Spring 2008
HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
New College of Florida
Uzi Baram
Class meets: Monday and Thursday 2 - 3:20 pm in the Anthropology Lab
Office hours: Tuesday 12:30-2:30 & by appointment
Office telephone: 487-4217
E-mail: BARAM@ncf.edu
URL:
http://faculty.ncf.edu/Baram/HistoricalArchaeologycourse.htm
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
Historical Archaeology is a subfield of Anthropological Archaeology that
examines European colonialism and its material influences around the world. The
key notion is a critical examination of the development of North American
culture from 1492 to the present, the spread of colonies around the world, and
the rise and global spread of capitalism. The goal is a "history from below" for
the modern period. In this course, we will evaluate the artifacts and theories
of Historical Archaeology using case studies and hopefully field projects. A
special focus is given to the study of historical and contemporary material
culture. Recommended: Prior course work in archaeology or permission of the
instructor.
COURSE PROSPECTUS
This course presents an overview of the subfield of Historical Archaeology. The
primary focus of the field is an examination of European colonialism,
capitalism, and the development of American culture from 1492 up to the present.
Although the temporal periods and societies under investigation are often
associated with documentary evidence, we will compare and contrast this evidence
with empirical observations regarding the material world to explore how groups
constitute and transform themselves in the arena of broad, often global scale,
and social interactions. The field is currently burgeoning with numerous
theoretical and methodological approaches to a wide range of case studies in all
corners of the world. In attempting to sample this broad range of diversity we
will confine ourselves to a "limited" number of topical concerns predominantly
in the eastern North America, but including a survey of global historical
archaeology, in order to provide a flavor for the directions and potential of
this dynamic field.
COURSE GOALS
The central goal for the course is the use of an anthropological perspective to
examine the material world. This perspective will provide insights that are
different from those held by art historians, architectural historians,
historians of technology, and others interested in material objects from the
same time periods. We will attempt to situate and interpret material objects and
patterns in their cultural, social, and political contexts to better understand
their makers and users. Throughout the course we will use the archaeological and
documentary records not only to grasp indigenous, minority, and dominant
American histories, but also as a forum to explore issues of global,
anthropological significance. For example, we will pose (but not limit ourselves
to) question on such topics as:
(1) Social Inequalities
How can we account for the varied ways in which human societies organize
themselves by analyzing their material remains? What do material remains tell us
about social inequalities in the modern era? Why were some developments
welcomed, while others were resisted?
(2) Modernity, Capitalism, and Colonialism
How does capitalism develop, expand, and come to dominate social formations in
the West? What strategies were effective in its expansion? What constitutes
modernity in various corners of the world? Why do landscapes of high and low
socioeconomic classes and of gender look the way they do? What does resistance
look like archaeologically?
(3) Past in the Present
How can information about the past be used to inform the present (or the
future)? How does the present influence our interpretations and
constructions/reconstructions of the past? How do we construct interpretive
histories that matter to people from the static remains of the archaeological
record?
Through the readings and discussions we will explore:
(1) how archaeologists have interpreted the physical remains of historic and
modern periods,
(2) the range of theories, models, and methods that have been used in these
interpretations,
(3) the role that historical archaeology can play in making visible those
peoples who have fallen below the threshold of documentary history (the "people
without history"), and help us to underscore their role in the creation of the
past, present, and future.
One of the important skills in Historical Archaeology is detailed descriptions
based on close observations of material culture and the cultural landscape. The
readings, discussions, and exercises are designed to encourage consideration of
visual attributions. The methods employed in his course should be useful across
anthropological studies.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
There are two components to the evaluation of the course.
1. The class meets for lectures and for discussion of the assigned readings. You
are expected to read the assigned materials before class and come to class
prepared to discuss relevant information. Class discussions will involve
critical evaluation of the assigned readings, as well as opportunities to offer
alternative perspectives or interpretations of the materials. You are expected
to attend each and every class meeting, have read the assignments, and be ready
to discuss the readings and topics. Making connections among the readings,
during a particular class meeting and across the semester, is an important
aspect of the course. The key for discussion is quality not quantity. If you
need to miss class, contact the professor via email, voice mail, or a message in
his mailbox; all reasonable requests for absences will be honored. Unexcused
absences are a basis for not satisfying the course.
2. The written work for the course has two components:
A. Exercises: Four exercises ask you to employ notions from the course on
specific datasets. The exercises provide an experiential opportunity to employ
anthropological perspectives on the material world. You need to complete all the
exercises by the deadline assigned. Details on the projects and their short
papers will be provided during the semester.
B. Term project: The course has one significant research and writing endeavor.
The term project will employ an independent set of data against theories and
methods discussed over the term. You will have wide latitude, within Historical
Archaeology, to choose a topic of geographic and/or temporal interest. There
will be an oral and written component to the project. You will be presenting the
results of your research to the class during the penultimate week of the
semester. The product of the semester-long research will be due the final day of
classes. Details are on the last page of this syllabus.
REQUIRED TEXTS
• Barbara Little 2007 Historical Archaeology: Why the Past Matters. Left
Coast Press. (Noted as HAWPM below)
• James Deetz 1996 In Small Things Forgotten: An Archaeology of Early
American Life. Anchor Press.
• Leland Ferguson 2004 Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America
1650-1800. Smithsonian Press.
• Dean Saitta 2007 The Archaeology of Collective Action. University Press
of Florida.
REQUIRED ARTICLES and OTHER RESOURCES
Articles and chapters listed on the outline of topics are on electronic reserve
through the Cook Library. Many of the articles listed below are in journals that
are available on the Cook Library stacks or online. Other sources for the course
include the journals Historical Archaeology and The International Journal of
Historical Archaeology that are available at the Cook Library. The web page for
the Society for Historical Archaeology (www.sha.org)
is also a useful resource for this course.
There is much reading for this course; I expect in-depth examination of course
concerns and want to provide a wide range of scholarship to you. Yet the
syllabus is only a sampling of the growing scholarship in Historical
Archaeology. I am always tempted to include every interesting book on the topic
but instead of requiring an unbelievably large number of books for this class,
the required texts provide the foundation in Historical Archaeology and the
articles offer insights into case studies, important scholars, and debates in
the field. For additional readings, the following fit the contours of course
concerns and can be productive read in conjunction of this class: Henry Glassie
Material Culture, Charles Orser A Historical Archaeology of the Modern
World, Lu Ann de Cunzo and John Jameson Unlocking the Past: Celebrating
Historical Archaeology in North America. I can recommend many more
publications and resources.
COURSE OUTLINE
Mini-Class
1/31 Material Culture, Power Relations, and Social Identities: Entry Points to
Modernity
I. Introduction to the Course
2/4 What is Historical Archaeology?
Readings:
1. HAWPM Section 1: What are Our Ambitions (chapters 1-7)
2/7 The Development of Historical Archaeology
Readings:
1. In Small Things Forgotten chapters 1, 2 and 9
2. Kathleen Deagan 1982 “Avenues of Inquiry in Historical Archaeology” Advances
in Archaeological Method and Theory 5:155-177.
3. Barbara Little 1994 “People with History: An Update on Historical Archaeology
in the United States” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 1(1):5-40.
4. Rebecca Yamin 2001 "Alternative Narratives: Respectability at New York's Five
Points" In The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes, pp. 154-170.
II. Material Culture and Historical Change: the Contributions of Historical
Archaeology
2/11 Archaeology of Contact, Conquest, and Colonialism
Readings:
1. HAWPM chapters 15 (Jamestown) and 16 (Mission San Luis)
2. Michael Nassaney and William Cremin 2002 “Fort St. Joseph is Found” Michigan
History 86(5):18-27. On line at:
http://www.michiganhistorymagazine.com/extra/pdfs/stjoefound.pdf
3. Bonnie McEwan 1999 "San Luis de Tamali: The Archaeology of Spanish-Indian
Relations at a Florida Mission" Historical Archaeology 25(3):36-60.
4. Clark Larsen 2000 “Reading the Bones of La Florida” Scientific American
282(6):80-85.
2/14 Archaeology of Accommodation and Resistance
Readings:
1. Kathleen Deagan and Jane Landers 1999 "Fort Mosé: Earliest Free
African-American Town in the United States" In I, Too Am America: Archaeological
Studies of African-American Life, pp. 261-282.
2. Terrence Weik 1997 “The Archaeology of Maroon Societies in the Americas:
Resistance, Cultural Continuity, and Transformation in the African Diaspora”
Historical Archaeology 31(2):81-92
3. Canter Brown, Jr. 1990 “The ‘Sarrazota, or Runaway Negro Plantations’: Tampa
Bay’s First Black Community, 1812-1821” Tampa Bay History 12:5-19.
2/18 Techniques in Historical Archaeology: Historical Archaeology of
Architecture and Town Planning
Readings:
1. In Small Things Forgotten chapter 5
2. Patricia Mangan 2000 "Building Biographies: Spatial Changes in Domestic
Structures during the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism" In Lines That
Divide, pp. 205-238.
3. Linda Derry 2000 “Southern Town Plans, Storytelling, and Historical
Archaeology” In Archaeology of Southern Urban Landscapes, pp. 14-29
2/21 Things Historical Archaeologists Find: Ceramics, Glass, and Other Small
Items
Readings:
1. In Small Things Forgotten chapter 3
2. Robert Paynter 1988 "Steps to an Archaeology of Capitalism: Material Change
and Class Analysis" In Recovery of Meaning, pp. 407-434.
2/25 Seeing Difference in Cemeteries
Readings:
1. In Small Things Forgotten chapter 4
2. Randall McGuire 1988 "Dialogues with the Dead: Ideology and the Cemetery" In
Recovery of Meaning, pp. 435-480.
3. James C. Garman 1994 "Viewing the Color Line Through the Material Culture of
Death" Historical Archaeology 28(3):74-93.
2/28 Studying the Graveyard: Visit the Rosemary Cemetery
Readings:
1. HAWPA Section 3: Windshield Survey (chapters 14-23)
III. History from Below: The Politics of the Past
3/3 Transformation in Historical Archaeology: the African Burial Ground in New
York City
1. Teresa Singleton 2005 “Before the Revolution: Archaeology and the African
Diaspora on the Atlantic Seaboard” In North American Archaeology, pp. 319-336.
2. Cheryl La Roche and Michael Blakey. 1997. Seizing Intellectual Power: The
Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground. Historical Archaeology
31(3):84-106.
3. Maria Franklin 1997 "Power to the People": Sociopolitics and the archaeology
of Black Americans. Historical Archaeology 31(3):36-50.
4. Michael Blakey 1998 The New York African Burial Ground Project: An
Examination of Enslaved Lives, a Construction of Ancestral Ties. Transforming
Anthropology 7(1):53-58.
3/6 Recovering Difference: African Diaspora Archaeology
Readings:
1. In Small Things Forgotten chapter 7 and 8
2. Uncommon Ground Prologue to chapter 2
3. HAWPM chapter 20 (African American Life)
3/10 Colonoware and other Material Insights into African America from Slavery to
Emancipation
Readings:
1. Uncommon Ground chapter 3 - epilogue
2. Paul Mullins 1999 "Race and the Genteel Consumer: African-American
Consumption, 1850-1930” Historical Archaeology 33(1):22-38.
3/13. Analyzing Difference: Gender
Readings:
1. Kathleen Deagan 2004 “Reconsidering Taino Social Dynamics after Spanish
Conquest: Gender and Class in Culture Contact Studies” American Antiquity
69(4):597-626.
2. Donna J. Seifert 1994 “Mrs. Starr’s Profession” In Those of Little Note, pp.
149-174.
3. Deborah Rotman 2005 “Newlyweds, Young Families, and Spinsters: A
Consideration of Developmental Cycle in Historical Archaeologies of Gender”
International Journal of Historical Archaeology 9(1):1-36.
3/17 Gender and Intentional Communities
1. Suzanne Spencer-Wood 1996 “Feminist Historical Archaeology and the
Transformation of American Culture by Domestic Reform Movements, 1840-1925” In
Historical Archaeology and the Study of American Culture, pp. 397-445.
2. Sarah Tarlow 2002 “Excavating Utopia: Why Archaeologists Should Study “Ideal”
Communities of the Nineteenth Century” International Journal of Historical
Archaeology 6(4): 299-323.
3. Ellen-Rose Sauvlis 2003 “Zion’s Zeal: Negotiating Identity in Shaker
Communities” In Shared Spaces and Divided Places, pp. 160-189
4. Sarah Tarlow 2006 “Representing Utopia: The Case of Cyrus Teed’s Koreshan
Unity Settlement” Historical Archaeology 40(1):89-99.
3/20 Social Stratification and Power in the Modern World: Class Relations and
the Cultural Landscape
1. Mark Leone 1984 “Interpreting Ideology in Historical Archaeology: Using the
Rules of Perspective in the William Paca Garden in Annapolis, Maryland” In
Ideology, Power, and Prehistory, pp. 25-35.
2. Mary Beaudry, et al, 1991”Artifacts and Active Voices: Material Culture as
Social Discourse” In Archaeology of Inequality, pp. 150-191.
3. J. Edward Hood 1990 "Social Relations and the Cultural Landscape" In
Landscape Archaeology, pp. 122-146.
Week 8 - Spring Break!
3/31 Gender and Intentional Communities
1. Suzanne Spencer-Wood 1996 “Feminist Historical Archaeology and the Transformation of American Culture by Domestic Reform Movements, 1840-1925” In Historical Archaeology and the Study of American Culture, pp. 397-445.
2. Sarah Tarlow 2002 “Excavating Utopia: Why Archaeologists Should Study “Ideal” Communities of the Nineteenth Century” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 6(4): 299-323.
3. Ellen-Rose Sauvlis 2003 “Zion’s Zeal: Negotiating Identity in Shaker Communities” In Shared Spaces and Divided Places, pp. 160-189
4. Sarah Tarlow 2006 “Representing Utopia: The Case of Cyrus Teed’s Koreshan Unity Settlement” Historical Archaeology 40(1):89-99.
4/3 Social Stratification and Power in the Modern World: Class Relations and the Cultural Landscape
1. Mark Leone 1984 “Interpreting Ideology in Historical Archaeology: Using the Rules of Perspective in the William Paca Garden in Annapolis, Maryland” In Ideology, Power, and Prehistory, pp. 25-35.
2. Mary Beaudry, et al, 1991”Artifacts and Active Voices: Material Culture as Social Discourse” In Archaeology of Inequality, pp. 150-191.
3. J. Edward Hood 1990 "Social Relations and the Cultural Landscape" In Landscape Archaeology, pp. 122-146.
4/7 Alternative Histories and Critical Approaches: Archaeology Confronts the Past
Readings:
1. Michael Nassaney and Marge Abel 1993 “The Political and Social Contexts of Cutlery Production in the Connecticut Valley” Dialectical Anthropology 18:247-289
2. Randall McGuire 2006 “Marxism and Capitalism in Historical Archaeology” In The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology, pp. 123-142.
3. Archaeology of Collective Action chapters 1-4
4/10 Archaeology of Working Classes and Collective Action
Readings:
1. Archaeology of Collective Action chapters 5-6
2. Rosemary Joyce 2007 “Writing Historical Archaeology” In The Cambridge Companion to Historical Archaeology, pp. 48-65.
4/14 FieldTrip to Tidy Island
4/17 Remembering the Past
Readings:
1. Archaeology of Collective Action chapters 7-8
2. Mark Leone 2005 “From Althusser to Lukács to Habermas: Archaeology in Public in Annapolis” The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis, pp. 179-191.
3. Robert Blair St. George 1999 "Placing Race at Jefferson's Monticello" In Cultural Memory and the Construction of Identity, pp. 231-263.
4/21 Baccalaureate/Reading Days (no classes)
4/24 Materiality of Social Identity in the Modern World: Modernity and its Discontents
Readings:
1. HAWPM Section 2: What Do We Care About? (chapters 8-13)
2. Michael Rowlands 1999 “Black Identity and Sense of Place in Brazilian National Culture” In Historical Archaeology: Back from the Edge, pp, 328-344.
3. Diana Loren 2005 “Creolization in the French and Spanish Colonies” In North American Archaeology, pp. 297-318.
4. Ana Igareta 2005 “Civilization and Barbarism: When Barbarism Builds Cities” International Journal of Historical Archaeology 9(3):165-176.
4/28 Native America in the Modern Era: Struggles and Resistance
Readings:
1. Russell Handsman and Trude Lamb Richmond 1995 "Confronting Colonialism: The Mahican and Schaghitcoke People and Us" In Making Alternative Histories, pp. 87-117.
2. J. Douglas McDonald et al 1991 "The Northern Cheyenne Outbreak of 1879: Using Oral History and Archaeology as Tools of Resistance" In The Archaeology of Inequality, pp. 64-78.
5/1 Historical Archaeology of Colonialism and Post Colonialism in Africa and Europe
Readings:
1. Carmel Schrire 1991 "The Historical Archaeology of the Impact of Colonialism in Seventeenth-Century South Africa," Historical Archaeology in Global Perspective, pp. 69-96.
2. Graham Connah and David Pearson 2002 “Artifact of Empire: The Tale of a Gun” Historical Archaeology 36(2):58-70.
3. HAWPM chapter 17 Enclosure
4. Matthew Johnson 2003 “Muffling Inclusiveness: Some Notes towards an Archaeology of the British” In Archaeologies of the British, pp. 17-30
5. Charles Orser 2001 "Vessels of Honor and Dishonor: The Symbolic Character of Irish Earthenwares" New Hibernia Review 51:83-100.
6. Angele Smith 2007 "Mapped Landscapes: The Politics of Metaphor, Knowledge, and Representation on 19th Century Irish Ordnance Survey Maps" Historical Archaeology 41(1):81-91.
5/5 Archaeology of the Modern Middle East: the World Made Anew
Readings:
1. Joanita Vroom 2000 “Byzantine Garlic and Turkish Delight: Dining Habits and Cultural Change in Central Greece from Byzantine to Ottoman Times” Archaeological Dialogues 7(2):199-216
2. Lynda Carroll 1999 “"Could've been a Contender: The Making and Breaking of "China" in the Ottoman Empire" International Journal of Historical Archaeology 3(3):177-190.
3. Molly Greene 2005 “The Ottoman Experience” Daedalus Spring: 88-99.
5/8 & 5/12 Presentations of Term Projects
Public Archaeology, Multi-Site Archaeologies, Ethics, and Final Course Conclusions
Readings:
1. HAWPM Section 4: Historical Archaeology as Public Scholarship (chapters 24-31)
Term project: Historical Archaeological Analysis
Over the term, we will be working
with various theories and methods from Historical Archaeology. The purpose of
the term project is to:
(1) allow you to examine how to bring theory, method, and data together to
explore a specific problem in Historical Archaeology,
(2) develop your ability to critically examine data, and
(3) allow you to examine an aspect of Historical Archaeology that is of specific
interest to you but not necessarily emphasized in this course.
There are two options for gathering the data for the term project.
Option A: Critique of an Archaeological Monograph or a Site Report
Your assignment is to write a critical review, in the context of theories and
concerns from the course, of an archaeological monograph selected with my
consent. I have generated a list of possibilities but you can also go through
bibliographies to choose another volume. Your critique must be more than just a
book report. Evaluate the work in terms of its contribution to Historical
Archaeology. You will need to organize background information on the topic such
as other Historical Archaeology work on the issues involved in the volume as
well as the publications by historians and anthropologists. The main goal of the
paper is an essay that addresses how well does the author bring theory, method,
and data to bear on a particular problem? I encourage you to examine critiques
of other books (not necessarily the one you have chosen to review) in the Book
Review sections of such journals as American Antiquity, Historical Archaeology,
and the American Anthropologist in order to get a sense of what kinds of
comments are appropriate.
You can choose either a monograph or a site report to center this project.
Monographs are finished products. Site reports are the basic data sets for
archaeologists. Filled with information on excavation techniques and the data
recovered, site reports are available for building theory and history in
archaeology. For this assignment, you will use the theories and methods of the
course (specifically the concerns with race, class, gender, and the critical
approach to the present in the past) to organize the information from a
publication toward a significant conclusion about the place and time excavated.
The product will be a 10-15 page paper.
Option B: Visualizing the Results of Excavations
Archaeology is tactile; the results are visual. This option asks you focus on
one of the major Historical Archaeology projects in the USA. I will provide a
list of the possibilities for the case study. The work requires focusing
attention on the materiality of the past, locating information on buildings,
transportation routes, and trade goods as well as locally made objects to
consider the past cultural landscape. This option requires a great deal of
research on the place chosen. The product will be a poster, an alternative means
of conveying scholarly information most often seen at professional conferences.
Like a paper (i.e., Option A), a poster is an argument that contains theory and
data but the presentation is visual rather than just written. The poster will
contain a minimum of ten well-chosen images, each with captions of two to three
well-formulated paragraphs. A three to five page paper is needed to explain the
logic of the poster.
Whichever option you chose you would be expected to explicitly employ resources
from the course. The written work will have citations to appropriate course
materials (for those who want targets: use two of the books and five of the
articles) in addition to three to five other sources specifically on the topic.
The project is due on May 13th. During the penultimate week of the semester, you
will present the results of your project to the class (either the poster or a
standard professional conference length paper presentation). Please choose an
option that will consume your interest over the entire semester; there should be
discussion of your project, its major concerns and implications, during class
discussions throughout the term.