I was unfortunately (or fortunately) called off to a field project last
week and missed out on the string of posts regarding industrial and
post-medieval archaeology.  I won't burden the list with extensive
rejoinders, but hope that a few comments, in rough chronological order
relative to the original posts, will be accepted.

First, Brooks remarked
>Industrial archaeology is an important subdiscipline, I was just
>uncomfortable with
>Dr. Schuyler's suggestion that the division between Post-Medieval archaeology
>and Industrial archaeology in Britain is period based when in fact the two
>often co-exist.

You might note that the trend, as I understand it from colleagues at
Leicester University' s School of Archaeological Studies, is to treat
Industrial as a period equivalent to Medieval, Roman, etc.  You might refer
back to the lively interchange between Marilyn Palmer and Catherine Clark
in the pages of Antiquity in 1989-1990, where Palmer convincingly argued
that the period of industrialization was sufficiently important in cultural
terms to warrant an archaeological focus.

Then Schuyler said
>Holy Cow! I used to subscribe to the INDUSTRIAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW but
>somehow lost contact quite a few years back. Pat, would you please put
>out for all of us the subscription information. It would be very helpful.

The excellent Industrial Archaeology Review and its companion, the
illustrated quarterly Industrial Archaeology News  are benefits of
membership in the Association for Industrial Archaeology, £21/year,
Membership Secretary, AIA, The Wharfage, Ironbridge, Telford, Shropshire,
TF8 7AW, England.

Bob is correct when he notes that IA has had a decidedly antiquarian
orientation.   Without rehashing all of the arguments for and against, it
is true that IA has included, and sometimes been dominated by, individuals
without formal training in archaeology or history, enthusiasts for whom
recording and preservation was the goal, and for whom the notion of
excavation was anathema.  While the enthusiasts are still a significant
fraction of both the AIA and the SIA (the North American-based counterpart
of AIA), their interests are combined comfortably with those of more
professionally-oriented practicioners.  The former emphasis on structures
and above-ground remains has been broadened to welcome more traditional
archaeological interests.  For instance, the SIA's 1999 Norton Prize,
awarded for the best article in the journal IA, was recently given to David
Landon and Timothy Tumberg for their article focused on the excavation of
an ore-processing feature at a mid-19th century copper mine.  In both the
UK and North America, IA embraces both professional and avocational
interests, and is probably more inclusive than most other fields of
archaeology.  A survey conducted with SIA's 1999 membership renewal, with
nearly 60% return rate, revealed 22% retired, 10% archaeologists, 28%
engineering/technical, 10% professors, 10% historians, 3% historic
preservationists, 5% architects, and 7% museum curators and archivists.  In
the retired category, those revealing former professions mirrored the
active numbers.

I guess I'd agree with most of what Ned Heite has said, except to say that
studies of workers' housing can, indeed be IA.   I'll mirror your own later
post and insist that the whole site is the context.   Workers' housing is
necessarily different in fundamental ways from the housing of independent
agriculturalists, say, of the same period, and is understandable only in
the context of industrialization.  (By the way, Ned, I actually heard that
talk about ironworks way back in the Mesolithic; illustrated with
interesting iconographic (?) slides, if I recall!)

The semantic distinctions between historical and industrial archaeology are
real, but of little consequence, IMHO.   One hopes that a study or argument
that illuminates past events, processes, and/or patterns is of value no
matter what label is attached.  The development of meaningful context
requires that some persons specialize in arcana, whether it be the pricing
of ceramics or the evolution of brickmaking technology.  Incorporating the
arcana into broader interpretations is a challenge to us all.  The kinds of
work espoused by Bob and Ned, in particular, and many others will help to
expand our understanding of the industrial past to our mutual benefit, and
will certainly have a greater impact than any amount of argument over
whether it is IA or not.





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Patrick E. Martin, Associate Professor of Archaeology
Editor of IA, Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology
Department of Social Sciences, Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295 USA
Telephone (906) 487-2070   Fax  (906) 487-2468   Internet  [log in to unmask]
SIA Website: http://www.ss.mtu.edu/IA/sia.html
MTU Website: http://www.ss.mtu.edu/IA/iahm.html
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