1 - Introduction: the place of historical archaeology

Summary

Historical archaeology – a phrase used by archaeologists to describe the archaeology of the period from around AD 1500 up to and including the present – is unusual in its emergence as a new field of enquiry since the 1950s. This collection of contrasting chapters aims to capture the energy and diversity of contemporary anthropological historical archaeology, and to open up this material, which remains virtually unmentioned in conventional accounts of archaeological thought (e.g. Trigger 1990), to a wider archaeological and interdisciplinary readership. For some, the notion of ‘historical archaeology’ will appear tautological. Archaeology is often seen as the search for the remains of distant, prehistoric societies, or of Classical or Near Eastern civilisations. For others, the fact that archaeologists have neglected the most recent past – the periods studied most commonly by other disciplines, and from which massive quantities of materials survive – will appear perverse. Our commitment to this editorial project, however, derives from our understanding of archaeology as a contemporary project with a distinctive bundle of methods and practices, which works on the material remains of human societies from all periods.

The volume is offered as an open-minded and varied contribution to those interested in the role of material things in human social life, and in what survives from the recent past. We view the diversity of anthropological historical archaeology as a principal strength of the field, and therefore do not wish in an introduction to summarise the complex, sophisticated and sometimes contrasting arguments and approaches of our contributors. Instead, in this short introductory chapter we want to present some brief thoughts that have emerged during twelve months of editorial exchanges between the American east coast and the English west country. From this partial perspective, we consider how ‘the place of historical archaeology’ looks from here, underlining the creative and hybrid nature of this field that freely crosses disciplinary boundaries and provides distinctive insights into the study of the material world.