Description
Book SynopsisThe mythic American West, with its perilous frontiers, big skies, and vast resources, is frequently perceived as unchanging and timeless. This volume reveals an archaeological past that is distinct to the region, highlighting a western past characterized by rapid and ever-changing interactions between diverse groups of people across a wide range of environmental and economic situations.
Trade Review"Mark Warner and Margaret Purser's edited volume,
Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens, is an ambitious work that incorporates many of the most pressing issues in historical archaeology to research of the Old West. Rather than assembling a volume of isolated case studies, the editors succeed in making connections between scattered sites and structures by appreciating broader patterns driven by analyses of landscapes, social networks, and economic factors. The essays demonstrate the rich potential of multifaceted analytical tools and intriguingly different lines of evidence in a constant goal of finding a voice for the voiceless of the past."—Seth Mallios,
American Antiquity"These essays, with their focus on the American West, argue successfully the importance of historic archaeology to the scholarship and the understanding of Western expansion. The collection gives weight to the historic archaeology and promotes continued excavations into those sites that remain within our cultural memory."—Matt Donovan,
Journal of the Iowa Archeological Society"
Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens offers an unprecedented overview of the broad range of research in which archaeologists of the West have been engaged."—Todd A. Hanson,
Western Historical Quarterly"Many of the contributions in this volume reflect a refreshing mix of work that is both academic and tied to public archaeology, compliance, and the National Register of Historic Places significance of historical sites. This will appeal to students, academics, and pragmatic practitioners of historical archaeology who wish to improve their research, evaluation, and interpretation. These chapters challenge the mythic history of the West in new ways and bring many new questions and intriguing directions for research by generations of future archaeologists."—Douglas C. Wilson,
Historical Archaeology“Warner and Purser have assembled a significant collection of archaeological essays that together speak powerfully to the ability of historical archaeology to contribute to the history of the U.S. West—and for the historical archaeology of the U.S. West to contribute to archaeology writ large.”—Barbara L. Voss, associate professor of anthropology at Stanford University and coeditor of
The Archaeology of Chinese Immigrant and Chinese American Communities “Well-written and broadly scoped, Warner and Purser have produced a compelling volume that presents excellent scholarship undertaken recently about the American West. . . . Keep it close at hand—the volume promises to be a much-reached-for resource on every archaeologists’ bookshelf.”—Carolyn L. White, associate professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology and Mamie Kleberg Chair in Historic Preservation at the University of Nevada, Reno
Table of ContentsList of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Historical Archaeology Through a Western Lens
Margaret Purser and Mark Warner
Part 1. Economics and Economies
1. Boomtimes and Boomsurfers: Toward a Material Culture of Western Expansion
Margaret Purser
2. The Archaeology of San Francisco’s Gold Rush Waterfront, 1849–1851: Building a New Model of the 19th-Century Pacific Rim Maritime “Frontier”
James P. Delgado
3. “Where Ornament and Function Are So Agreeably Combined”: A New Look at Consumer Choice Studies Using English Ceramic Wares at Hudson’s Bay Company, Fort Vancouver
Robert J. Cromwell
4. Approaching Transient Labor through Archaeology
Mark Walker
Part 2. Archaeologies of Race and Racism
5. “Can We Separate the ‘Indian’ from the ‘American’ in the Historical Archaeology of the American Indian?”
Joe Watkins
6. Rock Hearths and Rural Wood Camps in Jīnshān/Gām Saan 金山: National Register of Historic Places Evaluations of 19th-Century Chinese Logging Operations at Heavenly Ski Resort in the Lake Tahoe Basin
Kelly J. Dixon and Carrie Smith
7. Archaeology of the Chinese and Japanese Diasporas in North America and a Framework for Comparing the Material Lives of Transnational Migrant Communities
Douglas E. Ross
8. Digging Yesterday: The Archaeology of Living Memory at Amache
Bonnie J. Clark
Part 3. Reassessing the West
9. The Cultural Context of Commerce: Historical Anthropology and Historical Silences along the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail
Minette Church
10. Our Dangerous Discipline: Doing Historical Archaeology in Utah
Timothy James Scarlett
11. The Mild Wild West: Settling Communities and Settling Households in Turn of the Century Idaho
Mark Warner
Epilogue: Digging Holes in the American West
Matthew Johnson
Contributors
Index
