1. Historical Archaeology: Insights on American History
Chapter 12
Historical Archaeology:
Insights on American History

2. Outline Why Do Historical Archaeology?
Hidden History: The Archaeology of African- Americans
Correcting Inaccuracies
Re-Examining America’s History

3. Historical Archaeology
Archaeological and documentary records are equally valid, yet independent lines of evidence. Differences between the two are as important as each piece of information alone!
We sometimes look for “ambiguities” between the historical and archaeological evidence, recognizing that differences between the two are as important as each piece alone.

4. Historical Archaeology Comes of Age
Things changed a lot in the 1960s, partly due to the growing impact of Cultural Resource Management (CRM).
Federal legislation requires that archaeology be done in advance of construction projects.
Historical archaeologists today study everything from the earliest colonial settlements to early 19th century mining camps to WWII battlefields.

5. A World War II Plane in the Marshall Islands

6. Characteristics of Historical Archaeology
Historical archaeology is the study of human behavior through material remains whose interpretation is affected by written history.
Deals with time periods that are considerably shorter than those of prehistoric archaeology.
Tends not to study large-scale processes.
It is often very close to us, not just temporally but also emotionally.
Discussions of the recent past can become emotionally charged due to relatively few members of minority groups being professional archaeologists.

7. Themes in Historical Archaeology
Many historical archaeologists are working to uncover the history of minorities in the U.S. (African Americans, Asian American, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans).
The study of peoples whose histories are still sometimes ignored, only partially recorded, or related in a biased manner.
Some historical archaeologists are more like forensics, collecting data like crime-scene detectives to resolve disputes over the nature of key historical events.

8. Hidden History: The Archaeology of African Americans
African American history is inextricably linked to slavery, especially on plantations.
Plantation archaeology begun in 1931 at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home.
Slave archaeology began in the late 1960’s, connected to, or inspired by the social upheavals of the time.
Charles Fairbanks was the first to study the institution of slavery from the archaeology record.
He set out to dispel myths concerning the biological and cultural inferiority of African Americans, which legitimized segregation and discrimination.

9. Slave Archaeology at Monticello
Historical archaeologists working at Monticello have brought Mulberry Road back to life.
Jefferson had mixed feelings about slavery, he had a slave force numbering 200 people and understood the importance of slavery for the agrarian economy.
The residents at Mulberry Road were probably the house servants and artisans and enjoyed a better standard of living than field hands.
Homes along Mulberry Road contain pig, cow, and deer bones, some of their bones ground up.
Ceramic assemblages dating to AD , that were probably the remnant's of table settings from Jefferson’s home.

10. Monticello evidences the living and working condition of Jefferson’s slaves

11. Social Life in Slave Houses
The excavations at Monticello retrieved data on nine of the slave houses.
These contained “subfloor pits” or cellars.
The early houses at Monticello contained up to four of these pits.
The subfloor may have helped maintain a semblance of privacy and security in an otherwise open structure.

12. New York City’s African Burial Ground
In 1991, the bones of 427 enslaved Africans, interred by their community and forgotten for centuries, were discovered beneath a parking lot in downtown New York City.
In 1626, the Dutch West India Company unloaded its first shipment of enslaved Africans in New Amsterdam (today’s New York City).

13. New York City’s African Burial Ground
The Dutch were experiencing a labor shortage in their colonies and found slave labor to be the answer to building and maintaining the colony.
Under the Dutch, the Africans were permitted to enjoy the same status and rights as whites in court.
True slavery was introduced in 1664, when the Dutch ceded Manhattan to the British, where the population of enslaved Africans was about 40%.
New York city has the largest number of enslaved Africans of any English colonial city (except for Charleston, SC) by the beginning of of the American Revolution.

14. New York City’s African Burial Ground
18th century New York law prohibited the burial of Africans in Manhattan’s churchyards.
New York’s African population established a cemetery outside of the city and from 1712 to 1790, the community buried between 10,000 and 20,000 people.
By the late 20th century, this forgotten cemetery lay buried beneath 20 feet of fill, two blocks north of New York’s City Hall.

15. New York City’s African Burial Ground
The U.S. has a legal framework to protect its archaeological resources.
An environmental statement must be filled before any construction can begin.
Excavations began in September 1991 and human bone was found right away.
Dr. Blakey’s analysis of some 400 individuals from the burial ground found is a chilling statement on human mortality, and half the population died before age 12.
Some were clearly worked to death:
Enlarged muscle attachments demonstrated continual demands on their physical labor.
Bones showed cranial and spinal fractures from excessive loads on the head and shoulders.
Their teeth show little evidence of hypoplasias, thus their lives in Africa were very different.

16. Correcting Inaccuracies
Historical archaeologists attempt to correct inaccuracies (includes simple mistakes or unintentional omissions) in the public view of history.
What happened at the Battle of Little Bighorn?
In 1983, a fire enabled archaeologists Richard Fox and Douglas Scott to survey the entire battlefield.
They found: gun parts, belt buckles, buttons, bridle pieces, human remains, and lots of spent cartridges and bullets.
Careful mapping allow them to ascertain combatant positions, using cartridge case locations and bullet orientation.

17. The Battle of the Little Bighorn
The romantic image of the battle has the soldiers holding off the Indians until the last bullet was fired.
Archaeologists finds dispel the myth of a courageous battle.
A soldier could fire a revolver six times before he had to reload, yet the Indians record the soldiers had no time reload.
This battle did not end in a “glorious” last stand, instead, it ended: in chaos, panic, horror, and carnage.

18. Battle of the Little Bighorn

19. Re-examining America’s History
Confronts the national narrative of a history that defines who citizens are and creates their identity.
This is perhaps the most divisive aspect of historical archaeology.

20. Pre-1760 Colonial America: Georgian Order
A worldview (ca. 1660/1680–1820) arising in the European Age of Reason and implying that the world has a single, basic immutable order.
Using the powers of reason, people can discover what that order is and control the environment as they wish.
The Georgian order is informed by the rise of scientific thought and by the order in Renaissance architecture and art.

21. The William Paca Garden

22. Taking Critical Theory Public
Critical theorists argue that the public role of historians is to unearth beginnings of contemporary class-based ideologies.
Critical theory suggests that once a repressed people can be shown a past where things where different, they can use this knowledge to challenge and attempt to change the inequities of the present.
To critical theorists capitalism has negative social elements that should be confronted.
Leon grounded his research at Annapolis in the belief that archaeologists and historians should stand up against the oppressive excess of capitalism.
It was not enough for archaeologists simply to learn about abuse of power in the past.

23. Related Videos
Archaeology Walk_2.MP4
The African Burial Ground
Last Stand at Little Big Horn

24. Quick Quiz

25. 1. _____ _____ looks at material remains from past societies that also left behind written documentation about themselves.

26. Answer: historical archaeology
Historical archaeology looks at material remains from past societies that also left behind written documentation about themselves.

27. 2. In the 1960s, historical archaeology began to focus on:
Elite colonial settlements.
Diary entries of colonial women.
Historically disenfranchised groups.
All of the above.

28. Answer: C
In the 1960s, historical archaeology began to focus on historically disenfranchised groups.

29. Plantation archaeology begun in 1931 at Mount Vernon, home of _______.
George Washington
Thomas Jefferson
John Adams
James Madison
Benjamin Franklin

30. ANSWER: A
Plantation archaeology begun in 1931 at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home.

31. 4. Fort Mose is important because it is considered:
The first legally sanctioned, free African- American community in the country.
The burial site of hundreds of former slaves.
The only former fort that preserved historic documents such as diaries and civil records.
All of the above.

32. Answer: A
Fort Mose is important because it is considered the first legally sanctioned, free African- American community in the country.

33. Archaeologists finds and Native Americans have validated the glorious last stand of American soldiers at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
True
False

34. ANSWER: B
Archaeologists finds dispel the myth of a courageous battle. A soldier could fire a revolver six times before he had to reload, yet the Indians record the soldiers had no time reload. This battle did not end in a “glorious” last stand, instead, it ended: in chaos, panic, horror, and carnage.