Between Dirt and Discussion: Methods, Methodology and Interpretation in Historical Archaeology / Edition 1

by Steven Archer, Kevin Bartoy

Overview

Between Dirt and Discussion advocates recentering the materials that make archaeology archaeology, in the hope of reinvigorating dialogues about the historic past, and archaeological contributions to its understanding. The cases presented in this volume revisit old methods and previous scholarly approaches with new perspectives, and incorporate the newest technologies available for understanding the past. Using their own work as examples, the contributors explore the connections between methodology and interpretation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441941664
Publisher:	Springer US
Publication date:	10/29/2010
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of hardcover 1st ed. 2006
Pages:	222
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.24(d)

Table of Contents

Pipemakers and Their Workshops.- The Integration of Historical Cartographic Data within the GIS Environment.- Saloons in the Wild West and Taverns in Mesopotamia.- The Life and Death of a Home.- Alternatives to Traditional Models for the Classification and Analysis of Pipes of the Early Colonial Chesapeake.- Archaeology and the Ethics of Scientific Destruction.- Finding Common Ground in Common Places.- Re-excavation, Reflexivity and Responsibility at Colonial Williamsburg.- Excavating Sites Unseen.- “Ponying up to Billy Hurst’s Saloon”.- Methodology, Materiality, and the Endless Sea of Archaeology.

Editorial Reviews

From the reviews:

"Anthropologists and related scientists look at what is necessary between digging up artifacts from historical periods and presenting findings to a conference.They do not champion some interpretive methodologies over others, but evaluate and critique methods they use themselves or have seen others use, with a goal of improving their internal consistency or their connection with larger theoretical and methodological contexts." (February 2007 Reference & Research Book News)

"The papers within the volume edited by Archer and Bartoy reveal how historical archaeologists are continuing to develop methodologies which allow data to be collected and analysed on a range of scales. … Many of the methodological concerns explored here would also apply to other periods, and this is a book that should be examined in the library by many … ." (Harold Mytum, Antiquity, Vol. 82, 2008)

From the Publisher