Michael Nassaney writes: "...some folks still believe that we can
know just about everything we need to about the late 19th -early
20th century from documents."
 
It has taken us quite a while to win that battle here in Va
(especially when there are sooo many prehistoric and colonial sites
to worry about), but I think the strongest argument was (and
probably always is) that archaeology is not history, and archaeology
asks and answers questions which may be of no interest whatsoever to
historians, or to the scribes who wrote historic records. On the
other hand, archeologists defeat their purpose (and come off pretty
ditzy) when they insist that ALL such sites have the same
preservation/research value as earlier (and rarer, and more poorly
documented) sites. We won't win many converts singing that tune
(which I think was the tenor of Charlie Ewan's original post on this
subject some months back.
 
It is encumbant on the archaeologist to have a clear idea what s/he
might be able to do with such sites, and then to make god strong
arguments that archaeology is the best way to do it. Once a few
really interesting studies are done in an area, resistance to "late
sites archaeology" tends to fade away. Given the potential for
bringing in personal and family histories, informant interviews, and
elevating the archaeology of the everyday past of near memory, I
think that most communities recognize the value of such projects.
But they need to be done with the sensitivity of the
ethnographic/ethnohistoric research that they are. If all we're going
to do is a study of bottle embossing, or create a tin can
chronology, I doubt we'll find much support anywhere for our efforts.
 
Dan Mouer