Subject: | |
From: | |
Reply To: | |
Date: | Mon, 22 Feb 1999 17:13:24 +0000 |
Content-Type: | text/plain |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Dan Mouer wrote:
> While I (like many
> archaeologists) personally prefer to wallow in the human details of particular
> sites and communities while working on them, what makes it all continually
> interesting (and relevant, I dare say) is the fact that we are poking at parts
> of that very large, very dynamic world-system. All this new-fangled
> "globalization," about which the media and business interests speak so
> incessantly, is at least 500 years old (and probably more like 5,000), and
> historical archaeology has taken it on as a subject.
But I don't think historical archaeology _has_ necessarily taken it on
as a subject,
or at least not with any real conviction. It's not just _many_
archaeologists who
"prefer to wallow in the human details of particular sites", it's the
vast majority.
While many pracitioners are perfectly happy to acknowledge that they're
"poking
at parts of that very large ... world system", only a tiny minority are
realistically
engaging with it (leaving aside for the moment any arguments over the
validity
of the phrase "world system"). After all, whatever their professors may
have done
in the past, I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of VCU (or
university
students in Virginia in general) anthro students don't visit Maharajah's
palaces
before becoming professional archaeologists, and that their
international work
experience, if any, involves a summer improving their tan and drinking
Red Stripe
in the Caribbean.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alasdair Brooks
Department of Archaeology
University of York
King's Manor
York
YO1 2EP
England, UK
phone: 01904 433931
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The Buffalo tastes the same on both sides of the border"
Sitting Bull
|
|
|