2 - Documentary archaeology

Summary

Documentary archaeology is an approach to history that brings together diverse source materials related to cultures and societies that peopled the recent past. Documentary archaeological interpretations offer perspectives and understandings of the past not possible through single lines of evidentiary analysis. The term ‘documentary archaeology’ was introduced to the literature by Mary Beaudry (1988a: 1), who in the introduction to her edited volume Documentary Archaeology in the New World argued that ‘historical archaeologists must develop an approach towards documentary analysis that is uniquely their own’ (Beaudry 1988a: 1).

Historical archaeologists' willingness to blend oral historical, textual and material sources about the past into their interpretive narratives creates unique challenges for practitioners. The temporal and scalar resolution that each body of evidence provides into past lives may vary radically. Using two sites associated with African-American families, I will provide examples of scalar and temporal resolution as they are related to the integration of diverse evidentiary lines in archaeological interpretation. Finally, using evidence drawn from a late nineteenth to early twentieth-century fraternity house, this chapter will provide a case study demonstrating how documentary records and archaeological findings can be quilted together to understand individual past lives as they connect to issues of race, class and gender. Documentary archaeology has developed a particularly strong tradition in the United States, and the discussion will focus most heavily on Americanist practice.

THE ARCHIVE

While documentary archaeology shares an essential database, the documentary record, with historians, the two are distinct in their focus, practice, and gaze. Historians, although they may use oral historical or material evidence, usually see the documentary record as the primary window available for gazing into the past. Documentary archaeologists see their ‘archive’ as including written records, oral traditions, and material culture – from both archaeological and curated sources. These additional windows may provide overlapping, conflicting, or entirely different insights into the past. The challenge for archaeologists is to use these independent but complementary lines of evidence to construct meaningful, fuller, understandings of the past.