I think the fact that there are no other historical archaeologists in
Michigan might come as something of a surprise to the folks at Michigan Tech.

   Putting that aside, as someone who intentionally got a degree in history as a
foundation for a Ph.D. in Historical archaeology, I think that both fields have
something to say on any given topic.  They can be highly complementary, but
they ask different questions, in keeping with their training and the
philosophies which underlay that training.  Neither is in itself "right."

   At the moment I am writing an historic context for my dissertation.  I am
working on sites associated with the first communication system in Alaska and
have thousands of pages of primary source material and 11,000 artifacts
excavated at 4 sites.  To do the project justice will take the skills of a
historian and an archaeologist.  Will I be asking different questions than a
historian?  Sure, but then another archaeologist tackling the project might ask
entirely different questions as well.

   I think we need to learn more about each other and respect the differences in
approach.  If nothing else it would be an act of self preservation.  After all,
if we all thought alike we would be competing for the same jobs and there are
way to many historians out there!


Morgan Blanchard, MA, RPA
University of Nevada, Reno


    Quoting Robert Chidester <[log in to unmask]>:

> I'm in an unusual position for a historical archaeologist, but one that I
> think provides a pretty good perspective for addressing your question. My
> undergraduate and Master's educations were focused on historical archaeology,
> but after finishing my Master's degree at the University of Maryland I
> entered the Doctoral Program in Anthropology and History (DPAH) at the
> University of Michigan.  This program is connected to but administratively
> separate from both the Anthropology and History departments (so I am
> considered neither an Anthro nor a History student), and when I finish I will
> have a dual Ph.D.  How I got in, I'm still not sure; since matriculating,
> I've been the only archaeologist in DPAH, and before me there had been only
> one other since the program was founded in the mid-1980s.  Essentially, when
> people associated with DPAH say "Anthropology," what they really mean is
> ethnography.  Furthermore, there are no other historical archaeologists at
> Michigan (i.e., archaeol!
>  ogists who study the post-1492 world; there are some who study other
> historical periods, such as ancient Mesopotamia or India).
>
> Nevertheless, I was accepted and I've had a fabulous time here.  But, that
> doesn't mean that everyone has accepted me as an archaeologist.  While the
> other students in my cohort and those who entered immediately before and
> after have been supportive, only two of them have ever had any direct
> experience with archaeology themselves.  Furthermore, the faculty who are
> most heavily involved in the program never quite seemed comfortable when I
> brought archaeology up in classroom discussions.
>
> I've taken a mix of ethnology, archaeology and history courses here at
> Michigan, and interacted in various other ways with people from all three
> disciplines.  After five years here, I can say this about academic
> historians: they really don't give a damn about archaeology.  (Sure, there
> are a few exceptions, but really they are the exception to the rule.  And
> keep in mind, I am only speaking of academic historians--I've never worked
> for longer than a week in CRM, so I wouldn't know what historians in that
> field of practice are like.)  For one, academic historians don't really know
> what archaeology is and how we go about doing what we do.  Like most of the
> general population, they usually associate archaeology with far-off places
> and ancient cultures, so American historians in particular are really not
> aware that historical archaeology is a viable field of its own.  Second, the
> stereotype is true: most academic historians really do believe that anything
> worth knowing about the!
>   past can be found in written documents.  Material culture might be
> interesting, but it's not important.  Third, academic historians generally
> disdain theory of any kind.  So while I am fully conversant with all kinds of
> theorists from Binford to Hodder to Foucault and Derrida, if I bring any of
> this up in a history class I get blank stares (in the case of archaeological
> theory) or icy stares (in the case of postmodern social theory).
>
> Even within my own program, where other students have been supportive of my
> archaeological work, there is a general feeling that "archaeology is not what
> we do."  For instance, DPAH organizes a monthly Anthropology and History
> workshop where someone shares a paper in progress.  The paper is distributed
> and read in advance, so the workshop is given over entirely to discussion.
> About half the time we invite scholars from outside the university to present
> at these workshops.  This year I convinced the workshop committee to invite a
> prominent archaeologist whose work intersects in many interesting ways with
> the subjects that dominate DPAH's intellectual identity.  Somehow, even
> though I'm not on the workshop committee, I (the only archaeologist in DPAH,
> remember) was assigned the task of actually inviting the archaeologist in
> question and then handling most of the liaising duties during the three-month
> period between her acceptance of the invitation and her arrival on campus.  !
>  While the students-only lunch with this archaeologist before the workshop
> went very well, once the workshop started the discussion was painfully slow
> to really get any momentum going.  After all, "archaeology is not what we
> do."  (Never mind the fact that the paper this archaeologist presented did
> not discuss any actual archaeological excavation or analysis, but rather the
> dynamics of historical erasure in a "natural" park in Africa.)
>
> Is there any way to change this dynamic wherein historical archaeologists are
> ignored by academic historians (and many ethnographers as well)?  I wish I
> knew.  I've managed to cobble together a good dissertation committee (DPAH
> requires that I have at least one person from each department), but it was
> tough and individual committee members have taken responsibility for parts of
> the dissertation rather than the whole.  Part of the problem, I think, is a
> disconnect in how we think about historical research.  When archaeologists
> think about historical research, we are thinking about something altogether
> different from what academic historians are thinking about (in terms of kinds
> of sources, kinds of data, what can be done with that data, the kinds of
> conclusions we can reach, etc.)  No matter how much we insist that we do
> archival research too, we are simply not historians in the academic sense,
> and they (academic historians) know it.  A good illustration of this is my
> experie!
>  nce on the job market this year: I will have a dual Ph.D. when I finish this
> summer, so I've been applying for both History and Anthropology faculty jobs.
>  Due to the fact that there are many more history departments, and history
> departments also tend to be larger than anthro departments, a significant
> majority of the jobs I've applied to have been history jobs.  Yet, while I've
> had some interest from anthro departments, not a single history department
> has even asked me for more information, much less a lousy 20-minute phone or
> conference interview.
>
> Secondly, I think that we as archaeologists need to totally rethink our
> approach to interdisciplinary outreach.  We are constantly trying to defend
> what we do as important, as filling some gap in historical knowledge that no
> one else can investigate.  One of the most common refrains I've heard and
> read is that historical archaeology can investigate the lives of "people
> without history," people who didn't leave any written records behind and
> therefore supposedly are invisible in the historical record (and,
> consequently, are ignored by historians).  This is bullshit.  Historians can
> perfectly well investigate the lives of so-called "people without history,"
> as they've been demonstrating for over 30 years now.  Historians have written
> plenty of books examining the lives of plantation slaves, for instance--many
> of them from the perspective of the slaves themselves, no less.  Recently one
> historian wrote a book that examined life inside the antebellum slave market,
> equally from t!
>  he perspectives of the slaves, the slave traders, and slave
> owners/purchasers.  (There are many other examples I could mention, but this
> email is too long already.  For an incisive and damning critique of this
> justification of historical archaeology, see John Moreland, "Archaeology and
> Text," chapter 5 [Duckworth, 2001].)  In short, any archaeologist who claims
> that history based on documents can only reveal the past from an elite
> perspective is either lying or has never read a single book written by an
> academic historian since 1980.  So why should historians take us seriously
> when we constantly claim that we can do something they can't, when they know
> perfectly well that they can?
>
> I wish I could offer some concrete suggestions as to how to change this state
> of affairs, but even after five years of having one foot in each world I
> still don't know how to bring academic historians and archaeologists (and
> ethnographers, for that matter) together productively.  Obviously, I hope
> that my dissertation goes some way toward demonstrating how history and
> archaeology can be theoretically and practically combined, but I'm well aware
> that most academic historians will think that it is anthropology, not
> history, and that archaeologists will think that it's mostly history, not
> archaeology.  Sigh.
>
> Apologies for the extremely long post.  I hope this thread continues, and I'm
> also perfectly happy to discuss any of the issues raised here in more detail
> off list.
>
> Cheers,
> Bob
>
> >>> Jason Schmerer <[log in to unmask]> 03/06/09 5:09 PM >>>
> I am not sure if this is for this list(s) or not but here goes anything.
>
> I have been doing quite a bit of research lately about the Spanish period in
> East Florida and the colonial period archaeology and in history books for
> the NE FL and SE GA area.  I am though a archaeologist at heart and will
> forever be.  It seems that history and archaeology can go hand in hand but
> to no avail, so it seems in academia, that historians and archeologist do
> not like one another.  Lately it seems that history and archaeology are
> coming together and feeding off one another which is something that we as
> archaeologists and historians must do to continue our research, right?  If I
> am wrong then what will happen to the all the artifacts.  Archaeologist dig
> up the artifacts, sorry for saying that in a terrible way, but it is true
> and historians work on the written record, right, and help the archaeologist
> interpret the dug up artifacts?  So what is wrong with academia coming
> together, as in the CRM field where archaeologist and historians work hand
> in hand.  I would gladly work with a historian and I am planning on getting
> a MA in History soon and a PhD in Archaeology, with all do hope.  I see in
> academia just by reading the posts and talking with people that the new
> archaeologist and historians are coming together as a team to work on a site
> or historical research topic of interest.  Would it not be fascinating to
> find a archaeologist and historian to work together to find a great site of
> interest, for instance Fort Caroline.
>
> On another note what about forming a new new sub-field of archaeology or
> history that deals with just this issue of blurring the lines between
> history, archaeology or even add in sociology and cultural anthropology.
> Why cannot we have a system that brings these fields/sub-fields together
> and, again forms a new history or archaeology of the 21st Century?  If there
> is a academic system that this exists in let me know.
>
> If I am wrong and maybe a lot naive in my comments that archaeologists and
> historians do not work together, especially in academia, please let me
> know.  I fully admit and could very well be wrong in all of this.
>
> I will look forward to the comments.
>
> Jason Schmerer
>