I'm picking this thread up this morning, the meeting is later today so I'll
touch back with the group later if there is interest.

Again, I want to thank everyone for their input.  Reading through
everyone's comments has been really interesting and helpful.  I want to
address a few select points and people, and give me own two cents.

First of all, Bob, I loved the Mitt joke, it made me laugh out loud.

Catherine, I think your point about tribal consultation on all sites is
well put, and really important.  I did my thesis in the northwest and I
think, at least in the west, the Northwest and California do a better job
of Indigenous inclusivity, although, really, we all, everywhere, can do a
better job of it.

Carol McDavid, I have read other work of yours and I think you're awesome
and I love what you have to say about language and identity generally.
Your "Beyond Strategy and Good Intentions: Archaeology, Race and White
Privilege" article was instrumental in how I approached my thesis and stays
with me now.  I'm thrilled you chimed in on my plea.

Charles Speal, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said:
"language is constantly being renegotiated".

At some point in the thread someone mentioned "political correctness".
Personally, I think this is, perhaps more now than ever, a flashpoint
political term that doesn't have a positive bearing in real life.  As
Charles said, language is constantly being renegotiated.  Not every new
word, way of communication, of excluded terminology, is about "political
correctness", but rather inclusivity, cultural and temporal correctness,
and ethics.  In archaeology, we are toeing that fine line between hard
science and social science and therefore we probably have a harder time
with our language than most other fields.  We need to say what we mean
effectively without jargon for good communication, but we need to be
thoughtful of and open to the cultures we seek to study and discuss.

Something that really struck me about this thread was the regional variance
in our terminologies-- which is okay!  It's indicative of the variance of
the Indigenous experience throughout America.

In Utah, the protohistoric period (the period before contact with
Euro-Americans but after Euro-American influence) comes on the heels of the
end of the Formative Period.  The Formative period was also a time of
intense and rapid technological change and cultural interaction.  The end
of the Formative period was a time of intense climatic and cultural change.
The early contact period, and protohistory-- also a lot of cultural
change.  I think this complicates how we, in Utah, think about the time
between the late-precontact period (my preferred term) through to contact.
The Indigenous peoples in Utah (which includes parts of the Southwest and
the Great Basin), for generations, went through an absurd amount of change
and instability.  One could argue that it makes sense to group all of that
together.  But, as was discussed throughout this thread, Euro-American
influence and occupation is the point by which, at some point, our field
decided was the most relevant or convenient demarkation by which to define
our most basic terms.  I think the conversation around those terms is
really valuable.  In lieu of the Herculean task of redefining our most
basic classification, I think incorporating (correctly, or at least as
correctly as can be generally agreed to) additional terminology to better
accommodate how we talk about the diversity of the cultural landscape is a
really good step, and I'm glad we in Utah are doing that.  There were
really great suggestions and I can't wait to share them at the meeting this
afternoon.

Thanks!
-Hannah

P.S. I've a lot of coffee, and if you didn't read this with shaky finger
and kind of ranty, then you probably missed the tone.  Nonetheless, I hope
the sentiment is sufficiently conveyed.

On Fri, Mar 23, 2018 at 7:44 AM, Hannah Russell <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> I am so pleased by the discussion this thread has caused.  Very certainly
> I have opened up this can of worms with myself when thinking about the term
> protohistory and the greater language used in archaeology.  I will address
> this discussion in more detail in a couple of days-- I'm in the field at
> present.
>
> Thank you all so much!
> -Hannah
>
> On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 9:47 PM, John Foster <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I quite agree Catherine.  Convincing agencies as well as the tribes that
>> they have a say in "historical" sites is a real challenge.  As always it's
>> outreach and education.  John Foster, RPA
>> Greenwood-Associates.com
>> Greenwood and Associates
>> 310.717.5048
>>
>>       From: Catherine Dickson <[log in to unmask]>
>>  To: [log in to unmask]
>>  Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2018 8:36 PM
>>  Subject: Re: Protohistory on the Utah site form
>>
>> I work for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in
>> Oregon.  We use pre-contact/post-contact for a variety of reasons, several
>> of which have been touched on and also one which has not.
>> I was trained as a historic sites archaeologist and that's part of why I
>> was hired.  The CTUIR is as interested in its "history" as it is in its
>> "prehistory" (although it's all pretty much the same thing for tribal
>> members).
>> We have a difficult time getting agencies and the public to understand
>> that.  People agree tribal people were here in the past.  If we're lucky,
>> they'll agree that tribal members are here today.  But everyone behaves as
>> if there simply were no tribal people in between, in what we generally
>> think of as the "historic era."
>> Agencies agree to consult with tribes about Native American sites (which
>> 99% of the time means pre-contact sites).  We request to be consulted
>> regarding all sites, as we believe we are the only ones who can decide
>> whether it is a Native American site.  Tribal members worked on railroads.
>> Tribal members made homestead claims.  Tribal members did lots of things
>> during the "historic era" that members of the dominant culture did.  In
>> addition, tribal culture was dramatically impacted by what everyone in the
>> historic area was doing in the tribes' traditional territories.
>> The fundamental assumption of the lack of tribal presence in "historic
>> sites" is part of the ongoing effort to make tribal people invisible.
>> Catherine Dickson
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of
>> David Raymond Carlson <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2018 2:46 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: Protohistory on the Utah site form
>>
>> Hi John,
>>
>> I just wanted to drop in and comment on a few things you said. I agree
>> with
>> you that there is an important methodological/epistemological difference
>> between conducting archaeology with written documentation and conducting
>> it
>> without, and I can see, from a managerial standpoint, how classifying
>> sites
>> in some basic way according to what kinds of procedures you will need to
>> do
>> to investigate them can be helpful. I do not think, though, that the issue
>> here is one of ignoring the influence of European and Euro-American
>> contact. But I think there are a few important points to consider:
>>
>> 1. Chronological divisions need to serve our research interests, which go
>> beyond epistemological concerns. Case in point, part of the research goal
>> of many people interested in challenging the prehistoric/historic divide
>> is
>> that they want to de-emphasize the significance of what you termed as the
>> "substantive ontological difference[s] between the pre-colonial and
>> colonial eras in North America." For those operating in the
>> persistence/resilience research program (or paradigm, if you will), the
>> goal is to investigate persistence across and during colonialism, as means
>> of challenging current archaeological historiographies (which emphasize
>> colonialism as a drastic change) and at the behest of descendant
>> communities who are more interested in their own agency then in seeing
>> themselves purely as creatures affected by European colonialism. The issue
>> is not so much that change did not happen, but of focusing on more than
>> just that change. While the methodological issues of written vs material
>> records are still present, the ontological concerns are not, and are in
>> fact precisely what these archaeologists are seeking to challenge.
>> Defending a challenge to an assumption with that very assumption is not
>> much of a defense.
>>
>> 2. I don't think anyone is calling for the contact/pre-contact distinction
>> to be ignored. No one has said that. It seems more that people want a
>> different way of classifying sites, chronologically, for managerial
>> purposes. Changing how we classify sites in such a context will not mean
>> the elimination of the contact/pre-contact distinction. If it's useful for
>> some set of research, it's useful for some set of research. But the terms
>> we use have to serve archaeological and non-archaeological communities as
>> a
>> whole, which brings me to...
>>
>> 3. As several have made clear, this issue of chronological classification
>> has implications above and beyond the technical considerations of
>> archaeologists. In addition to the sensibilities of indigenous groups
>> (some
>> of whom do not like referring to their past as "prehistory", especially
>> since they may have oral historical records of said past), these
>> classifications are marshalled in museums, written texts, and other
>> contexts in ways which render Native American post-European contact
>> history
>> invisible. This invisiblity is both inaccurate and harmful, as it extends
>> well beyond our understanding of the past, encompassing all manner of
>> policy decisions. Challenging it is, in my opinion, as important as
>> challenging any other erroneous preconception about the past (e.g. the
>> Solutrean Hypothesis, the Lost Tribes of Israel and South America). If you
>> believe, as I do, that archaeologists bear some general responsiblity for
>> how we represent the past, then we must take into consideration how our
>> terms are interpreted beyond the domain of archaeology (or of our
>> particular corner of it). "It's just useful to [some of] us", then, isn't
>> enough of a defense.
>>
>> My point, then, is that while the epistemological distinction you make is
>> important, it shouldn't be the sole justification for classifying sites as
>> we do. There's more to consider here than just historical archaeological
>> epistemology, and it seems to me that we don't lose much in being
>> accommodating (since nothing stops us from recognizing the importance of
>> the contact/pre-contact distinction, even if we don't use it as a
>> universal
>> classification for basic site chronology).
>>
>> --David
>>
>> =====================================================
>> David Carlson, M.A.
>> Co-Principle Investigator, *Issei* at Barneston Project
>> Project Website: http://blogs.uw.edu/davidrcn
>> Email: davidrcn[at]uw.edu
>>
>> PhD. Candidate, Archaeology Program
>> Department of Anthropology
>> University of Washington
>> Personal Website: http://davidrcarlson.net
>>
>> <http://uw.edu>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 1:55 PM, John Worth <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> > I’m very much in agreement with Bob on this.  In terms of research
>> > methodology and datasets, and what cultural phenomena we do and don’t
>> have
>> > direct access to, the concepts of prehistoric and historic periods are
>> > abundantly useful and fully descriptive.  In the complete absence of
>> > documentary/textual data that we can read, our direct archaeological
>> > interpretations are based on material traces of past behaviors, from
>> which
>> > we then build inferences that reach beyond the material and behavioral
>> and
>> > into the mental realm.  When that material evidence is supplemented by
>> > documentary data, our interpretations can also draw upon textual data
>> that
>> > allows us direct glimpses into the mental realm of those past cultures,
>> > though only indirectly into the behavioral and material realm that such
>> > texts may describe.  Combining the two sources of evidence,
>> archaeological
>> > and documentary data provide direct and simultaneous access to both the
>> > behaviors and thoughts of members of past cultures, offering us an
>> > opportunity for a much richer and mutually comparable interpretive
>> > framework that is not solely reliant on material evidence.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > And the concept of protohistory, as I’ve always understood it, bridges
>> the
>> > gap between the two, particularly in colonial situations when literate
>> > groups interacted with non-literate groups, providing at least some
>> textual
>> > evidence, though typically through the lens of one alien culture writing
>> > about another with whom they have only limited interaction and
>> > understanding (e.g. when American Indians were not personally generating
>> > their own texts and historical accounts, but were nonetheless being
>> > described by European observers, which is a major emphasis of
>> > ethnohistory).
>> > That being said, however, even in “literate” historic-period societies,
>> a
>> > large swath of the population either did not or could not write, or
>> wrote
>> > very little, which somewhat blurs the distinction between “protohistory”
>> > and “history” as described above, since the amount and quality of
>> > documentary evidence varies by group and region even within these
>> > “historic” societies.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > In Utah and much of North America, these periods roughly correspond to
>> the
>> > pre-colonial and colonial/post-colonial eras, and thus encapsulate not
>> just
>> > methodological and evidentiary differences, but also a number of
>> > fundamental differences in the actual social landscape, particularly as
>> > regards the presence and expansion of non-indigenous groups into a
>> > previously indigenous landscape, and the concurrent transformation of
>> the
>> > political and economic circumstances affecting all groups.  But as Bob
>> > points out, the Maya had been generating their own documentary texts
>> long
>> > before Europeans arrived, and thus their “historic” period now (since
>> > decipherment) encompasses both the late pre-colonial and the
>> > colonial/postcolonial eras (and I consciously am avoiding conflating the
>> > generic term “contact” with “colonialism,” since the first occurs
>> regularly
>> > without the latter, and the latter necessarily incorporates the former).
>> >
>> >
>> > For the Utah situation, I’d think that both
>> > prehistoric/protohistoric/historic and pre-colonial and
>> > colonial/post-colonial would work, since they are rough functional
>> > equivalents of each other.  All human cultures were prehistoric at one
>> time
>> > or another, and all indigenous cultures were ultimately affected by
>> > colonialism authored by Europeans or others at some point in their
>> history,
>> > so to single out either of these terms (history or colonial) as if they
>> are
>> > somehow specifically perjorative or biased against Native Americans in
>> this
>> > context seems very myopic in my opinion.  There really is an important
>> > methodological distinction to be made between archaeology conducted with
>> > and without contemporaneous documentary evidence, and there really was a
>> > substantive ontological difference between the pre-colonial and colonial
>> > eras in North America, so we blur these lines at our own intellectual
>> > peril.
>> >
>> > John Worth
>> >
>> > ​
>> > --
>> > John E. Worth, Ph.D.
>> > Professor, Department of Anthropology
>> > University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, FL
>> 32514
>> > Phone: (850) 857-6204    Fax: (850) 857-6278    Email: [log in to unmask]
>> > Home Page: *http://pages.uwf.edu/jworth/ <http://pages.uwf.edu/jworth/>
>> *
>> > Luna Settlement Project: http://lunasettlement.blogspot.com/
>> > https://www.facebook.com/lunasettlementproject/
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Hannah Russell, RPA
> Cottonwood Archaeology, LLC
> [log in to unmask]
> (435) 210-0414
>



-- 
Hannah Russell, RPA
Cottonwood Archaeology, LLC
[log in to unmask]
(435) 210-0414

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