "prehistorians." 
The vast majority of archaeologists working in sites in this country and in 
Canada, and this may well still be the case, were involved solely with 
efforts to unravel the past of American Indians.  And their remote 
(pre-1492) past, at that.
    Because the National Park Service found itself responsible for historic 
sites whose Indian involement was tangential or non-existent, and because 
the federal government became involved in salvage archaeology programs where 
dams and related flood control systems were being constructed,  it was 
inevitable that non-Indian material culture sometimes had to be taken into 
account.  Generally reluctantly so (with a few notable exceptions).
    Forty-four years ago I grappled with the problem which currently seems 
to concern a few contributors to this listserve in an article titled "On the 
Meaning of Historic Sites Archaeology," the title of a symposium held in 
Boulder, Colorado, in 1963 at the annual SAA conference.  I chaired the 
session, one whose participants included Lewis Binford, Louis Caywood, John 
Cotter, Stephen Glass, Henry Hornblower II, Ken Kidd, Edward Larabee, 
Carlyle Smith, and Art Woodward.  My essay, inspired by that symposium, was 
published in American Antiquity in Vol. 31, no. 1 (July), pp. 61-65.
    Forty-one years ago I further outlined the state of affairs in an 
article called "Bottles, Buckets, and Horseshoes: The Unrespectable in 
American Archaeology."  Henry Glassie was kind enough to publish it in the 
journal he then edited, the "Keystone Folklore Quarterly" (Vol. 13, no. 3, 
1968; pp. 171-84).  It was reprinted as "The Unrespectable in American 
Archaeology" on pages 303-12 in a volume edited by Brian Fagan, "Corridors 
in Time: A Reader in Introductory Archaeology" (Boston and Toronto: Little, 
Brown and Company, 1974).
    Somewhat later, in 1978, Bob Schuyler greatly improved on my earlier 
effort to conceptualize historical achaeology when he wrote "Historical and 
Historic Sites Archaeology as Anthropology: Basic Definitions and 
Relationships," published on pages 27-31 of the volume edited by him, 
"Historical Archaeology: A guide to Susbtantive and Theoretical 
Contributions" (Farmingdale, New York, Baywood Publishing Company, Inc.).
    Those interested in this discussion should avail themselves of these 
earlier articles.
    It turns out, looking back on nearly a half century of what's 
transpired, that nothing is any longer unrespectable in American 
archaeology.  My cynical view suggests to me that is because there are now 
dollar signs attached to digging privies and to chasing down every last 
detail about bottles, buckets, and horseshoes.  In my Johnny Ward's Ranch 
days, those kinds of efforts were Tom Sawyer's fence undertakings, and no 
one got paid a nickle to do any of it..
    Bunny Fontana

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Melissa Diamanti" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 2:00 PM
Subject: Re: Marco Polo/Cologne


"If our colleagues
across the pond have sited described by Romans in 44 B.C, then we have to be
pretty liberal about the definition of historical archaeology." quoted from 
Ron May's message.

No we don't. As far as I know, this list was not intended to cover the 
archaeology of all cultures with written records (want to go back to the 
Egyptians or Sumerians, anyone?). Nor does it even include all of the 
Society for Historical Archaeology. I think the users tend to forget that 
this list is created and maintained by Anita. Since she puts in the work, I 
feel she can limit it any way she sees fit.
From using this list, it is my impression that it covers what a lot of us 
call historical archaeology in the US (meaning post-contact) and what I 
think they call post-medieval in Europe. I seem to remember that this site 
has included discussions from Autralia and other contexts in the past, and 
has not been limited to "New World" materials only. So I have no problem 
with what is covered.
Meli Diamanti