Anth 3511 Professor Gibbon

The Archaeology of European Contact

1. Introduction. The archaeology of European contact and the historical archaeology of North America in general were largely neglected until CRM laws mandated their development.

A. Historical archaeology, or text-aided archaeology, provides insights into North American Indian societies not available, or at least not easily available, through traditional (prehistoric) archaeological approaches. An example is good descriptions of the hierarchical social organization of chiefdoms in the Southeast.

Can you think of other examples?

B. Major disadvantages of historical archaeology in North America until recently have been its Eurocentric perspective and focus in general on Euro-American historic sites.

(1) Text-aided archaeology has its own problems. An example is that information in a text can be a distortion (or even a lie) about real events for some political, economic, or ideological reason. In addition, explorers and early fur traders

usually did not comprehend what they saw and heard (i.e., they understood it through their own cultural perspective). Texts, then, need exegesis

(unpacking).

(2) Can you think of other kinds of problems that are inherent in historical archaeology? (Remember, all approaches have their problems. As an archaeologist one of your first tasks is to understand what these problems are and how other archaeologists have grappled with them.)

(3) According to Fagan, historical archaeology casts an "objective eye" on the

past. In what sense is this true? Are there problems with this view? C. Fagan presents only a glimpse (as he stresses) ofissues, problems, research areas,

etc., in historical archaeoiogy. This is a very vast and rapidly developing research

domain.

The Issue of Disease and Depopulation.

A. This is a pivotal problem in the archaeology of European contact for a variety of

reasons:

(1) If there was great depopulation and social readjustment among Indians at contact (and in some areas before direct contact), then does this mean that the 'ethnographic present' that anthropologists and historians use as a baseline to understand various Indian societies is of limited value for understanding what these societies were like before disruption? (2) What were original population numbers? (3) Think of several other reasons.

3. Native American Responses to Contact.

A. A main focus of early contact historical archaeology is the nature of Indian-White material interaction. How were metal pots, guns, and axes (etc.) incorporated into Indian culture? As superior materials? Power items? Prestige items? Utilitarian goods? Who had access to them and what were their life-histories?

B. What kinds of materials were exchanged and why?

C. Is there a pattern to changes in the availability and use of European material items? How did these changes affect Indian cultures?

4. Historical Archaeology as a Tool for Understanding Culture Change in Specific Regions.

A. The archaeology of De Soto. To what extent do the archaeological record and written texts about De Soto's 'foray' through the Southeast in 1539-1543 agree or disagree? What kinds of questions cannot be answered by archaeology? What dangers exist in depending on the texts alone?

B. What are the major themes of subsequent contact history in the Southeast as viewed through the archaeological record?

(1) How has culture change been measured in the Southeast? C. How did the Spanish occupation of La Florida differ from French-English trade and settlement in the Northeast? (1) What is 'Martin's Hundred'?

Other Kinds of Historical Archaeology:

A. The Black experience and archaeology. Examples of'unconscious' resistance to slavery and the plantation system. Excavations at Monticello. B. Ships and Shipwrecks. The Brown's ferry ship and the Bertrand. C. Mines and Miners. The Shoshone Wells mining camp in Nevada and the W. C.

Hoff General Store in San Francisco. D. The archaeology of gardens in Annapolis.