Modern Material Culture. The Archaeology of Us

344 Pages·1981·21.006 MB·English

by  Richard A. Gould, Michael B. Schiffer

MODERN MATERIAL CULTURE
The Archaeology of Us
Edited by
Richard A. Gould
Department of Anthropology
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, Hawaii
Michael B. Schiffer
Department of Anthropology
University of Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
ACADEMIC PRESS
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COPYRIGHT © 1981, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
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United Kingdom Edition published by
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Modern material culture: The Archaeoloov of Us.
Studies in archaeology
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. United States—Antiquities—Addresses, essays,
lectures. 2. Archaeology—Philosophy—Addresses,
essays, lectures. 3. Archaeology—Methodology—
Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Gould, Richard A.
II. Schiffer, Michael Β. III. Series,
E159.5.Ä72 930.1'028 80-2332
ISBN 0-12-293580-2
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
81 82 83 84 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
List of Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contributions begin.
Jane Allen-Wheeler (101), Department of Anthropology, University
at Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
Charles M. Baker (247),1 Department of Sociology and An­
thropology, Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, North Carolina 28723
Joyce E. Bath (183), Department of Anthropology, University of
Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
C. Fred Blake (87), Department of Anthropology, University of
Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
Cheryl P. Claassen (239), Department of Anthropology, Peabody
Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
J. Desmond Clark (303), Department of Anthropology, University
of California, Berkeley, California 94720
Paul L. Cleghorn (197), Department of Anthropology, University of
Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
Edwin S. Dethlefsen (137), Department of Anthropology, College
of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia 23185
Theodore £· Downing (67), Department of Anthropology, Univer­
sity of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
1
Present address: Archaeological Research Consultants, P. O. Box 3296, Chapel Hill,
North Carolina 27514.
xiii
xiv List of Contributors
Jeffrey L. Eighmy (31, 225),2 Department of Anthropology, Col­
orado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523
Richard A. Gould (269), Department of Anthropology, University of
Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
Robert F. Heizer (283),* Department of Anthropology, University of
California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720
Thomas R. Hester (283), Center for Archaeological Research,
University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas 78285
Daniel W. tngersoll, Jr. (255), Department of Anthropology, St.
Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary's City, Maryland 20686
Hiro Kurashina (303), Department of Anthropology/Geography,
University of Guam, UOG Station Mangilao, Guam 96313
Mark P. Leone (5), Department of Anthropology, University of
Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742
Michael McCarthy (67), Department of Anthropology, University of
Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
David J. Meitzer (113), Department of Anthropology, University of
Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
Alice W. Portnoy (213), Department of Anthropology, Texas Tech
University, Lubbock, Texas 79409
Patricia Price-Beggerly (127), Department of Anthropology,
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822
William L. Rathje (51), Department of Anthropology, University of
Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
Nan A. Rothschild (161), Department of Anthropology, Hunter Col­
lege, City University of New York, New York, New York 10021
Michael B. Schiffer (15, 67), Department of Anthropology, Univer­
sity of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
Richard Wilk (15), Department of Anthropology, University of
Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721
2
Present address: Institute of Meteorology and Arid Land Studies, King Abdulaziz Univer­
sity, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
* Deceased.
Preface
"Never underestimate the importance of serendipity in science." This
book is proof of that truism. In 1978 Pierre Morenon and Michael Schiffer
organized a symposium entitled "The Archaeology of Us" for the annual
meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Los Angeles. That
symposium represented the culmination of a series of research and
pedagogical efforts—centered mainly at the University of Arizona at Tuc­
son—directed toward exploring the relationships between human behavior
and materials to contemporary societies. Meanwhile, and since 1971, at the
University of Hawaii in Honolulu, Richard Gould had been giving a seminar
on ethnoarchaeology that was heavily involved with similar themes. Like the
Arizona efforts, the Hawaii seminar involved students in organized "field
expeditions" on and around the campus and in the local community to
observe human behavior from a modern material culture perspective. In 1978
Gould attended the AAA symposium. The discussions there led us all to
recognize the mutuality of our interests in this field. From there, it was a short
step to our joint approach to Academic Press, the publisher of this volume.
In some instances the approaches we had been pursuing independently
were so similar as to encourage one to believe in that hoary old an­
thropological idea of independent invention. The visits to on-campus parking
lots and off-campus auto wrecking yards in Honolulu were closely paralleled
by on-campus observations of sidewalks and architectural details and off-
campus studies of campgrounds in the Tucson area. In each case, our prin-
xv
xvi Preface
cipal concern was with the discovery and extension of general principles of
human behavior vis-ä-vis materials. By making observations of contem­
porary behavior, could we posit general relationships that could be tested
cross-culturally and might eventually achieve the status of behavioral laws? In
some cases these studies were primarily oriented toward material residues,
with the emphasis on processes of discard and the final, physical context in
which such discards come to rest. In other cases the emphasis was on the
flow of materials through the contemporary cultural system, from procure­
ment to ultimate discard, and including stages in this flow, such as manufac­
ture, use, and reuse of these materials. Chapters representing both kinds of
emphasis will be found in this volume.
But one can still ask what kind of archaeology this is. For many, if not
most, scholars, archaeology refers to the past rather than to the present.
Anyone looking for direct applications of the research findings to past human
behavior presented by the chapters in this book will be disappointed. The ar­
chaeological payoff of this book can only be realized indirectly, first by
positing relationships of a general nature and then by deriving predictions or
tests of each relationship with respect to particular prehistoric- or historic-
archaeological cases.
So, although this book is not about archaeology in the conventional
sense, it is vitally concerned with the nature of archaeological reasoning. This
is consistent with the way in which archaeologists have sought, over the last
decade or so, to make their reasoning more explicit and susceptible to scien­
tific validation. So when we address the theme of "the archaeology of us,"
we are looking for as many ways as possible to observe contemporary
human behavior as a theoretically self-conscious archaeologist might do, with
the aim of testing and extending whatever generalizations we can derive from
our data in a way that encompasses both past and present human activities.
Thus this book will be of interest to anyone interested in human behavior in
relation to materials. We view these efforts as a kind of intellectual elixir being
pumped into the mainstream of archaeology in particular and social science
in general. As the reader will note, many of the contributions in this book are
by young scholars whose enthusiasm and willingness to innovate and
generalize may at times exceed their evidence. But the whole point of this
book and the teaching and research that led to it is to open doors and reveal
new and exciting possibilities in the "archaeological" study of familiar or even
commonplace aspects of material behavior in our own and other contem­
porary human societies. This book is not the last word on the subject; it is the
first word. And it must be viewed in that way. Each chapter presents ideas
that are capable of further expansion and testing, and they are meant to
stimulate rather than to demonstrate.
This is especially important to keep in mind when comparing the essays
Preface xvii
in this volume with earlier, descriptive studies of material culture by an­
thropologists. The ethnographic literature abounds with studies of pottery-
making, weaving, carving, house construction, canoe-building, stone
toolmaking, and other arts and crafts which are essentially atheoretical and
particularistic. Often, these studies involve exotic or unfamiliar societies.
Such studies are useful—for example, to museum curators in researching
and planning exhibits—but that usefulness has little to do with the goals of
social science. This is not a "how-to" book about different kinds of human
technology, nor will it appeal to collectors or others interested in material ob­
jects for their own sake. Instead, it is a book that is intended for people who
wish to begin to explore the general nature of human behavior vis-ä-vis
materials.
The first section of the book consists of chapters that explicitly address
both the theory and teaching of the modern material culture approach.
These basically discursive chapters are followed by the second section that
represents the core of the book—a sampling of a wide range of behavior in­
volving materials in contemporary and historic American society. These are
ethnographic case studies that posit different general statements about
human behavior in relation to materials as varied as coins, herbs, graffiti,
fences, and domestic architecture and topics ranging from mortuary practices
and beliefs to the reuse and recycling of goods in America. More than in any
other part of the book, we can recognize "Us"—that is, ourselves—while at
the same time we can often see how different we are from what we thought
we were. A special section is included on experimental approaches to
modern material culture studies, since this has proven to be one of the most
effective ways of doing this kind of research. And, finally, there is a section
containing chapters that attempt to provide a bridge between traditional areas
of interest in archaeology—such as stone toolmaking, Egyptology, and
Paleolithic technology—and the modern material culture approach. These
papers do not exhaust the possibilities for useful research of this kind. On the
contrary: In the aggregate they demonstrate that any aspect of human
behavior in relation to materials provides an opportunity for making useful
discoveries and positing cross-cultural generalizations.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank William Rathje (University of Arizona) and Pierre
Morenon (Rhode Island College) for their ideas and timely advice at the
beginning of this project.
METHOD AND THEORY
IN MODERN MATERIAL-
CULTURE STUDIES
As the pages of this book will disclose, the archaeology of modern soci­
eties does not boast a unified body of theory nor a suite of widely accepted
methods. The present volume, when taken together with other recent works
(e.g., Ascher 1974; Deetz 1977b; Ferguson 1977; Gould 1978a; Quimby
1978; Richardson 1974; South 1977), documents the diverse theoretical
stances and methodological approaches now undergoing trials in this nascent
field. Modern Material Culture: The Archaeology of Us presents a sam­
pling—by no means representative—of current positions. Some are by now
quite familiar to the archaeologist and even lay persons, while a number of
others explore new territory. Although these general viewpoints are aired
throughout the book, in this part we have assembled papers that are par­
ticularly devoted to theoretical or methodological issues.
Mark Leone begins with a provocative essay that represents an attempt
to reconcile or at least moderate divergent views on how the past and present
are related. Archaeologists will feel at home with Leone's rejection of Bloch's
extreme relativism—that the past is simply a creation of the present. Our
conceptions of the past, Leone contends, are surely constrained by the past
that survives—material culture. Though not all stories or images of the past
are compatible with the material record, there is still ample room for the in­
fluence of the present to be felt in the perceived past. Social systems exploit
the inherent ambiguities of historical evidence by interjecting sociological and
ideological messages that serve to reproduce and reinforce the existing order.
1
MODERN MATERIAL CULTURE Copyright © 1981 by Academic Press, Inc.
The Archaeology of Us All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
ISBN 0-12-293580-2
2 Method and Theory in Modern Material-Culture Studies
(Meitzer, in a later chapter, also drives home this point.) Leone draws il­
lustrative material from Colonial Williamsburg, an outdoor historical museum
in Virginia. His analysis suggests that present social structure (and perhaps
past) is manifest in the behavior acted out in a bakery demonstration, but the
rifle exercise by a single individual lacks this level of meaning. Leone con­
cludes his essay with a discourse on boredom. He suggests that reconstruc­
tions like Colonial Williamsburg are essentially static and require a temporal
dimension that can show how, as the present changes, so does the ritually
presented past. Not all readers will agree with Leone's analysis or advice, but
few can ignore the profound issues he raises.
In the next chapter Richard Wilk and Michael B. Schiffer argue that the
principles of fieldwork are the last frontier in using modern material culture to
teach archaeology. They critically compare a number of conventional and
experimental approaches to fieldwork instruction, and conclude that modern
material culture offers some important advantages. In addition to conve­
nience and lack of expense, a major benefit is that emphasis is placed
squarely on learning archaeology's most general principles, those which can
be applied later by the student in any specific setting. That all principles of
fieldwork can be illustrated with modern material culture is a claim that some
investigators will consider to be quite preposterous. Nevertheless, Wilk and
Schiffer support this position with a detailed discussion of their "modern
material-culture" field school. The course they describe consists of a mix of
lectures, demonstrations, readings and, above all, a series of library and
practical exercises. The latter, which make use of modern material culture on
and near the university campus, strive to train the student in important facets
of fieldwork, particularly stressing that fieldwork is as much an intellectual as
physical activity.
Jeffrey L. Eighmy examines the potential of material culture to con­
tribute to diachronic studies in anthropology. Because material culture is
durable, he points out, it can yield information on past behavior that is
unavailable from the verbal sources customarily relied on by ethnographers
and sociologists. Eighmy's ethnoarchaeological researches among two Men-
nonite communities in Chihuahua, Mexico, elegantly demonstrate how this
diachronic potential of artifact studies may be achieved. In a classic use of the
comparative method, Eighmy attempts to resolve a paradox in change
studies: While theoretical assumptions support the view that behavioral
change in small-scale, isolated agricultural communities is slow, a number of
empirical works indicate that just the opposite is true. Altkolonier and Som­
merfelder, where Eighmy did his fieldwork, are two communities matched in
nearly all characteristics except social isolation. Data on over 50 years of ar­
chitectural modifications show that in the more conservative and isolated
Altkolonier, architectural innovations catch on later than in Sommerfelder
but the actual adoption rate is higer. Eighmy then offers a general explana-
Method and Theory in Modern Material-Culture Studies 3
tion to account for these patterns. Ironically, the same forces of conformity
that promote conservatism eventually bring about the speedy and whole­
hearted adoption of innovations. The arguments and case material presented
by Eighmy raise the hope that diachronic ethnoarchaeology can provide a
long-needed methodological breakthrough in the study of behavioral
change.
William L. Rathje concludes the first part with an overview of modern
material-culture studies. He suggests that their contributions to archaeology
fall into four principal areas. Contribution 1 is the teaching of archaeological
principles. Modern artifacts are said to offer the teacher of archaeology many
advantages, not the least of which is student interest. In addition, many in­
vestigations, including the Garbage Project, began as student exercises or
drew inspiration from them. Contribution 2 of modern material-culture
studies is the testing of archaeological principles. Classic investigations such
as those carried out by Dethlefsen and Deetz (1966), and more recent ef­
forts, illustrate the expanding role that modern artifacts are playing in refur­
bishing archaeology's methodological toolkit. Several later chapters provide
evidence for the vitality of this approach. Contribution 3 is in effect "salvage"
ethnoarchaeology, recording the archaeology of today. Rathje underscores
how imperfect are the traditional methods of record-keeping and conserva­
tion of material culture, even in an industrial society. All modern material-
culture studies, by recording present-day human behavior and material
culture, contribute to salvage ethnoarchaeology (for especially good ex­
amples, see the fourth part of this volume). And, finally, Contribution 4 is
that of relating our society to past societies. Here Rathje's discussion shifts
from outlining accomplishments to indicating the possibilities for using
material-culture studies to develop context-free yardsticks for comparing
varied societies—those long dead and those we live in. Rathje's neat scheme
seems to accommodate the goals vis-ä-vis archaeology of most modern
material-culture studies.
At the present time, the diversity of modern material-culture studies is a
decided strength. As archaeologists grapple with new-found applications for
their unique perspective on human behavior, a premature orthodoxy or nor­
mal science would be stultifying. The freedom to experiment without
paradigmatic shackles, to identify wholly novel questions and creatively
devise ways to answer them, are among the undeniable attractions of
modern material-culture studies. We should enjoy this exhilarating period of
theoretical and methodological anarchy, for it is likely to be short-lived.
Already the elements for synthesizing a new science of society, focused
through archaeological principles on human behavior and material culture,
seem tantalizingly close at hand.
M.B.S.