Historical Archaeology

This text explains how historical archaeologists use historical texts, maps, oral testimonies, and other materials in conjunction with excavated artifacts, old buildings and relict landscapes to decipher the recent past. Further, it discusses how archaeological detectives find sites, excavate them, analyze and classify the artifacts, and how they develop explanations from all the information they have collected. Addrssing some of today’s most important issues from a historical archaeological perspective, the text explores topics such as the identification and symbolization of ethnicity, the development and maintenance of class differences, changes in gender roles and the recognition of women in history, and the material manifestations of race. These issues are supported by an abundance of global examples from sites where archaeologists have tackled these complex issues.

Ships’ Graveyards: Abandoned Watercraft and the Archaeological Site Formation Process (Co-published with The Society for Historical Archaeology)

Ships’ Graveyards is an explicitly theoretical study that avoids the single-site bias prevalent in most underwater archaeology research. It also eschews the traditional examination of shipwreck sites as the core component of study in this field.

A Chesapeake Family and their Slaves: A Study in Historical Archaeology (New Studies in Archaeology)

Analyzing the material remains left by Maryland’s colonists in the eighteenth century in conjunction with historical records and works of art, archaeologists have reconstructed the daily life of the aristocratic British Calvert family, whose head was governor of Maryland. In this large household people from different cultures interacted, and English and West African lifestyles merged. Using this fascinating case study, Anne Yentsch illustrates the way in which historical archaeology draws on different disciplines to interpret the past.

A Historical Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire: Breaking New Ground (Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology)

Archaeology in the Middle East and the Balkans rarely focuses on the recent past; as a result, archaeologists have largely ignored the material remains of the Ottoman Empire. Drawing on a wide variety of case studies and essays, this volume documents the emerging field of Ottoman archaeology and the relationship of this new field to anthropological, classical, and historical archaeology as well as Ottoman studies.

Archaeologies of the British

Beginning with the early English colonisation of Ireland and Virginia, the international range of contributors in Archaeology of the British examine the interplay of objects and identity in Scotland and Wales, regional England, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Cyprus, and Sri Lanka. Informed by developments in historical archaeology and by postcolonial scholarship, the case-studies in this volume look at the colonists themselves. The evidence draws upon includes vernacular architecture, landscapes, and objects of everyday life. Archaeologies of the British makes it clear that Britishness has never been a fixed entity, and that material culture can challenge historical and contemporary understandings of Britishness.

Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory (BAR International) (Pt. 4)

These contributions to the 2003 and 2004 CHAT conferences explore the potential of archaeological studies of the recent and contemporary past from a range of perspectives. Included are studies that focus on a range of themes, and whilst diverse they are united by an awareness of archaeology as a contemporary practice, and of the radical potential for the extension of archaeological perspectives into the recent past and the contemporary world.

Archaeology and Preservation of Gendered Landscapes

Historical archaeology of landscapes initially followed the pattern of Classical Archaeology by studying elite men’s gardens. Over time, particularly in North America, the field has expanded to cover larger settlement areas, but still often with ungendered and elite focus. The editors of this volume seek to fill this important gap in the literature by presenting studies of gendered power dynamics and their effect on minority groups in North America. Case studies presented include communities of Native Americans, African Americans, multi-ethnic groups, religious communities, and industrial communities.