In regards to this debate - which seems to have existed from the
earliest developments of this field - I cannot help but support the
lengthy list of objections provided by Carl Barna. Simply because
archaeologists have grown tired of examining this issue, does not mean
that the issues has dissappeared.
 
In Spanish Colonial Research, the topical area with which I am most
familiar, the standards of historical research that are accepted by
archaeologists, particularly in the fields of CRMS, and underwater
archaeology, are nothing short of totally inadequate. For example,
archaeologists specializing in these fields feel quite comfortable using
secondary translations in the most uncritical ways. Relatively few even
bother to learn to speak Spanish, let alone work with original colonial
documents. For the most part, these researchers have never even seen or
heard of the vast array of items that relate to Latin American social
history. This situation is hardly surprising given an almost total lack
of graduate training in such work for most anthropologists.
 
It is equally clear that few historians have even the slightest knowledge
of how to use archaeological data. If archaeologists assume a "superior
attitude," or if they seem satisfied with mediocre historical data, then
it is also true that few historians are willing to recognize that
archaeologists unearth anything more than "the stage props of history."
 
This debate is ultimately much more than a turf war. It is at the
fundamental root of much of what historical archaeology is, and will
become. The truth, for anyone that cares to look, is that data relevant to
understanding the past is found in both texts and in other classes of
remains. History and archaeology are disciplines that have developed
sophisticated techniques for evaluating various data sets. We are fools
not to attempt to look at all the data which is present using the already
extant methods.
 
There are very few indications that historians have any major
professional interest in becoming informed consumers of archaeological
data. Art Woodward understood this in the late 1930's, and it remains
essentially as true today, as it was then. Before there was a meaningful
historical archaeology, he saw that the future of this field lay in
anthropology. Events have proved him correct. However, if he were alive
today, he would demand that those who called themselves historical
archaeologists be the equal of any historian in their understanding of
documents and the literature of history. In Art's own life he
demonstrated that the distinction between these two fields, as realms of
knowledge, was a useless artifact created by people who would not dare to
go beyond the boundaries of disciplinary conventions. Art received very
few rewards for daring to go beyond the limits of his contemporaries.
Those that would follow him today can expect essentially the same treatment.
 
Nevertheless, if one accepts that proposition that historical archaeology
is by its nature a field that requires expert knowledge in both history
and archaeology, then a world of knowledge will become available that
remains hidden to the vast majority of people now conducting research. To
realize this objective requires that a researcher be as comfortable in the
world of prehistory as he, or she, is in the world of documented
civilizations. The historical archaeologist must transcend the limits of
both conventional history and archaeology. To do this, he or she must be
able to match any prehistorian or historian in terms of both method and
theory. If the practitioners of historical archaeology achieve this goal,
then I believe that they will no longer be treated as a peripheral field
of knowledge locked into a diminishing discpline of anthropology.
Irrespective of the long term consequences of such action, I believe that
those who really want to understand the past, will follow Art Woodward's
path, and reject the artificial barriers of conventional knowledge.
 
Jack S. Williams
The Center for Spanish Colonial Archaeology