Archaeological remains, documents, and anthropology: a call for a New culture history

Abstract

Historical archaeology is either a significant or superfluous endeavor, depending on the level one stands on to critique the discipline. If theoretical questions concerning the nature, dynamics and evolution of cultures are the starting point, or equally if more substantive but similarly broad questions of modern "world systems" are selected, then the results of a quarter century of excavations on historic sites are indeed weak and unconvincing. In contrast, a view grounded on "culture history" or "historic ethnography" finds historical archaeology to be potentially an impressive, productive field, equal in many ways to other data sources including written records. It is suggested that "historic ethnography," based equally on archaeology and written sources, is the future natural sphere for the archaeological investigations of the modern world (AD 1400-20th century).