I have done historical research for archaeologists for a long time (though I am also a trained archaeologist). The one thing I can normally guarantee is that I normally fail to answer all of the long list of the questions archaeologists ask me at the first meeting. However, despite this I have usually radically reinterpreted several aspects the site for them by the end of the project. Anyway back to my Quebec paper. In message <v01540b01b44f8edde443@[207.228.62.131]>, Morgan Blanchard <[log in to unmask]> writes >Jake: > I thought it was interesting that in your treatment of history's role >in historic archaeology, you left out the most interesting question, "why". >(why is it here? Why was it abandoned? Why did they build out of this? Why >did they build in this stile? Why are there no feminine artifacts >here?...ad infinitum) After all, the answer to the question "why" is what >fills up the vast majority of both historical an archaeological works. >The question might be covered loosely in your historical background section >but I think it needs to be handled more overtly. Admittedly this takes the >historical archaeologist into unfamiliar territory, but I think we need to >do our best to create an emic understanding of our sites and the best tool >for doing this is the historical record. > >Morgan Blanchard > >> But for hist.arch., historical research does, generall, three things >> for us: 1) the overview, or historical background, the broad context >> in which we think a site originated and was used; 2) site history, and >> ethnographic and material culture info from the records -- how life >> was lived at the site, and what was used there, or at one very like >> it; and 3) structural history, using the documents to tell us what was >> built at a site, and where, and when, and how it was changed. Paul Courtney Leicester UK