HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

LELAND FERGUSON, Editor

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SPECIAL PUBLICATION SERIES, NUMBER 2 Society for Historical Archaeology

Special Publication Series, Number 2 published by The Society for Historical Archaeology

The painting on the cover of this volume was adapted from the cover of the 1897 Sears Roebuck Catalogue, publishedby Chelsea House Publishers, New York, New York, 1968. The Society for Historical Archaeology

OFFICERS RODERICK SPRAGUE, University ofIdaho President JAMES E. AYRES, Arizona State Museum President-elect JERVIS D. SWANNACK, Canadian National Historic Parks & Sites Branch Past president MICHAEL J. RODEFFER, Ninety Six Historic Site Secretary-treasurer JOHN D. COMBES, Parks Canada ,,,, , , Editor LESTER A. Ross, Canadian National Historic Parks & Sites Branch Newsletter Editor

DIRECTORS 1977 KATHLEEN GILMORE, North Texas State University LEE H. HANSON, Fort Stanwix National Monument 1978 KARLIS KARKINS, Canadian National Parks & Sites Branch GEORGE QUIMBY, University ofWashington 1979 JAMES E.. FITTING, Commonwealth Associates,Inc. DEE ANN STORY, Balcones Research Center

EDITORIAL STAFF JOHN D. COMBES ,, Editor Parks Canada, Prairie Region, 114 Garry Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C IGI SUSAN JACKSON Associate Editor Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208 JOHN L. COITER Recent Publications Editor National Park Service, 143South Third Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106 WILLIAM D. HERSHEY , , Recent Publications Editor Temple University, Broad and Ontario, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122 KATHLEEN GILMORE...... Book Review Editor Institute for Environmental Studies, North Texas State University, Denton, Texas 76201 LESTER A. Ross Newsletter Editor National Historic Parks & Sites Branch, 1600Liverpool Court, Ottawa, Ontario, KIA OH4 R. DARBY ERD Art Institute of Archeology and Anthropology, University of South Carolina. Columbia, South Carolina 29208

EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE JOHN D. COMBES, Parks Canada, Chairman IVOR NOEL HUME, Colonial Williamsburg PAUL J. F. SCHUMAKER, Adan E. Treganza Museum STANLEY SOUTH, Institute ofArcheology and Anthropology Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things

HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

Papers ofthe Thematic Symposium, Eighth Annual Meeting ofthe Society for Historical Archaeology, Charleston, South Carolina, January 7-11,1975

edited by Leland Ferguson

Special Publication Series, Number 2 published by The Society for Historical Archaeology John D. Combes, editor © 1977 by The Society for Historical Archaeology Historical Archaeology-Is It Historical or Archaeological? by Lewis R. Binford was previously printed in PopularArchaeology Vol. 4, no. 3-40. Contents

Foreword I Stanley South

Preface 3 Leland Ferguson

Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things 5 Leland Ferguson

Material Culture and Archaeology-What's the Difference? 9 James Deetz

Historical Archaeology-Is It Historical or Archaeological? 13 Lewis R. Binford

Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes 23 Henry Glassie

In Praise of Archaeology: Le Proiet du Garbage 36 William L. Rathje

The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C. 43 Mark P. Leone

The Structure of Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things 62 James E. Fitting

Foreword

WHEN ROBERT L. STEPHENSON, host and final day of the conference. However, Leland general chairman for the eighth annual meeting Ferguson, whom I had asked to chair the of the Society for Historical Archaeology, asked thematic presentation, had a far better idea, that I act as program chairman for the Charles­ pointing out that a session hailed as exploring ton event, I welcomed the opportunity. He theoretical concepts would likelybe attended by knew of my concern and disappointment in the very few, whereas one dealing with the impor­ fact that the seven previous meetings of the tance of material things would attract a far wider Society for Historical Archaeology had focused audience. To insure as wide an audience as on historical-descriptive, particularistic topics, possible, including those who normally might with little concern shown for the idea-sets under be reluctant to attend a nondescriptive session, which such topics were explored. I saw this as an the thematic session was not concurrent with opportunity likelyto arise but once in a decade, another session. Our concern over a lack of to structure an SHA program around the belief support for such an idea session was at that system under which archaeology is undertaken, point a reflection of our awareness of the de­ rather than around the data base addressed by velopmental background of historical archae­ that faith. ology, and our recognition that the field was not I envisioned a thematic framework emphasiz­ traditionally oriented to the testing of ideas. We ing theory on the first day, method on the sec­ had not yet discussed the session in terms of the ond day, and the usual descriptive papers on the participants, and as it turned out, those who Foreword agreed to join Leland in an examination of the The rare happening recognized here in this spe­ importance of material things brought to the cial volume by the Board of Directors of the session credentials enough to insure a full au­ Society for Historical Archaeology and its ditorium under any conditions. Our fears re­ editor, John D. Combes, is seen as a pivotal garding the reception of such a session are re­ event in historical archaeology. The Society for corded here as a matter of historical record Historical Archaeology is indebted to special monitoring attitudes present in January 1975. volume editor, Leland G. Ferguson, and pro­ The strategy we had was that ifwe could bring duction editor, Susan Jackson, for seeing this together in one room an idea-set composed of work to press. Leland G. Ferguson, David L. Clarke, Lewis R. It is difficult to say when another such event Binford, Henry Glassie, James Deetz, William as the Charleston meeting will come about, Rathje, Mark Leone, and James Fitting, each given the depth to which particularism is en­ bringing his own vibrant concepts, that some­ demic in historical archaeology. However, a thing might happen similar to when drops of revolution in thought is underway in the field, mercury are brought close together; a sudden and its seeds are clearly seen in these papers. coalescence might occur to produce a result From such conceptual roots a new vitality will larger than any of the parts. Those who at­ evolve in the decades to come through the pro­ tended the Charleston meeting are well aware cess of exploring and testing our ideas about the that such a happening did occur. past. As the reader enjoys the enclosed papers of Stanley South Ferguson and his colleagues, an awareness of Institute of Archeology the importance of the Charleston meeting will and Anthropology begin to emerge in the image of the future of University of South Carolina historical archaeology that these papers mirror.

2 Preface

IN THE SPRING OF 1974 when Stanley South, were convinced that there was a special value to program chairman for the 1975 meeting of the be gained by studying the things people create. Society for Historical Archaeology, asked me to With this approach we felt that the variety of develop a thematic symposium on theory for people attending the meetings would feel an the meeting we were both excited. Our excite­ affinity to the thematic symposium. There ment stemmed from the opportunity of plan­ would be room for those of us religiously in­ ning a general session for such a large group of volved with science, for those who were histori­ archaeologists who dealt with historic sites. cal particularists, for the humanist in us all and However, my excitement was somewhat curbed for the structuralists. The structuralists? by apprehension. Sessions on "theory" were When this symposium was conceived there often stilted and polemic. They often proved were no archaeologists that I knew of who were divisive. The ideal, I thought, was a session that seriously involved with structuralism as an drew the variety of interests in the Society into analytical approach to archaeology, True, an atmosphere of constructive interaction. The James Dectz had alluded to a kind of structural solution? We decided to have a symposium that approach in his introductory book, Invitation would stress the most common interest of all to Archaeology. Yet, no archaeologists had ever archaeologists-material things. We would in­ used and published a structural analysis. vite people, who regardless of their philosophy Nevertheless, when the symposium occurred

3 Preface and we all reflected on what had happened, we and cogent, and I sincerely thank him for ac­ realized that three of the sixinvited participants cepting and completing this difficult task. explicitlyacknowledged the value of a structural In concluding these prefatory remarks I approach to archaeological materials. Indeed, would like to thank several people. Stanley Mark Leone's paper was a seminal structural South's inspiration and encouragement are di­ analysis of a significant piece of American ar­ rectly responsible for the existence of this vol­ chitecture. Subsequent to the symposium, ume. He and John Combes were instrumental Henry Glassie has published a structural in securing the necessary funds from the state of analysis of eighteenth century houses in Vir­ South Carolina for the transportation of some ginia. of the participants. Robert L. Stephenson, Di­ I shall not try to analyze this situation. Suffice rector of the Institute of Archeology and An­ it to say that I was as surprised as anyone else. I thropology, allowed us the time and opportu­ shall shed any claim to credit and shall insist on nity to develop this symposium. To all of the sharing any blame with fate for this interesting participants in the symposium I extend my turn of circumstances. As James Fitting says in thanks for their generous contributions. Al­ the last essay in this volume, "a symposium is a though they were not able to participate, I happening"-after a point it creates itself. The would also like to thank Robert Ascher and contents of this collection of essays are thus the David Clarke for their ideas, their interest and written record of a happening, and I hope that their encouragement. The drawings accom­ as a collection it willbe of value to archaeology. panying the various essaysas wellas the art work The papers by Binford, Deetz, Rathje and for the cover were done by Darby Erd, and I am myself are with,only minor alterations as they most appreciative for his interest and his con­ were presented at the symposium. The con­ tribution. Finally, I would like to thank Dick tributions by Classie and Leone have been re­ Carrillo, Annette Ferguson, Susan Jackson, worked; however the revised versions serve only J. Jefferson Reid, and Carol Speight for their to clarify the presentations given in Charleston. helpful suggestions concerning the basic plans James Fitting's comments at the symposium as for this symposium. well as those in this volume were both practical

4 i~b, . I' /t/(? \J ~ / ' r , [!JJ d ..; '\ b Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things

Leland Ferguson

EARLY IN 1974 Stanley South asked me to chair simply wrote down the names of the people I a symposium on archaeological theory that would most like to hear speak on the subject. To would serve as a thematic session for these my amazement and sincere pleasure, most of meetings. My response was to be honored, to be those people are here with us today. The two insecure, and to be frightened at the task of notable exceptions are Robert Ascher and selecting a topic and speakers appealing to the David Clarke. Dr. Ascher was interested in the variety of scholars attending these meetings. symposium; however a sabbatical leave to study This problem seemed best resolved by reduc­ in South America as well as other interests pre­ ing our interests to their lowest common de­ vented his being with us. Until about three nominator. I believe our most common ground weeks ago, Dr. Clarke was planning to be with is the data we observe; and I believe that our us. However, his mother has been stricken with most common desire is to develop meaningful a serious illness, and this has prevented his leav­ interpretations about our fellow human beings ing England at this time. He has asked me to and ourselves from those data. As a result, this extend his apologies to the Society, and to note symposium willconcentrate on the importance that only a serious problem such as this could of archaeological data-materiallhings-and have prevented his being with us. On behalf of the undeveloped potential of those data. the Society I expressed our sorrow at the unfor­ The selection of panelists for this session was tunate circumstances of his absence. much simpler than the selection of the topic. I As an introduction, I would like to review

5 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS some recent events that may have bearing on past ten to fifteen years that seem to be chang­ the papers of the symposium. In 1967, there was ing the direction and emphasis of archaeology. a heated debate concerning the activities of his­ Archaeologists have begun to recognize the torical archaeologists. Pivoting around a paper uniqueness of their data, and the existence of by Clyde Dollar concerning "Some Thoughts conceptual models thatfitthese data and help to on Theory and Method in Historical Archae­ explain the behavior that produced it. ology," The Conference on Historic Site Archae­ Transition from the traditional ethnological ology Papers (1968) included forum comments alignment of archaeology to a recognition of from many authors concerning the goals of his­ the importance of archaeological data may be torical archaeology. While most of the discus­ seen in the changing attitudes of specific ar­ sion in this forum centered around theoretical chaeologists. James Deetz, a pioneer in the at­ positions and the problems of incompetence, tempt to examine the dynamics of ethnographi­ there was an emphasis placed upon material cally defined social change through the use of culture as being an important body of data for archaeological data, warned in 1968 that the use use in the understanding of behavior. Stanley of such studies should always be considered in South (1968) in his forum response stated, "As the light of their potential contribution to the archaeologists, it seems to me that we are con­ broader understanding of culture, or take their cerned with the identification and interpreta­ place as mere exercises in "methodological vir­ tion of data reflecting patterned human be­ tuosity." Deetz' point was that simply showing havior." In his emphasis on pattern, South was you can archaeologically come up with infor­ reflecting on the kinds of regularities recognized mation that corresponds to an ethnographical by Harrington (1954) for pipestems, Dethlefsen classification does not necessarily contribute to and Deetz (1966) for the decorative elements on the understanding of culture. (However, it does New England grave stones, Glassie (1971) for demonstrate the power of archaeological tech­ traditional American artifacts, Leone (1973) for niques.) Speaking more directly to this point, Mormon fences, and South (1972) himself for Deetz stated (1970:122), English colonial ceramics. The success of these ... I'm struck by the fact that there seems to be scholars in isolating regularities within the ma­ some sort of feeling on the part of archaeologists terial remains of historical American culture that the categories used by the ethnographer are continually reinforces our awareness that possessed of somewhat greater cultural truth than perhaps as important as the ideas people happen the categories which he imposes on his own data. to write down are the things they leave behind. There is a genuine problem here. It seems that to seek a one-to-one relationship between two differ­ Unfortunately, the "things people leave be­ ent products of similar behavior runs a consider­ hind" have seldom received the attention they able risk of distortion. It is rather like addition of deserve. Yet, the lack of attention has not been apples and pears. The categories which have been because we didn't care. The neglect seems to devised by ethnologists to describe the cultural have developed as a result of our archaeology universe they study need not be, and in fact should not be, the categories which the archaeologists being so firmly fostered in its youth by eth­ seek correspondence in their data. nology and history. These fields have not tradi­ tionally emphasized material things; rather, Reinforcing this statement by Deetz, Marvin they have concentrated on the abstract aspects Harris (1968), an ethnologist, admonished ar­ of the social, economic, political, and ideologi­ chaeologists to rid themselves of the attempt to cal subsystems of culture. Moreover, their data force their data into the categories defined by are derived from direct communication or ob­ ethnographers. Harris held that archaeologists servation of the people being studied. The pat­ had developed efficient, objective tools for the tern, and most importantly the potential, of the understanding of behavior, and that perhaps material things that people have left behind has ethnologists should look to find equivalents of usually gone unnoticed by both the people and the archaeological categories in their own sub­ the social scientists. jectively contaminated data. Important things have happened within the Perhaps the most concise and apt statement 6 Ferguson Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things of this idea about archaeology has been pre­ sound, theoretically founded, approach to their sented by British archaeologist David Clarke studies. Binford proposed that the cultural (1968:13) when he says, theory posited by Leslie White, considering cul­ . . . archaeology, is archaeology, is archaeology ture as means of adaptation with technology as a (with apologies to Gertrude Stein). Archaeology is primary adaptive operative, was especially a discipline in its own right, concerned with ar­ suited for use with archaeological data. Of chaeological data which it clusters in archaeologi­ course, other archaeologists have proposed cal entities displaying certain archaeological pro­ other approaches to the understanding of the cesses and studied in terms of archaeological aims, concepts, and procedures. data. The important point is that the pressure of Binford and others has forced archaeologists to An archaeological culture is not a racial group, nor become introspective and to consider the ulti­ a historical tribe, nor a linguistic unit, it is simply an archaeological culture. mate value of their research. The resulting ef­ fect has been a trend for archaeologists to inves­ At no point does Clarke deny the relationship tigate welldefined problems that are congruent between an archaelogical complex and the with archaeological data. To me, one of the other aspects of culture. However, he does treat most exciting things about modern archaeology the relationship between concepts founded on must be that this trend is only the beginning. different data as a special topic for considera­ Drawing together these ideas and, I hope, the tion. In his treatment of Analytical Archaeology general intent of these archaeologists, I feel that (1968), he first examines the world of past mate­ we are beginning to see a strong convergence of rial culture. Then he considers the relationship attitude in archaeology, settling on the point between this material model of the past and the that there is far more value in archaeological established cultural processes that may have data than most of us have previously recog­ been responsible for the archaeological pat­ nized. With carefully considered theoretical po­ terns. He is quick to point out that relating one sitions and a rigorous treatment of the data, kind of data to the processes established on the archaeology (including prehistoric, historic, basis of another requires sophisticated trans­ and modern archaeology) can be one of the formations. most powerful tools available for understanding Although these statements by Deetz, Harris, human behavior. Archaeology need not, and and Clarke are primarily from the world of an­ should not be the handmaiden of ethnology, thropological archaeology, this fledglingdictum history or any other fieldofstudy. Controlling a also holds for the relationship between history special expression of human behavior, ar­ and archaeology. Rephrasing Deetz' com­ chaeology can go about the business of treating ments, we may say that the historical document the problems that may be clarified by an exami­ does not necessarily contain more truth than nation of the material evidence of culture. That the artifacts recovered from the ground. Nor, is is, ifarchaeology is to fulfilitself, it must expand the structure of phenomena as interpreted beyond the conceptual world of disciplines that through history necessarily more valid than the do not handle the data available to archae­ structure observed and interpreted by the ar­ ologists. chaeologist. The historical and the archaeolog­ There is so much data available to historical ical records are different analogs of human be­ archaeologists that it staggers the imagination. havior, and they should not necessarily be ex­ The historical period in North America from pected to coincide. the seventeenth century through the present Perhaps as importantas the recognition of the day has been marked by an ever increasing pro­ uniqueness of archaeological data has been the liferation of material items. Farm tools, concomitant development of an attitude about ceramics, houses, furniture, toys, buttons, the theoretical context of archaeological roads, cities, villages-the list continues almost research. During the early part of the last de­ ad infinitum and includes all of the things cade, Lewis Binford (1962), amid a sea of con­ people make from the physical world. troversy, implored archaeologists to adopt a Most of us here today are archaeologists, and 7 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS we are planning to do something with this kind viction that material data have a potential to of data. We can look at it, describe it, draw it, contribute fundamentally to the understanding photograph it, count it, and write about it. of human behavior. I feel that the discipline of However, if we think as historians and historical archaeology willbenefit significantly if ethnologists we shall provide no more than in­ this symposium stimulates us to more fully rec­ cidental information to history and ethnology. ognize and respect the potential power of the The process is somewhat akin to trying to play data we control. Such recognition may encour­ golf with a tennis racquet. The problem is that age us to develop new and imaginative ways of once we recognize our situation we have to go fulfilling our intellectual goals through analysis about finding a golf club. The members of this of the "things people leave behind." symposium entertain somewhat different theoretical positions. Yet, it is clear from their Institute ofArcheology and Anthropology writings that they have all developed a firm con- University ofSouth Carolina

Bibliography BINFORD, LEWIS R. eastern United States. University of 1962 Archaeology as anthropology. American Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Antiquity 28 (2): 217-225. HARRINGTON, J. C. CLARKE, DAVID 1954 Dating stem fragments of seventeenth and 1968 Analytical archaeology. Methuen & Co., eighteenth century clay tobacco pipes. Ar­ Ltd., London. chaeological Society of Virginia, Quarterly DEETZ, JAMES F. Bulletin 9 (1): 6-8. 1968 The inference of residence and descent HARRIS, MARVIN rules from archaeological data. In New 1968 Comments. In New perspectives in archeol­ perspectives in archeology, edited by Sally R. ogy,edited by Sally R. Binford and Lewis R. Binford and Lewis R. Binford, pp. 41-48. Binford, pp. 359- 361. Aldine Atherton, Aldine Atherton, Chicago. Chicago. 1970 Archeology as a social science. In Current LEONE, MARK directions in anthropology, Bulletin of the 1973 Archaeology as the science of technology: AmericanAnthropological Association3 (3), Mormon town plans and fences. In Re­ part 2: 115-125. search and theory in current archaeology, DETHLEFSEN, E. and J. DEETZ edited by Charles L. Redman, pp. 125-150. 1966 Deaths heads, cherubs, and willow trees: Wiley-Interscience, New York. experimental archaeology in colonial SOUTH, STANLEY cemeteries. American Antiquity 31 (4): 1968 Comments on 'Some thoughts on theory 502-510. and method in historical archaeology' by DOLLAR, CLYDE Clyde Dollar. The Conference on Historic 1968 Some thoughts on theory and method in Site Archaeology Papers 1967 2, part 2: historical archaeology. The Conference on 35-53. Historic Site Archaeology Papers 1967 2, part 1972 Evolution and horizon as revealed in 2: 3-30. ceramic analysis in historical archaeology. GLASSIE, HENRY The Conference on Historic Site Archaeology 1971 Pattern in the material folk culture of the Papers 19716: 71-116.

8 Material Culture and Archaeology­ What's the Difference?

James Deetz

I'D LIKE TO PREFACE THIS PAPER with the sin­ be shot. But, I figure starting from there, there's cere request that it not be taken too seriously. nowhere to go but up, so Leland and I kind of One of the lessons that I think I'm learning as I put the title of this paper together. The first half advance into the sunset toward senior citizen­ of this title is a statement of subject; the second ship is that the most important thing in life is not half asks a question. Obviously, there are a to take it deadly serious, because all you do isget number of answers to this question, which we yourself into trouble. Still, in all, I think that have all considered. Yet it is possible that we buried within the morass of things I have to say have not completely appreciated the range and are a couple of points that might at least bear diversity and the concomitant importance of thinking about, and maybe they deserve a bit of material culture to the study of human be­ extended consideration. havior, now and in the past. About the title-I think I have an interna­ A cursory review of traditional definitions and tional reputation as the worst title writer in the concepts tells us that material culture and ar­ world. I simply cannot produce them. Anyone tifacts are vaguely synonymous. "They are the who calls something "The Doppler Effect in products of man's technology," or "all those Archaeological Chronology: In Consideration things made by man," or "they arc referred to as of the Spatial Aspects of Seriation," (Deetz and cultural material rather than material culture." Dethlefsen 1965) complete with colon, should Of course all these considerations have their

9 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS value, but we must look for the definition or plastic Freakies which dwells in the box, the definitions that will have the most value to ar­ box, standing rib roast, apple pies, jumbo jets, chaeologists. step ladders, Venus figurines, and a number of As archaeologists we must deal with artifacts other objects too numerous to mention here. and consider their subterranean context. From But what of topiary work or perennial borders of this perspective material culture is culturally flowers? This query is not quite as silly as it patterned data which provide the archaeologist might seem at first. These things differ from with insights to life in the past. Viewed in this those mentioned above in that they are living. fashion, the difference between archaeology Nevertheless, when we cut a privet, or shape a and material culture is one of scope. Archae­ dwarf pine tree, we are modifying real world ology is the discipline or subdiscipline, and ma­ material according to a set of cultural plans. terial culture -that is artifacts-is the set of Now, with animate beings the problem of most culturally sensitive data available. Such a endowing them with a culturally dictated form view of the relationship between material cul­ is a bit more complex. Yet, this is not to say that ture and archaeology isfrom within, so to speak; there are not a great number of ways whereby and certainly all historical archaeologists and man also shapes the animate sector of his envi­ most probably most, if not all, prehistorians ronment, including himself, in culturally or­ have a more catholic view of material culture dained ways. The end result of this kind of than that above. However, among the other modification is just as much material culture as precincts of anthropology, material culture is is our beloved shell edged pearlware or a Pomo not ranked as important to the student of the basket. Of course, a number of examples may human species, simply because the folks are come to mind of material culture formed by there too, and one can go directly to the be­ alteration of the human physique. Such things havior being studied without going through the as scarification and tatooing are worked on liv­ screen produced by the material culture in be­ ing people, but much of the design could tween. equally be applied to paper or wood. Of a very Certainly the questions asked of material cul­ different order is the way man uses his physique ture by most ethnographers and ethnologists alone or in the company of others to accomplish are of a very different order and emphasis than various tasks and follow the set of culturally that asked by archaeologists. "Pots and pans" prescribed rules in doing so. This range of cul­ courses are considered relatively unimportant tural phenomena has been extensively studied, in most universities. The real "substance" of but not studied as material culture. Kinesics is anthropology is more likely to be sought in concerned with the obviously cultural manipu­ courses in structural anthropology or kinship lation of the individual by himself, but it seems algebra. Perhaps to anthropologists, material inescapable to view this too as material culture. culture has been as the elephant to the blind Perhaps less obvious is the range of behavior man. Each encounters a different part and re­ which is covered by the study of proxemics; yet acts differently in accordance with the precise here too is a case of arranging a sector of the circumstances of the contact. environment, in this instance people, according Possibly a modest and tentative redefinition to a set of cultural rules. of material culture is in order. Perhaps through At this point, one might object that there is a redefinition the elephant can better be per­ significant difference between a person kneeling ceived for what it truly is. Consider material in prayer, material culture by the definition culture as that segment of man's physical envi­ above, and a harpoon. After all, once the prayer ronment which is purposely shaped by him ac­ is ended the individual assumes another form; cording to culturally dictated plans. This defini­ but the harpoon will remain a harpoon in­ tion will more than comfortably accommodate definitely, perhaps for millenia. Yet the ephem­ all which we have considered as material cul­ eral nature of the phenomena seems spurious ture thus far: Siberian fish hooks, office build­ criteria for definition. A simple illustration of ings, banjos, Freaky cereal and the little band of this is a piece of rope being used by a Boy Scout

10 Deetz Material Culture and Archaeology-What's the Difference? in passing his tenderfoot knot-tying test. The should also be considered from the material same rope can be folded into sheep shank, half perspective. The same applies to the disposition hitch, and bowline. Each is a piece of material of these family units into aggregates called culture enduring perhaps only for seconds. communities. One definition of an archaeo­ I have suggested elsewhere (Deetz 1967) that logical assemblage is simply the material re­ technologies may be divided into additive and mains of a community. However, we must re­ subtractive categories. Additive technologies member that communities are composed of involve the aggregation of raw materials, such people. In reality, the community and the ar­ as quilling a basket, and are in theory at least, chaeological assemblage are one. The living infinitely expandable. Subtractive technologies component of the assemblages, subassem­ are those which involve material removal such blages, and artifacts identified in archaeology as carving or stone work, and artifact size is a may only be ignored at our peril. function of the size of the parent block of stone, A shovel does not excavate by itself, but is wood, bone, or other substance. To these, we attached to a shoveler who shovels in a manner might add another category, manipulative, in dictated by his culture. His motor habits are which neither adding nor removing of materials learned and culturally determined, and it is is involved, but only the reshaping of the con­ probably fair to say that both shovel form and stant mass. Examples of manipulative artifacts shoveler form must be understood. For in­ include blown glass, oragami, the knots men­ stance, seventeenth century shovels cannot be tioned above, as well as the endless variety of used with the same motor habits we use with ways in which man uses his body to communi­ modern shovels. Likewise, dwelling houses are cate, to work, and to play. used by dwellers, and while the form of the The proxemic use of the human body as a house isdictated by the number of and relation­ unit of material culture may go beyond simple ship between the dwellers it must, in turn, also considerations of what is usually called cultural impose a structure upon them. The relationship space, to the entire range of waysin which man, between the human and inanimate compo­ in numbers, creates culturally patterned nents of these systems is not a one way street. phenomena. In this case, the people may be­ Behavior is reflected in material culture to be come involved as components of a set of larger sure, but material culture, especially as it is systems, and the individuals perform much the considered here, is reflected in behavior as well. same function as individual, unmodified grass In the realm of language, I have suggested stems in the foundation of a coiled basket. elsewhere (Deetz 1967) that material culture Highly structured examples of this class of ma­ in the traditional sense and language are terial culture are parades or rituals involving homologous, as well as analogous to each other. large numbers of individuals. The Catholic If this is so then it is no surprise that all the High Mass before Vatican II is a striking in­ structural and syntactic analyses of language stance involving kinesic, proxemic, and even have such ready application to artifacts. The larger scale patterns. The complex and often homology is derived simply from the fact that bizarre configurations performed on football the physical form of language is that of a modi­ fields during halftime such as a band forming fied substance. The substance is air and the the word "OHIO" is, as far as I'm concerned, just modification is in the size and shape of the as much material culture as an arrowhead. vibrating air mass and the frequency variations Less structured and correspondingly less ob­ imparted to it by the vocal cords. This class of vious examples of this phenomenon include culturally shaped substance can neither be seen communities and families. Ifwe can accept the nor touched, but it is as much a part of man's culturally patterned assemblage of family culturally modified physical environment as isa members within a household as material cul­ brick schoolhouse. I suspect that iflinguists had ture under the definition offered above, then it been able to stack their words on tables like becomes obvious that a whole range of data potsherds, the insights they have developed normally in the domain of the ethnologist concerning the structure and syntax of lan- 11 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS guage may well have been much slower in de­ As we consider the way in which a simple veloping. Whether such is the case or not, the change in the definition of material culture linguists were the first to demonstrate the pre­ broadens its applicability, it becomes increas­ cise structural form of a patterned cultural ingly clear that as archaeologists we have been phenomenon, and even though the terms laboring under a needless burden for these "forrneme" and "facterne" are rather atrocious many years. All of those behavioral scientists in their etymological bastardization, this does have really been poaching on our domain, not detract from what I believe to be their reality but we haven't reacted since we didn't know in an homologous as well as analogous sense. where the property line was. One thing about Likewise, efforts to apply the techniques of lin­ these poachers-they use some very effective guistics to more complex material configura­ weapons. So, whether we decide to evict them tions, when they have succeeded, owe part of or not, their arms should be incorporated into their success to the same homology. It has been our analytical arsenal. Claude Levi-Strauss has suggested that people and their language can be a delightful way of turning things upside down accommodated under a somewhat revised and for a better look at them, as indicated in one of more general definition of material culture. my favorite passages from his writing, Tristes There is always the danger in broadening Tropiques (1970), second chapter, and I quote, definitions to such a point that they lose their "The fact that my firstglimpse ofBritish Univer­ precision. Yearsago, I made up a semi-facetious sity life was in the neo-Cothic precincts of the definition of culture that I actually thought was University of Daka in eastern Bengal, has since rather good, only to have a student point out made me regard Oxford as part ofIndia that has that it also defined a spiral nebula, God, and an got its mud, humidity, and super abundant ant hill. In this case, however, such a generali­ vegetation under surprisingly good control." zation is not indicated, and yet, many other Perhaps in a similar manner we have inverted cultural phenomena not normally thought of as the relationships between material culture, ar­ material culture do fall promptly within the chaeology, and the rest of anthropology. The bounds of this definition. Consider, for ex­ time may have arrived to inform our fellow an­ ample, animal domestication. To the extent thropologists that the poor cousin, material cul­ that the form of these animals has been dictated ture, has at last come into its true place in the by cultural preference, we can see domestica­ order of things. This new order would hold the tion as a process of material culture production. study of material culture to be the proper study This may not apply too directly to animals such of man. Its subdisciplines would include as the dogs that lived among North American ethnography, ethnology, and archaeology. An­ Indians, but in the case of a color coordinated thropology departments would be material cul­ living room complete with white cat and black ture departments, and as we expand and define dog, the process seems disturbingly complete. our jargon, we may soon be asking, "Is the study Also, as we learn more of the complexity of of material culture a science?" human genetics and its code, we can expect a time to come when purposeful alteration of the human body will be effected. When this hap­ pens yet another dimension of the use of the Department ofAnthropology body as an artifact will have emerged. Brown University

Bibliography DEETZ, JAMES sideration of the spatial aspects of seriation, 1967 Invitation to archaeology, American Mu­ Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 21 seum Science Books, New York, (3): 196-206. DEETZ, JAMES and EDWIN DETHLEFSEN LEVI-STRAUSS, CLAUDE 1965 The Doppler effect and archaeology: a con- 1970 Tristes ttopiaues. Atheneum, New York. 12 Historical Archaeology Is It Historical or Archaeological?

Lewis R. Binford

IT'S NEW YEARS DAY 1975. I am trying to pre­ tainly it is not because of specially relevant or pare a paper for presentation at a conference technical information which is part of the "in­ on historical archaeology. Do I have anything formation pool" of persons working in sites of to say? relatively recent age in North America. I can This was the setting and my thoughts as I talk creamware and kaolin pipes with the best of began preparation of this paper. Then I began to them. Why? That word "historical" again! What think along the following lines. If this was a does it mean? Well, it means that there is infor­ conference on archaeology I would have no mation available from the past in addition to the problem. I have unpublished material relevant archaeological record. It means that the past to many subjects of general archaeological may be investigated with resources other than interest. Obviously my problem arose from the those provided solely by archaeological investi­ "historical" orientation of the conference. gation. Great-wonderful-that should mean Why? Why should I be uncomfortable and in­ historic archaeologists should be more sophisti­ decisive as to an appropriate subject or way of cated and better informed. Specialists in this treating a problem. I continued to be uneasy field should provide the most informative tests with "historical." Clearly I felt that persons or evaluations of ideas set forth by ar­ doing "historical" archaeology were different chaeologists in general. They should be in the from myself with different interests. Why? Cer- forefront in theory building. Why in god's name 13 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

am 1 hesitant-I should be jumping up and painted in a variety of blues and yellows which down with anticipation. 1was not. Back to that obscured the low lying houses built of earth and word "historical" again. blending with the colors of the land. My disap­ It must mean more than just having nonar­ pointment must have shown. 1 had read of the chaeological information surviving from the Nunamiut, the Caribou hunters of the central past. Yes, sadly it does mean more-it implies a Brooks range. 1 had carefully planned to live philosophy, an epistemology, and a value sys­ and work with these people in order to learn tem in operation among the adherents. How which strategies must be followed to cope suc­ does a Unitarian say anything of relevance to a cessfully with their tundra world. Some ninety congregation of fundamentalists, or a chiro­ miles north of the arctic circle, two hundred practor excite the assembled American Medical miles from the nearest community, these facts Association? On the other hand, are my con­ seemed irrelevant. The modern world had en­ ceptions of historical archaeologists incorrect? gulfed the most remote part of the rugged saw­ This is a conference, and presumably its advan­ tooth mountains in Alaska's arctic. 1 noted the tage stems from discussion and interaction ide­ younger teenagers wearing Beatle boots and the ally aimed at understanding. Okay, instead of first undercut suggestions lead me to predict delivering a paper on how to do science perhaps that when 1came again the boys would be wear­ based on an incorrect appreciation of the audi­ ing long hair. ence, 1have decided on another approach. 1will 1 walked up into the village with the children relate some relatively recent experiences which pulling at me asking, "What's your name?" 1 consider revealing and informative about the Then coming down the path a man "late for the process of attempting to do archaeological sci­ plane" said with a shy smile "my name isJohnny ence. Perhaps these experiences, when dis­ Rulland." He wore a dingy pair of Air Force cussed, will promote a more constructive con­ dress blue pants, a torn and greasy "ski jacket," ference on how to advance archaeology regard­ and a small baseball cap. This wasthe man 1was less of the adjectives preceeding the word. to contact, the man whom 1 had arranged to One hundred and thirty six Eskimos are set­ work with for learning about hunting strategies! tled in a permanent village at Anaktuvuk Pass, 1 offered a kind of forced smile, trying to hide Alaska. One steps off the commercial plane from him and myself my disappointment. 1 which currently delivers mail twice a week and know this world of "poverty," this world of do­ is immediately struck with a number of very nated clothes, and the absence of waste disposal deceiving features. Used oil drums, some rust­ collectors. 1 felt oddly at home when 1 had an­ ing, others with the distinctive State of Alaska ticipated a world about which 1 knew nothing! blue paint seem to dominate the land. A visitor We pitched our tents on the east side of the remarked "I had the feeling 1 was entering a airstrip and began to unpack. The children were migrant workers' camp in central California." all around, pulling on our arms, "come see the The people around the plane are dressed in a nest over here." "You want to fish?" "You got wide variety of clothes, some donated by mis­ hooks?" "I'll catch fish for you." 1looked at my sionaries, some abandoned by visitors, others watch, two thirty in the morning! My god, these freshly arrived from the mail-order houses of kidsshould be in bed. 1should be in bed! Yetthe the "lower 48." The visitor arriving as 1 did in sun was still shining and one would judge from a 1969to learn about the Eskimos' waysof relating New Mexico summer perspective that it was to their treeless tundra world seize upon certain about eight o'clock in the evening. The envi­ features for reassurance. Some wear "tradi­ ronment hadn't changed. 1 tried to sleep with tional" parkas in spite of their being made of the light coming through the tent walls;instead mail-order cloth. There were racks for drying 1thought about why 1had come and what 1had and storing meat scattered throughout the vil­ hoped to accomplish. lage. Roughly fifty percent of the visible houses 1 had become excited by the prospects of were "traditional." These were hard to see be­ doing "living archaeology" with this group of cause of the new boxes made of plywood and people when Nicholas Gubser's book (1965) on 14 Binford Historical Archaeology-Is It Historical or Archaeological?

his experiences here in 1962 was published. At in the spatial distribution of these groups that time I was deeply involved in research on through time. the Mousterian materials from southern Bordes has been able to argue convincingly France. Some two years later I became con­ that the data do not support the first two argu­ vinced that if we were going to make sense out ments; he therefore tentatively accepted the of the Mousterian and its remarkable forms of third-that the four types of Mousterian as­ variability, we needed some reliable behavioral semblage were associated with different Nean­ context in terms of which variability in stone derthal "tribes" (Bordes 1961). I have argued tools could be studied. I had summarized this (Binford and Binford 1966) that some variability interest in a research proposal as follows: among assemblages is ignored in Bordes' clas­ A number of challenges have recently been sification of assemblage types and secondly that offered to the views which have traditionally much of the interassemblage variability is to be guided archaeological interpretation. For in­ understood as the by-product of different ac­ stance, Francois Bordes has convincingly dem­ tivities having been conducted at various loca­ onstrated that lithic assemblages of the Middle tions in the context of an essentially nonseden­ Paleolithic, or Mousterian, do not exhibit regu­ tary hunting and gathering adaptation. I have lar directional trends through time (Bordes further suggested that much of the variability 1961), the pattern which archaeologists have can be understood as expected differences be­ come to expect as "normal." Rather, through a tween base camps versus hunting and gathering sequence of deposits from a single location, stations, kill sites, and other functionally variations in the artifact composition from dis­ specific locations related to extractive versus crete occupational episodes often exhibit an al­ maintenance tasks. Contrary to these views ternating pattern so that tool frequencies from a Bordes (1968: 144) argued, based largely on the level in the middle of the deposit might resem­ thickness of some archaeological deposits and ble most closely those from the bottom or top of the consistency of assemblage form in many the site, rather than resembling most closely the thick deposits, that the sites were relatively depositionally adjacent assemblages. In addi­ permanent and group sizes were large. tion to demonstrating a lack of directional I reasoned that if activity variability and its change, Bordes has also been able to show that logistics were the proper context for under­ there are four basic forms of Mousterian as­ standing interassemblage variability docu­ semblage, as measured by the relative frequen­ mented by Bordes, then this should certainly be cies of tool types. Three major propositions manifest in the faunal materials preserved. Fol­ were advanced to explain this well documented lowing this lead, funds were sought from the and apparently unpatterned alternation of types National Science Foundation in 1968 for a of Mousterian assemblage through sequences complete study of the fauna from the deeply of occupations: stratified site of Combe Crena!. Funds were (1) The different types of Mousterian as­ granted and Sally Binford and I spent eleven semblage are the result of seasonal pat­ months studying the fauna, tools, and other terns of living, with each type represent­ related phenomena of the uniquely varying ing different seasonal remains. Mousterian assemblages excavated by Bordes. (2) Each kind of assemblage represents a Preliminary analysis revealed a number of in­ slightly different adaptation to a different teresting patterns which can be briefly sum­ environment, the forms of the as­ marized as follows: semblage being directly determined by (A) The number of animals represented in any climatic alternations through time. one occupation zone are relatively few. Based (3) Each type of assemblage represents the on this observation it is reasonable to suggest remains of different groups of people, that the occupations at the site of Combe Crenal were of relatively short duration and, each group characterized by its own dis­ although variable, group sizes were generally tinctive complement of tools. The alter­ small. nation of industries reflects the variations (B) There are clear differences observable be- 15 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

tween species and groups of animal species in (E) There are clear correlations crosscutting the the relative frequencies of anatomical parts recognized types of assemblage between some represented. tool types and the pounds of meat represented (1) Bovidsand horses: These animals are rep­ by certain species. In addition there are corre­ resented by analogous anatomical parts lations crosscutting the recognized types of and are clearly differentiated from rein­ assemblages between some tools and the total deer and deer in the parts present. amount of meat represented regardless of (a) Bovids are primarily represented by species. mandibular fragments, lower teeth, (F) There are correlations crosscutting recog­ fragments of the tibia, femur, hu­ nized types of assemblages between some tool merus, and radio-cubitus. Ribs, ver­ types and particular parts of certain species. tebrae, pelvic parts, skull fragments, (C) There is no demonstrable directional change metapodials, and phalanges are rare. in the patterns of variation among anatomical (b) Horses are primarily represented by parts from the bottom to the top of the de­ mandibular fragments, lower teeth, posit. fragments of tibia, femur, humerus, (H) There are some correlations between faunal and radio-cubitus. In contrast to the components and the four types of Mousterian bovids there is much greater vari­ assemblages recognized by Bordes. ability in the frequency of maxillary teeth. In some levels maxillary teeth In spite of the demonstrable variety in pat­ exceed counts of mandibular teeth. terning noted among anatomical parts, and cor­ The latter generally occurs in levels relations between tools and fauna or faunal with numerous horses represented. As in the case of bovids, ribs, verte­ elements, these remain facts in need of explana­ brae, pelvic parts, skull fragments, tion as did the original observations on stone metapodials, and phalanges are rare. tool variability. It is clear that without an under­ (2) Deer and reindeer: There are greater dif­ standing of the causes of archaeological varia­ ferences between these two animals in the tion in faunal elements, I am unable to suggest parts represented; nevertheless they bear the behavioral contexts in which stone tools more analogies to each other than either does to bovids and horses. were used when correlations are demonstrated (a) There is much greater variability be­ between tools and fauna; in short, without an tween different occupations in the explanation facts remain facts. Regardless of anatomical parts represented than is the accuracy of Bordes' "historical" interpreta­ the case for either bovids or horses. tion, here were facts not easily accommodated (b) All previously described patterns of variation in anatomical parts are rep­ and clearly sources of potential information resented among the deer and reindeer about the past. Could they be understood in remains from the occupations of processual terms? Combe Crena!. Frequencies analo­ My original thoughts had been that the gous to those noted on killsites (White Nunamiut were primarily dependent upon a 1954; Kehoe 1967; Dibble and Lorrain 1968) are represented. Similarly, fre­ single terrestrial mammal-caribou. They had quencies analogous to two recognized been, until around 1950,a fully mobile hunting patterns documented for semiperma­ and gathering band. They lived in the broken nent settlements on the plains of mountainous tundra. The Neanderthals who North America (Wood 1962) are also had occupied the site of Combe Grenal for part represented. In addition there are pat­ terns of variation not previously of its occupational span had lived in a full documented. tundra in a broken, low mountainous setting. (C) There are marked and contrastive patterns of They had been heavily dependent upon variabilityin the anatomical parts represented reindeer-the European form of the New from a single species recovered from different World caribou. They were also most probably occupational zones in Combe Crena!. mobile hunters. The Nunamiut provided the (D) There are no bone samples from Combe Cre­ closest analogue to the conditions envisioned nal in which all the anatomical parts of any animal are represented in expected propor­ for the Neanderthals of any known contempor­ tional frequencies based on their frequency in ary society. I wanted therefore to observe be­ the skeleton of the anima!. havior under conditions as closely analogous to

16 Binford . Historical Archaeology-Is It Historical or Archaeological? the Neanderthal situation as possible. Clearly, All this was noted in my small brown surveyers' the old men who could remember that way of notebook. life were the ones for me to concentrate upon. I I was unable to make an appointment with had to do classic"salvage ethnography." I had to Paneack for further questions in the afternoon. collect as much "memory culture" as possible. I had noted from the plane that there were Finally, I went to sleep. caribou bones scattered on the tundra all The June sun on the tent woke me around around the village. I would walk out and eleven o'clock the next morning. I crawled out, examine these and record the parts abandoned went down to the stream for water while the in the field by hunters. A good sample of data students prepared breakfast. While eating, we from "killsites" would come in handy to give me talked of the "old men." I recalled a picture in some idea of the parts of the animals given Helge Ingsted's book Nunamiut (1954). It was a preferential treatment. magnificent picture of a smiling Eskimo with Once out of the village the environment the wind whipping the long guard hairs of the began to scream its presence to my senses. wolf ruff around the hood of his parka. The Looking north across the tundra there was no caption had read "The Eskimo Paniaq, a match­ discernible evidence that man had ever been less hunter and splendid story-teller" (p. 17). there. Lakes were discovered behind almost Simon Paneack is a famous man, practically every knoll, the mountains were magnificent every anthropologist to live with or visit the giants standing mute with snowcaps around Nunamiut has obtained a large share of their their high shoulders and cloud shrouded heads. information from him. I wondered if he would It was easy to imagine groups of Neanderthal remember the locations where he had lived year men in such a setting; it was easier to see by year, the details of hunting, caching, food Paneack as a young man with his dogs moving preparation, and processing which I wanted to amongst these valley pathways in search of know in order to "understand" the variability in game. It was exciting. The kill sites were very anatomical parts anticipated on the sites where reassuring, the bones lying around were identi­ he had lived before he became sedentary. cal to those that I had spent hours counting Coming through the low willows toward our while at the archaeology laboratory at Bor­ camp was a man of medium height, walking deaux, France. I began to take the recording of slowlyas he swished a green willowstick to drive kills seriously and became fascinated by the ob­ off the morning crop of mosquitoes. He wore a vious differences between one and another. pair of very baggy"oxford grey" pants and a pair I returned late that night to the village en­ of black "street shoes" like one associates with couraged and began to ask questions of the formal social occasions. He spoke first, "Do you younger men whom I was meeting gradually. I fellows plan to stay very long?" I remember had met Noah Ahgook. My notebook records thinking how "good" his English was. I ex­ the following: "Noah is the Postmaster-I asked plained that we were "anthropologists" and him about the unbutchered cows that I had wanted to learn about how his people had lived seen and he replied that they were left on the "before they settled at Anaktuvuk village." He tundra because too many were killed." He didn't said, "I'm Simon Paneack, what's your name." I want to talk about hunting and just smiled when felt faintly embarrased, like one feels on meet­ I asked why some animals were represented by ing a famous man who has fallen, or become an only heads, others by heads and lower legs, and alcoholic. Paneack pulled up an empty Blazo others by many different combinations of parts. can and we talked for some time. He drew us He said, "Sometimes we do it one way, other maps of where he had lived on various occa­ times another way-if you want to know about sions at Tulugak Lake some miles north. He said 'old timers' you will have to ask the old men." I he had killed his first bird while camped there in hadn't said anything to Noah about "old 1906. He said his parents had seen their first timers." He of course knew I was an an­ flour, obtained in trade from the Kobuk, while thropologist since the word on new arrivals to they were camped on the Killik River in 1892. Anaktuvuk travels fast. As one of my younger 17 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

Eskimo friends later explained it, "we know of the caribou." My best strategy would be to what anthropologists want to know-they come excavate the sites documented for the 1947-48 here to talk to the old men about the waysof the seasonal cycle so I could question them from a 'old timers.'" I recalled a class I had had in perspective of known characteristics of their "Ethnographic Field Methods" at the Univer­ sites. The archaeological data would provide sity of North Carolina. As a class project each the basis for the best interrogation strategy. IfI student was to study a nearby local community. could show them the concrete results of their I had selected a Church congregation in the behavior they would certainly be able to tell me small community of Union Grove, North what that behavior had been. Moving from the Carolina. I had been counseled to tell the village to Tulugak Lake where we would begin people I was an historian "because if they hear archaeological investigations became a goal you are an anthropologist they may shy away with a "promised land" kind of aura. We moved thinking you want to learn about their sex prac­ to Tulugak. tices." Clearly the Eskimos had a different no­ Johnny Rulland had gone with us as our tion of the anthropologist, but nevertheless one guide and informant since he had lived at I had to cope with. Tulugak in 1948. As I grew to know him better, Finally I explained that I was going to his baseball cap and cast off military pants dis­ Tulugak Lake to map and excavate the locations turbed me less. that the young men had lived in during the We worked hard recording and mapping the seasonal rounds of 1947-48, the year Ingsted locations where the Nunamiut had lived during had lived with them, the year for which there the summer of 1947 and summer and fall of was good "historical documentation." My plan 1948. Johnny remembered where every house was simple. Ingsted had visited the Nunamiut had been, who had lived there, how long they while they were still fully mobile hunters. He had stayed and many other details. Working had described his experiences with these with him was a pleasure and he was a remark­ people. I wanted to view them archaeologically able man when it came to memory of the ter­ for the same time period so that some equations rain, locations of things, and the details of could be made between what a group looks like manufacturing different items. However, ques­ when viewed archaeologically and ethno­ tioning him on the significance of variability in graphically. The almost universal response to anatomical parts was rather unsatisfactory. He my plan is typified by a response from Ben never seemed to understand what I was trying to Ahgook, "Ingsted isnot all true-he made some learn. We worked hard, Johnny and I, and of it up." I pressed for clarification-"Oh he began the tedious job of collecting bone samples made it sound too much like 'old timers.''' I from the many houses we had mapped. questioned on the subject of Ingsted's book As this work proceeded and I learned more many times and gradually a pattern emerged. about methods of food preparation, little The men agreed that Ingsted's writings made "it suggestive tidbits about drying meat, making sound too much like old timers," and he had rawhide rope, etc. I began to be anxious-there overdramatized the uncertainty of the hunting were so many things that seemed relevant as way of life. A frequent response was "Ingsted contributors to differing bone frequencies. How made it sound like the caribou didn't come­ could I possibly get adequate control data? they did and things weren't so bad that winter as As Johnny and I were collecting bones from he said." Was it true that I couldn't trust the around the telltale ring of stones where he and most relevant historical source? his father had camped in 1948, I noticed on an Living in the village those first weeks con­ exposed rocky area a dense concentration of vinced me that although the old men had re­ very tiny bone fragments. I asked Johnny what markable memories for certain features of their they had been doing that resulted in such a pile past, my questions on the details of processing of tiny bones. He said "nothing-they must be and disposalof caribou parts generally prompted from 'old timers.'" By this time knowledge responses such as "Eskimos use all the parts about the "old timers" had become a goal since 18 Binford . Historical Archaeology-Is It Historical or Archaeological? the contemporary setting was "so modern." We up and I began interrogations of the old men in began to dig and with each tuft of tundra moss terms of the concrete archaeological facts. The removed more bones in fascinating combina­ results were fascinating. Arctic John, Paneack, tions and concentrations were exposed. A few or Kakinya would sit with a bone arrow in their flint chips appeared and we searched for the hands, a smile on their faces, and sometimes house we knew had to be there-all indications point out the most minute detail, talking of its were that it was a winter occupation of some meaning and frequently relating a series of per­ duration. We found the house and worked long sonal experiences or experiences related to hours on a site that was something of an ar­ them by their fathers, relevent to the particular chaeologist's dream. With every artifact dis­ artifact which they held almost reverently. Such covered Johnny's eyes would light up and a de­ interest was not however uniformly expressed tailed silent examination would follow with a with respect to all the artifacts. They would paw statement, "This isa bird arrow, my father made through the box ignoring some, picking them one just like this for me when I was seven years up and tossing them back finally selecting one old." He was interested and fascinated by what and smiling. This behavior annoyed me since we were uncovering. This enthusiasm didn't each artifact was of equal value to me. Each extend, however, to my interest in the bones. I artifact represented to me potentially new and would ask, "Why are there nothing but metapo­ different kinds of information about the past; dials in this pile?" Johnny's face would be almost each was a component of an assemblage. To a blank and finally he would say"I guess some­ understand the assemblage as a whole I needed body wasmaking akatuk." I quickly realized that information of equal detail on each different Johnny, an Eskimo of forty years experience, form. who admittedly had seen or participated in prac­ I changed the manner of interviewing, keep­ ticallyevery activity possibly represented on the ing the assemblage hidden and producing an site, was in the position of a very experienced artifact at a time. This procedure worked better archaeologist; he was making informed deduc­ but still it was clear that the old men became tions. He was never willing to say for certain bored quickly with some artifacts putting them what the behavioral context had been for the down during my questioning and leaning over patterns we observed. At best he would offer toward the box asking, "What else you got in informed guesses. I was certainly glad to have there?" My disillusionment reached its highest his opinions, in most cases I think he was cor­ peak when I attempted to question them about rect, but this was a far cry from the kind of the most common item on the site-the bones. "control" data I wanted to "explain" the ob­ The men would look at the maps discussing in served variability in anatomical parts. While in some detail the house remains, the hearth, and the field I didn't let this stop me; we excavated even spotting such details as where the dogs with fascination and enthusiasm. Everything must have been, but when questioned about was recorded, plotted, measured-archaeo­ the patterning exhibited by the bones and dif­ logically the site and its documentation was ferent anatomical parts the common response truly extraordinary. There was a high yield of was "I don't know, I guess they just put them artifacts, nothing had been disturbed, and the that way." They were as surprised and more fauna was magnificent. bafHed by the bone data than I was, yet it was a I returned to the village carrying protectively way of life that they had experienced that had the collection of artifacts, bones, and the cru­ produced the distributions-why weren't they cial distribution maps of the bones. The most aware of them? I would press with more infor­ obvious forms of patterning at the site were in mation about the bones and they would sit lis­ the bones; almost each artifact was unique and tening to some detail of association of frequency analogous forms were rarely present. The word variation and respond "crazy Eskimoes." about our work had preceded us and the old Some said they would ask their wives, be­ men were clearly fascinated and interested in cause after all the women did the cooking and seeing what we had found. Interviews were set taking out of trash. I set up interviews with two

19 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS of the older women in the community. I went zero temperature I WAS SHOCKED ANEW. The through the artifacts with them and noticed same people were there to meet the plane but immediately a very different pattern of re­ this time the modern world seemed remote. sponse. When showed the assemblage they Caribou skin parkas were everywhere, the baggy would choose very different artifacts and ex­ caribou skin pants on some of the men seemed press the same kind of nostalgic reminiscences to roll and flair to the sides making them appear over items which in many cases the men had rounded and capable of bouncing if dropped. A largely ignored except when prompted by me. sled and dog team were at the plane to carry the Clearly what was being played out in front of me mail to the post office. In addition to the seem­ was a different "value system" but it was not to ing remoteness of the modern world compared be understood by the mere recognition of it in to my summer experience there were other sur­ those terms. What I was witnessing was the prises. Trails through the village familiar from expression of differential meaning being at­ my summer experiences were covered or tached to the same objects clearly as a differen­ blocked by huge snow drifts and winter sled tial extension of self identities. I was administer­ trails wove through the villagein a very different ing a kind of artifactual Rorschach test. I was network. fascinated and spent much time trying to isolate There were marked differences in the social the characteristics in terms of which common atmosphere. During summer the young men evaluations were being manifest by the choice had hung around the village seemingly bored sequences. In this I think I have been fairly and idling away their time. Now they were so successful. In spite of the fascination with the active it was difficult to find them. Everyday artifacts I shifted my work with the women onto they were outwith the dog team or snow-mobile the subject of the bones with high hopes. They "checking traps"-"looking for caribou"­ saw different things in the patterning, asked "bringing in firewood"-"hauling water." On questions of me, but were in general no more the other hand the women who had been so informative than the men. obvious during summer, as well as the old men, I returned to New Mexico excited by the site, were rarely seen outside. In summer, the com­ the knowledge gained about the artifacts, and plaints commonly voiced were about how hot it impressed with the "old people." Charles was, the mosquitoes, and the behavior of the Amsden remained in the village to collect in­ young people. Now all one heard from the formation about group composition and settle­ women and aged was how bored they were and ment patterns from the old men. He had the how they looked forward to summer. The hunt­ additional charge to record in detail the ac­ ers on the other hand complained of the ab­ tivities of the hunting during the fall migration sence of game, the fact that the caribou were of caribou. As his data was mailed down to me late and the behavior of their dog teams or snow piece by piece, my disappointment with the machines. How different things were. Suppose I modern conditions in the village faded into had only records of a summer experience! the background. He was describing hunting, I stayed with Johnny and told him from the butchering, caching, and transporting of start that I didn't really want to talk to the old caribou parts. His statistics on the killing of men; I wanted to do as many things with him males versus females matched almost exactly and his age mates as possible so I could get some my statistics from the kill site survey. I was ex­ idea of what it waslike hunting and trapping. He cited again about the bone data. Itwas not until reacted with great enthusiasm and most of my over a year later that I had the opportunity of time with the Nunamiut during that short ex­ revisiting the Nunamiut. perience was spent on a sled in temperatures I left New Mexico in April of 1971 excited by which never got above eighteen degrees below the prospects of observing them during the zero. spring hunt and collecting data comparable to It was during this period that I realized the that already on hand for the fall hunt of 1969. As information I wanted was right before my eyes I stepped off the plane into the forty-two below in the form of the contemporary patterns of 20 Binford Historical Archaeology-Is It Historical or Archaeological?

land use and variability in the activities at been responsible for the production of the ar­ numerous locations still regularly used by the chaeological record. Further, I had written Nunamiut. They were stillhuntingcaribou, still documentation by both Ingsted and Gubser setting up hunting camps, still differentially surviving about the past which I wished to inves­ treating caribou in terms of numerous condi­ tigate. Why were the details of this research not tions of temperature, number killed at once, presented at a conference on "historical ar­ location of kill, distance of transport, etc. My chaeology?" Was it because I was not interested experience in winter hunting camp verified that in reconstructing the sites I had worked? the elusive differential distributions of parts of Perhaps it was because persons living in the sites caribou were still being produced by the or the events occurring there were not con­ Nunamiut although they were not totally aware sidered historically "important" by contempor­ of it themselves. In this setting Johnny observed ary American standards? Or maybe the ques­ with me the high frequency of lower front leg tions I was asking and the approaches I used to bones on the winter hunting camp; he along gain answers would not be considered interest­ with me became fascinated to discover how ing or appropriate. After all, my interest in the many different patterns there were and why Nunamiut did not stem from some abiding they were different. His interest was never as commitment to Eskimos or even their history. It intense as mine, but he recognized the problem arose out of a concern with explaining observed and frequently guided me into situations which variability in the archaeological record as ob­ I would never have thought to investigate. served in Mousterian materials a continent When I returned the following June with a away and separated from the Nunamiut by at large crew of students I saw in them surprise at least 60,000years. I was interested in controlling the "modern" character of the village. They variables so that their operation in determining voiced their lack of understanding for my inter­ observed distributions in the archaeological est in the modern sites by tactfully pointing out record could be evaluated, and meaning in pro­ the "really interesting" old timers' site nearby. cessual terms could be given to what was ob­ That summer I collected a body of control data served. In short I chose to work with the which began to yield the secrets of the pattern­ Nunamiut because of the relevance of their ing observable among anatomical parts. It was situation for furthering the science of archae­ collected from the contemporary activities of ology-not because of their "historical impor­ the Nunamiut using guns, snowmobiles, etc. tance." Finally my primary interest was in a and they were much more surprised by its pres­ class of material-bones-about which histori­ ence than I was. The dimensions, in terms of cal accounts were mute and even the men who which contingent behavior operates, must be produced the patterns were unaware of their relevant to my Neanderthal data although the existence and meaning. This was an ar­ concrete behavior was certainly different. chaeological problem. Perhaps my initial disdain of the appearance If we in discussion can answer the question as of modernity reflects a bias by archaeologists as to why the results of my Nunamiut research to the "relevance" of historically recent case were not considered by me to be appropriate to material. Similarly my "discovery" of its "rele­ a conference on "historical archaeology," we vance" is something which "historical ar­ may each gain a better understanding of the chaeologists" need to discover. potential information to be gained from re­ This was historical archaeology in the best search by archaeologists on historically docu­ sense of the word since I had available the best mented materials. possible sources of information in addition to the archaeological record regarding past beha­ Department of Anthropology vior-in many cases the persons who in fact had University ofNew Mexico-Albuquerque

21 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS Bibliography

BINFORD, LEWIS R. AND SALLY R. BINFORD INGSTED, HELGE 1966 A preliminary analysis of functional vari­ 1954 Nunamiui. Allen and Unwin, London. ability in the Mousterian of Levallois KEHOE, THOMAS F. facies. American Anthropologist 68 (2), pt. 1967 Boarding school bison drive site. PlainsAn­ 2:238-295. thropologist, Memoir Number 4. BORDES, F. H. WHITE, THEODORE E. 1961 Mousterian cultures in France. Science134: 1954 Observations on the butchering technique 803-810. of some aboriginal peoples, papers 3, 4,5,6. 1968 The Old Stone Age. World University Li­ American Antiquity 19 (3): 254-264. brary, New York and London. WOOD, RAYMOND E. DIBBLE, DAVID S. AND DESSAMAE LORRAIN 1962 Notes on bison bone from the Paul Brave, 1968 Bonfire Shelter: a stratified bison kill site, Huff and Demery sites (Oahe Reservoir). Val Verde County, Texas. Texas Memorial Plains Anthropologist 7: 201-204. Paper, Miscellaneous Paper, No. 1. GUBSER, NICHOLAS J. 1965 The Nunamiut Eskimos: huntersofcaribou. Yale University Press, New Haven.

22 Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes

Henry Glassie

OURS IS AN UNCOMMON ENCOUNTER. In the century found anthropologists hastily building, United States, folklorists do not frequently ad­ then savagely destroying a series of flamboyant dress assemblies of archaeologists. That is a theories, while folklorists and archaeologists pa­ strange state of affairs. In Europe, the folklorist tiently constructed humble methodologies. We has long studied the artifact, and, though the regularized the collecting and ordering of in­ American folklorist's attentiveness to artifactual formation in a manner that bore a truthful rela­ information is recent, it is currently strong and tion to our traditional objects of study. We intense. Ifthe archaeologist does not dig, or the achieved descriptive precision, and developed a folklorist does, our pursuits verge near identity. deep neurosis: theory envy. It is not the shared interest in the artifact which After the field report, what? In their separate, makes the lack of shared communication odd, but equally well-built and organized disciplines, however. It is odd because folklore and archae­ modern folklorists and archaeologists knuckle ology are paradigmatically quite similar disci­ their heads and wonder. plines with much to give and gain in a closer Our questioning, our parallel successes and association. failures, arise naturally from the deepest of our During the nineteenth century, folklorists similarities. Both of our disciplines have wings and archaeologists joined anthropologists in the clearly situated in the humanities and in the attempt to reconstitute the unwritten past by social sciences. There are literary folklorists and the examination of survivals. The twentieth anthropological folklorists, just as there are 23 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS classical archaeologists and anthropological ar­ scientist's concern for form, behavior, and con­ chaeologists. Both disciplines are united by field ditions. When we can test, count, and answer, method and sundered by interpretive orienta­ we must; but when we cannot, we need not tion. It looks as though schizophrenia is the despair; we can engage in discourse, in orderly, diagnosis. open, scientific discussion about the nature of In each of our disciplines there have been humanity. important recent attempts to purify research. There are other interesting comparisons be­ Our immediate histories have been marked by tween your study and mine, details to uncover works successfully promising new perspectives. and catalog, but more exact analogizing would Parricidal tendencies have been unleashed, be presumptuous, so I will turn to a little ac­ crises of self-hate and hope have broken over us, count of folklore's present state. I do this, how­ and yet there isan undercurrent ofresistance to ever, knowing that the similarities between ar­ the acculturation of our study to some other. chaeology and folklore are various and numer­ The image of science looms aloof, pristinely, ous. I use writings by James Deetz and Lewis admirably. We accept its ascendency, yet re­ Binford in my graduate classes in "folklore main unwilling to follow it, if following means theory." My description, then, may claim the the amputation of our social responsibilities and virtues of a parable in this context. humane sensibilities. We want to be scientists, In their studies, lined with collectanea and for the scientist works with care and honesty, indexes, folklorists fidget in angst. Their lineage but would the full acceptance of a scientific begins with the great romantics, but for some program force us to abandon profundity for reason this embarrasses them. Like others with efficiency? There are problems without solu­ a social scientific bent, they refer most readily to tions, hypotheses that are untestable, realities the rationalists and scientists in their collective measureless to man. The great enduring prob­ past; despite historic truths, their myths are lems of existence, the matters that matter, can peopled by Comte not Rousseau, Darwin not be approached with care and honesty, but Ruskin, Radcliffe-Brown not Yeats. Growing they are not available to experimentation, to afraid of grand schemes and big thoughts of hypothetico-deductive structuring or to nomo­ unbridled brilliance, their recent forebears be­ thetic reduction. The scientist becomes embar­ came content to while years away in classifying rassed and cowers behind method when asked a and annotating the shards of wit and scraps of question like the meaning of life. ancient poesy they had dug up. For many, the Novelists offer answers to the big ones-life, field report was sufficient. Others reassembled death, happiness, reason, will. But we correctly the collected scraps in chronological order to distrust the arrogant subjectivity of the novelist create histories-not histories of people, but as much as we do the gutless objectivity of the histories of things, such as folktales or pottery. scientist. And our disciplines remain sited di­ Enough of this, cried a new and self­ rectly over the fault on the academic landscape consciously professional generation almost that separates the social sciences from the exactly a decade ago. Modernism, the half­ humanities. This situation is the source of our century old search for the abstractly principled, confusion and our strength. Archaeology and had, at last, battered its way into folkloristic folklore are the only disciplines with such an awareness. The message of Kandinsky, Eins­ exquisitely central site. We should not have to tein, Joyce, Freud, Wittgenstein, and de Saus­ go through the sort of schismatic reinvention sure had arrived. Unclearly. It was felt first as a that is current in anthropology. We can harken vague malaise, a curious discomfort like a lad's simultaneously to the wispy but profound mes­ first hangover. The symptoms were enraged re­ sages wafting over from the humanities and to jection, exhibited in attacks on all that their the orderly, if sometimes trivial, messages that elders held dear, and an immediate urge to steal march in from the social sciences. We can give any unprotected intellectual treasure in aca­ our attention at once to the humanist's concern deme. for meaning, intention, and being, and to the The new generation's first ideas were those to 24 Glassie . Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes which folklorists had already laid some claim. new folklore wasonly the old anthropology. The Initially, their revolution was modest and proud new essays, glistening with the appelation amounted mostly to the expansion of their "theoretical," were mostly logical exercises and study domain in two directions. Instead of bibliographic surveys. They proved that folk­ studying only oral items, the folklorist could lorists, too, could talk that talk. These essays study the behavioral contexts in which the items served to rid the discipline of the last of the old were naturally performed. In archaeology, this amateurs. They wrecked our prose style. They would be comparable to studying the site as a made us think. systemic whole, rather than as a congeries of Some traditionalists rejected the new theoriz­ components. The old folklorists had considered ing, though they were hard-pressed to say such possibilities, but only haphazardly. Instead why-it seems to have been something about of studying only traditional literature, the keeping the faith and preventing the neighbor­ folklorist could now study traditional actions hood from going to hell. But, the new savants and artifacts too. In archaeology, this would be had gained the center of the stage. The spot­ comparable to studying artifacts found above lights played on them; their colleagues rendered ground level as well as below. European them a respectful, attentive silence. Silence. scholars had been doing this all along, Ameri­ They seemed to have little to say. cans had suggested the possibility for years, but The field methods were in order. Anyone, for the concerted study of what became known as instance, who studied folk artifacts (old build­ "folklife" was a novelty. ings, mostly), had read all the prescriptive The new folklorists seemed healthy, but statements by cultural geographers, historians, nonetheless fretful. They brooded in envy of archaeologists, and design theorists. Things the urbanities of academe, uncomfortable in were comprehensively and carefully measured, the old role of hunter and gatherer, contemplat­ sited, quantified. The theories seemed to be in ing the sins of their past, codifying their disci­ order. Folklorists prowled the bookstores at the pline in a mound of textbooks that rose around beginning of each semester and found out what them, and scanning the horizon for help. The they were reading in anthropology, psychology, most venturesome stole quietly away and spied sociology, and linguistics, and read it too. Still, on the anthropologists, who were spying on the there was little joy in the folklorists' encamp­ linguists, who were spying on the physicists, ment. who were reading Blake. All the time they had been gazing toward the It was, the sixties, a time of general intellec­ more scientific disciplines, behind them lan­ tual unhappiness. The Western cosmos had guished, unexamined, the reasons why all these changed shape (around 1910), modern times ballads or communication events or barns were had come and gone, and scholars, it seems, getting studied in the first place. were about the last to hear about it. Folklorists The crucial problem lay not in method nor in did try to catch up. Some labored to formalize theory but in the relation between them. That, field methods, to make our hunting, already it is important to mark, is a point of difference quite careful and not unscientific, more rigor­ between our disciplines. In archaeology, the ous in order to differentiate the professional anthropological theorists have consistently re­ from the mere pot hunter. Sharpening the tools lated their thought to empirical realities. Jim in our old field kitswas hardly enough, so others Deetz and Lew Binford have muddied their became theory thieves, taking Dell Hymes' con­ boots as well as worked their brains. In folklore, structs and replacing the word "sentence" with some are doing tight, scientific fieldwork "folktale" or "I house." It is wholly natural, as (though "some" means few nowadays), and Thomas Kuhn has shown, for scholars, itchy others are orating insightfully and logically for progress during times of crisis, to import about "theory," but there is little rapport be­ concepts from other disciplines. But it did begin tween these halves of the discipline, even when to appear that folklore could become reformu­ they appear within the same individual. We talk lated as a shadow of anthropology. Perhaps the about symbolic interaction, behaviorism, struc- 25 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS turalism, but almost none of us are using data to dulge in unrestrained, intuitive singing. It is refine theory or theory to explain data. because we scholars are as much the products A resolution of the dilemma begins to emerge of history and immediate conditions as the when we recognize that the social scientists who people we study. The sciences and the hu­ developed the theories that folklorists coveted manities are only cultural conventions, direc­ and stole did so in terms of a tradition incor­ tions not places; their separation is a convenient porating norms of study object and goal as well but false dichotomy like the abstract versus the as methods and theories. We have study objects. real, the objective versus the subjective, the I like old houses. We have favorite theories. I theoretical versus the empirical, the deductive like structuralism. But if I, unthinkingly, per­ versus the inductive. We cannot study without form a structural analysis of old houses, or an having our thought affected by our feelings, our interactional analysis of jokes, all I have done is feelings affected by art and social need. Nor can amuse myself, no matter how careful I was in our studies exist without consequences. "Pure" the field, no matter how fully I comprehended scientists who manipulate data, atoms, or DNA the relevant theoretical literature. molecules without awareness of the influences I will leave it to you to decide how smoothly on their thought and the implications of their the comparisons between our disciplines con­ acts are deluding themselves and unwittingly tinue here, but I think that folklorists are cur­ participating in a modern dance of death. rently unhappy and incapable of nice synthesis Humanists who manipulate words and logics in the dialectic of the empirical and the theo­ without regard for the real progress of scientific retical because they have neglected to examine thought are similarly deluded, if less immoral. their goals with the same care they have applied Since we are Western people, when we study to their field methods and theories. And it is people, we cannothelp butbe both scientist and precisely the goals, the ultimate purposes for humanist. It is wiser for us to be conscious of study, that guide the interrelation of study ob­ this duality, to control it and use it for good ject and theory. ends, than it is for us to pretend to purity. Purity Whether or not folklore has been successful exists only in the realm of the supernatural. in pulling itself together, it remains true of Pure science is modern superstition. folklore, as it is true of archaeology, that its Alldisciplines devoted to understanding man central position on the academic landscape display both scientific and humanistic tenden­ provides its practitioners with great potential for cies. In folklore (and I feel in archaeology) our mental integration. As I write, I have before me methods and theories come most naturally not only a scratchy draft of the paper I planned from the social sciences, but our goals come to give at the pleasant and stimulating meeting most naturally from the humanities. Our care­ in Charleston, but as well, memories of the rant ful work must teach us something about voli­ I actually presented. At this point in the oral tional, angelic animals. We want to do the im­ performance I announced that I was one of possible and do it well. folklore's scientizers. I have written some of To be serious in our studies, we must work folklore's most careful, quantified, and boring rigorously and argue clearly. We must be scien­ studies. For a while I wished to purge folklorein tists. Once scientists studied natural phe­ imitation of the best anthropology, but now, I nomena as evidence of a divine intelligence. am glad that never happened. I like folklore's Now they study natural phenomena as evi­ dangerous location on that fault separating the dence of natural laws. Having murdered God, sciences from the humanities. Here, somehow they can have no teleology, but social scientists the image of the Delphic Oracle blundered into have one whether they want it or not: there is my brain. I thought of her, seated over a fissure nothing mystically medieval about imputing in the ground, sniffingthe fumes that rose from will to human beings; cultural phenomena it, and offering grand pronouncements. I like make no sense unless they are studied as evi­ breathing in the mixed air of this academic bor­ dence of the existence of a worldly intelligence. der country. That is not because I wish to in- Our goal is forming a theory of mind. Science 26 Glassie Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes for science's sake, like art for art's sake, is a orientation that folklorists and archaeologists decadent, dishonest game. The purpose of our share. science is to help us draw as full a picture as The positivistic brand of social science pro­ possible of the actuality and potential of hu­ vides special problems for us students of ar­ manity. A limited picture of man as tool maker tifacts. Since we have been taught that it is the or social animal or speaker or nay-sayer will not outer world which counts, that behavior not do. Only a full picture will aid in the develop­ thought is our object, much clever speculation ment of priorities for study. All things are not has been devoted to reconstructing the uses of equally important; some very careful research is old things. I remember hearing a paper at an a waste of time, a parody of methodology. Only S.H.A. meeting in Pennsylvania, the author of a full picture will help us, as people, approach which opined that the numerous wine bottles happiness and perfection. The reason for our recovered from privies were used for female science is to make us good humanists. The rea­ masturbation. That is an engaging notion and son for humanism is to make us good scientists. we could play with it for hours, but such The reason for our study is to make us good thoughts are always difficult to offer with con­ people. viction and they always lead to the writing of a So, here we are, perched on our oracular fiction-historical short stories. It is both more stools, filling our lungs with strange air, and profound and theoretically easier to read an becoming a bit nauseous. When we took in the artifact first as the end product of a mental theories of the more positivistic scientists, we process of design, as a projection of thought also took in, unawares, their goals, and these rather than as an element in performance, as an blended badly with those of our tradition. As expression of cognitive pattern rather than a presently practised, behavioral, positivistic, so­ reflection of behavioral pattern. In short, I want cial science enslaves the people we wish to un­ to see the artifact as cultural, not material. derstand, reducing them to rats and factors, and It is a fine pastime to mull over the uses of old it enslaves us, preventing us from commenting artifacts, but the theorist of use would learn on central issues, such as individual willand the most quickly and efficiently in situations involv­ collective quality of life, and consigning us to ing live people. If we choose to begin with the orderly argument about peripheral matters, artifact, then our first goal should be the at­ such as social organization and architectural tempt to face the thing, not as a usable entity or forms. If the archaeologist or the folkloristic a mere object, but as a sign, as the result of an student of artifacts were to accept the positivis­ intention. However it was used, the artifact was tic constraints of, say, cinematographic stu­ the largely unconscious realization and mate­ dents of kinesics, we would record and code our rialization of a mental dynamic. objects with great care. We would have done Antonin Artaud talks about the gods asleep in things "scientifically," but at the end of our jade in museums. In prison. Ourgoal, says he, is labors, all we would have would be descriptions, releasing the spirit of the gods sowe can use that excellently correlated descriptions, of old junk. spirit to regenerate ourselves. Less poetically, A full description of a nonverbal interchange is our purpose is developing the ability to see, to interesting because we impute motives to the experience form as the product of a mental actors, but a full description of the pot shards argument over order. Still more directly, the dug out of a hole is interesting only to the few object we select for study must be theorized as specialists who can inwardly restore some the result of the employment of mental rules for human sense to them. right form. Explanation is our mode. The way to expla­ Anything human beings do can be examined nation is through the coordination of theories in this way, the way Burke uses to understand with study objects and field methods on one literature, the way Chomsky uses to understand hand, with goals and philosophical methods on sentences, but why do we choose artifacts over the other. I want now to consider the interre­ other things? lated problems of object selection and goal Any principle that can be developed in the 27 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS human sciences could be developed first by an not stop there. Synchrony is but a step toward archaeologist. There are no absolute limits to an diachrony. It is always possible to gain some archaeologist's nomothetic intentions or seren­ feeling for the antecedents of a synchronic dipitous discoveries, but some of the patterns model from archaeology, oral tradition, or the we need to discover require the use of artifacts early comments of outsiders, but it is not always (as opposed to using artifacts because we possible to study diachronically. If two, tempo­ chance to like them). These are patterns in rally separated systems cannot be constructed time. The study of artifacts is a most round­ and compared, then obviously the student has aboutwayto come to an understanding of many to stop with synchrony. But students of artifacts aspects of culture, and many problems would need not: they can build the junk of different be most efficiently left to ethnographers. But if strata into principled structures and then con­ our worries have a temporal dimension (and trast them. unless we are content with tautological "mod­ We are ready to pose the question again: why els," they do), then we must consider the ar­ do we choose to study the artifact? tifact. Some artifacts seem to be interesting in them­ Time. The personality of past periods. Prin­ selves because they are beautiful or because ciples of culture change. Time is the reason for they exist in sets. People like to dig them up and artifactual study, and understanding history­ measure them. People like to order them and the mutability of mind-is a goal folklorists and save them. Psychologists should study people of archaeologists share. We know that people this sort and people of this sort should write change profoundly from time to time. We know about themselves as a contribution to a phe­ that, mythically and really, the past impinges nomenology of fascination. Folklorists and ar­ dreadfully upon the present. chaeologists study artifacts to learn about Some of the new folklorists have tried to people, other people and themselves. Our job is kill time. The survivalists, evolutionists, and not easy. historic-geographic diffusionists were con­ Generally artifacts are poor in content. Com­ cerned with history. They are out of fashion. pare the immanent richness of a clay pipe with The flashy social scientists that folklorists want that of a High Mass. Generally artifacts do not to emulate seem to be uninterested in history, vary sensitively with their conditions. Compare so, though it means the loss of one major moti­ the flexibility of a house with that of a conversa­ vation for folkloristic study, and though it tion. Artifacts are less delicately expressive and means the acceptance of static, politically con­ reflective than most modes of human com­ servative conceptualizations, folklorists are munication. Were we to accept the develop­ adopting the presentistic perspective. ment of synchronous systems as an end goal There are different reasons for the elimina­ along with other fashionable anthropologica, tion of time in the recent past of anthropology. there would be little reason to analyze artifacts. One is that historical and ethnological facts If you wish to know, abstractly, about social drop out of sight and importance when the mechanisms, you willlearn more in a fewweeks search is for human universals. Still, the ar­ of observing people than you will in years of tifact, historic and prehistoric, could be used as measuring pots or houses. If you wish to know proofor disproof of a universal logic. The other the nature of mental operations, you willfind it reason is that the social anthropologists of the more profitable to study people who can talk thirties seemed to have had no history to study. than things which cannot. But when your wish Their positivism instructed them to consider is to understand people who are dead, artifacts only sensate phenomena. The exotic people are all you have. They last. they chose to bother lacked writing and some­ We share the goal of the comprehension of times archaeological depth. We can profit from the variation of intentions in time. The artifact them, for it is epistemologically essential to is the only study object we can choose. Some of create the kind of synchronic models they these artifacts have writing on them, and solong strove to produce. But, unlike them, we need as we are willing to study the literate, the 28 Glassie . Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes wealthy and the maladjusted, we can begin our proving the understanding of the past of a given study with artifacts like novels, autobiographies, people or place. When they elect to work within and diaries. If we are concerned with the end­ this frame, students of artifacts will find it easy less silent majority who did not leave us written to make their findings relevant. The wonderful projections of their minds (and only a person's study of Johnny Ward's ranch had an accidental own expressions are useful if we admit to the genesis. The dig taught nothing about the his­ overpowering importance of the unconscious), torical interests which sent archaeologists to the then we are left with the study of mute artifacts site, but because we all have some feeling for the like old houses, busted pots, and projectile conventions of American historiography, the points. quick glimpses it gives us of Johnny and his Because of his commitment to the primacy of pigeon-toed lady are treasures of inestimable print, the historian has been unable to produce worth. As a folklorist, as the academic friend of an authentic history. Asfolklorists and historical men like Johnny Ward, I am grateful. archaeologists, one of our tasksisto rescue from Particularistic history consists of the correla­ anonymity the average people of the past. Our tion of sequential ethnographies. Although any role is not humbly complementary. We should dig might contribute to this vertical ethnology, not stand at the service of the priests of the we already have constructs named history written record. It is superficial and elitist-a tale which can suggest to us priorities of need. I of viciousness, a myth for the contemporary would generalize that our greatest lack-within power structure. Writing cannot be used to the ambit of European-American histori­ form the democratic, projective, quantifiable ography-lies in the era spanned by the second base for the study of past people. Artifacts can. to fourth generations in any occupance, and One major rationale for artifactual analysis is among the people of the working class. The the creation of a record of what folks were think­ initial settlers sometimes left reports. The later ing, dull or exciting, during that vast time out of inhabitants are still remembered. Rich people mind. The present and very recent past would hired clever people to write about themselves be most efficiently left to ethnographers and and the quaintness of the poorest people. The oral historians, for they will get more out of person we do not know at all isthe farmwife on a people than we willout of things. Ofcourse you nonslaveholding Piedmont seat of 1810. If we need not call in another researcher-those are can accumulate enough portraits of times and easy, pleasant jobs; I have done them both­ places, carefully chosen to stop the largest you need only to remember to talk with people lacunae in our ignorance, we might be able to when you can. Once students of ethnography, offer a compassionate, accurate alternative to oral tradition, and mute artifacts have estab­ the historian's account. Shreds and patches, to lished a new chronicle, then we can ask those be sure, but sewn as honestly as we can do it. who like to understand the past viasubliterature The other historical goal, universalizing and to provide us with anecdotes and cooperate with law tending, would direct us to use artifacts to us in the development of explanations for the develop increasingly better theories of human chronicle's patterning. thought and action in time. There is no end to We have a goal: recording the shifts in cogni­ the possible principled statements about pat­ tion over time in order to create an authentic terns of stasis and change, just as there is no end history. We have a study object: mute artifacts. to the sites waiting to be dug. Since the task is Our goals and objects are nicely related. It endless, it would be wise to consider which of might seem that all artifacts are of value and all the principles that could be built out of artifac­ sites are worth digging. That may be so, but tual evidence we most need to know. some artifacts and sites are of much greater Not all principles and laws are of equal value. importance than others, depending upon Interesting ones are more valuable than dull whether we choose to work at history in a par­ ones. Interesting ones that hold relevance for ticularistic or a universalistic manner. our comprehension of modern existence are The particularistic historians' purpose is im- more valuable than interesting ones which do 29 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

not. It is strange to be saying this, but many our goal-to our material will not, as intellec­ modern scholars think solvingany petty deduc­ tual history proves, just emerge. tive puzzle is worth their time. Just because Whatever our goals, we begin by studying things can be counted, does not mean they objects. One of the traits our disciplines share is, should be. Just because some idea can be though we are aware of institutions and cultures framed as a hypothesis, does not mean it should and periods, we tend to build up to them be tested. The conclusion that can be predicted through the careful examination of small with certainty is not worth study. things-sites and artifacts, contexts and Of greatest importance, I would say, are texts-rather than accepting large unknowns as studies which assist us in understanding the givens. We start modestly, precisely with real evolution of alienation. There are fewplaces on phenomena, with relatively autonomous study the globe that could not offer us valuable data, objects. though some times and places seem most cru­ Our theory, our mechanism of interpreta­ cial: northern France in the eleventh century, tion, must be constructed to order the discrete northern Italy in the fourteenth, the English things we start with, breaking them down to Midlands in the sixteenth, the west of Ireland in build them up into larger and larger systems. the nineteenth, the interior of Brazil in the These systems will be of two, interpenetrating twentieth. Turning to North America, I feel the sorts: one, formal and reductive, derived times most deserving of examination and con­ through analysis;one, signifyingand expansive, templation during our quest for self-knowing derived through analogy. Since the most fash­ are: the moment of initial European occupance ionable references for those who attempt such everywhere, when the land was broken; the work are to linguistics, it seems natural for us to period 1730-1765 along the Eastern seaboard, name these planes of the artifactual phenome­ when, it appears, the classic American syn­ non "syntax" and "semantics." Many who em­ drome of courageous intolerance was set; the ploy such comparisons do so only because they period 1900-1915 between the Alleghenies and are in vogue. Others feel that comparing their the Rockies, when we lost control of our des­ efforts with those of modern linguists will tinies. The above-ground artifacts I study genuinely power better thought. The reason suggest that other times were filled with adjust­ that linguistics, or, more broadly, the range of ing to, and exploring the implications of, the contemporary thinking subsumed by the label revolutions that took place then. structuralism, is fashionable and contains force Reversing from effect to plausible cause, I for anyone attempting to understand mind by think that the moments when a society shifts its arranging human expressions into systems is economic base should call the archaeologist (or that it isthe latest, clearest formulation of a long the ethnographer) to them. What happens tradition of Western thought on just that mat­ when capitalism comes and goes, anywhere, ter: how facts can be systematized, comprehen­ anytime? sibly and meaningfully. Suppose now we have developed an interest­ Whether we refer deeply into our philosophi­ ing historical question-particularistic or uni­ cal great tradition, or, more shallowly, to the versalistic-and selected a good site in which to structuralist program developed out of it, our explore or test our driving idea. Depending first theoretical problem is formal. The linguis­ upon the amount we already know, we can call tic research most useful for us (since we deal this idea a hypothesis or admit it is only an a with structures for which no meanings are obvi­ priori guide. Hypotheses too rapidly and trimly ous) is that of pure transformational syntax, the formed will nearly guarantee triviality. Guiding early hermetic models of Noam Chomsky, for notions left unexamined and unformulated will instance. Although it would have been difficult nearly guarantee futility. Suppose then we have to imagine without him, old formalistic or re­ recorded the site's artifacts and the multiplex cent phenomenological procedures might also empirical relations between them. The theo­ have suggested that our theory's first task is to retical tie that will bind our historical idea- provide a description of form in terms of the 30 Classie Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes relational rules required for its complete design. mon or fundamental. At the end of all this, we What the thing is-that is but a matter of mea­ have a processual theory of form-an account surement. It is a rock of a certain size and sort, of the composition of all the artifacts from the with a certain shape, a certain number of site to which our historical interests took us. notches. Nothing theoretical there. What And we are ready to go on to the next stage. theory needs to tell us is how the thing came to The theory's formal, analytic phase can be be. Not how it was made. But how it was complete. The next one cannot be. Cuided by thought. What were the rules in its designer's the suggestions of transformational gram­ mind? There is no way to prove or disprove the marians and axiomatic formalists we can create reality of these "rules." They are theoretical, an full theories of form. But there seems to be no attempt to state the unknown in a logical man­ way to account fully for meaning. ner. The best we can do is to write the rules into We Westerners are good at closed systems. a parsimonious, closed system, in which every The order science invents makes us happy. Dis­ rule is bound to every rule. The system is a order scares us. We try to escape reality by re­ theory of design, leading from simple, powerful ducing it to models, by closing the open pos­ essences-pure geometric images, in the case sibilities. Linguists have much more trouble of artifacts-to complex, real things. with semantics than syntax. Once formalized as Things have been surrendered to process. At competence, syntax becomes a closed system the end of the first phase in our performance of using finite means to produce infinite results. theory we will have not a chaotic collection of Semantics seems to be an open system. That objects nor a rationalistic shopping list of items may be a contradiction-"open system"-and -thesort of enumeration the old folkloristsand perhaps our very affection for systematics pre­ archaeologists produced-but a formal system. vents us from developing a good theory for A grammar perhaps. At least it will be a state­ meaning. But it does seem that just as the ar­ ment similar to the syntactic component in a tifact is the product of a structure of design, it is grammar interrelating all artifacts by means of a the vehicle for an orderly, if not exactly systema­ set of rules that account for the generation of tic, structure of analogy. This structure, this their forms. Near the top of this system, we will "open system," is the sort of mental construct have the artifactual types-complete structural Yeats called a phantasmagoria. It gives the ar­ abstractions of shape. Near its bottom will be tifact an infinite, but meaningful, referential the culture's formal essences. Between will run potential. a program of transformations, rules providing The philosophical tradition that makes it easy the procedures by which the essences may be to talk about the theory's initial analytic phase altered into types, the types into artifacts. makes it difficult to talk about itssecond referen­ This system of rules will provide us with a tial phase, but I have moved through both complete statement of all the similarities and phases while forcing dumb old houses to speak differences in a particular set of data. Instead of historically, and though the second phase is a few hundred things to study, we will have a difficult to outline methodically, it is not difficult hierarchical arrangement of thousands of facts. to do. It involves the discovery of relations and We have so little information from the past that regularities that obtain despite the rules, and we need to get as much as we can from each levels of rules, that heave thought from the scrap that has tumbled down to us. But the abstract toward the concrete. The formal information can get out of hand, so we must analysis obliged us to adhere to the syntagmatic arrange it. Every artifact is the product of the relations of the surface. Now we allow ourselves employment of a great many mental rules, but to rearrange reality, like a nonobjective painter each artifact willshare rules to a greater or lesser or a bricoleur, and join the sundered aspects of extent with others. The degree of sharedness form into paradigms. These paradigms may be allows us to create a single statement in which reducible to essences-complementary to the some rules or sets of rules, such as those requir­ formal essences-or they may be laterally or ing symmetry, will appear to be especially com- obliquely related into an endless stream of 31 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

metamorphosis, after the manner of Levi­ structures expressive of mind. The limits on Strauss. comparative endeavors are drawn only by will Claude Levi-Strauss is one of the few people and desire. The potential for correlation is in our academic neighborhood having the boundless. We need, then, to know what we courage to work on an open system. He is mis­ want to learn, and if we are sensitive to our data understood, dismissed as unrestrained. But and to ourselves we will know. In general, we meaning is no less real than form, it is just less willwish to learn the personality of a past people accessible to our reductive scientistic proce­ whose existence holds implications for our own, dures. He is working on a crucial matter as or we will wish to discover some temporal prin­ scientifically as possible. And he functions as ciples that will help us comprehend our exis­ the modern exemplar of the theory's second tence. stage, much as Chomsky did of the first, though The past is too important to leave to histo­ it is possible to find enough anticipation of his rians. The human reality is too important to work in old philosophical writings to suggest, leave to novelists. We are the guardians and again, that it might have been done without students of the objects which can provide mod­ him. He made it easier for us to approach the ern people with their best entrance to history. strangely ignored problem of meaning, but his And history is one of the best entrances to self mediated oppositions, endlessly flowing, are a awareness. We must be careful and introspec­ modernist's version of our old ally,the dialectic. tive as the recent theorists have taught us to be, To make sense of our site we needed only the but we would be fools to chain our brains in an artifacts and one additional fact: these things effort at artificial purity. Just because we adopt a were made by people. We needed no specula­ rigorous method and an openly stated, logically tive insights or ethnological analogies; all we did formulated theory does not mean we cannot was describe things as the result of an interplay become emotionally involved in our work; it between closed formal structures and open af­ does not mean we have to shy from poetic and fecting structures. Setting these structures of profound questions. Just because we wish to mind against human universals-matters like consider great human problems does not mean life and death, stranger and friend, hot and we cannot work with care and honesty. We can cold, tame and wild-we can arrive at a mean­ be serious, scientific scholars and still allow ingful structure of a past culture. We have done human beings their splendor and their stu­ what we can without referring outside of our pidity. In fact, we cannot be serious and scien­ site's confines. tific if we do not. We can stop there, butwe do not have to. Our The impure tradition we share, as ar­ conclusions-the data compressed into power­ chaeologists and folklorists, will enable us to ful statements-are available for a great variety free the people of the past from historiographic of comparative studies. There are other sites bondage, letting them live again truthfully. If which can be built into comparable models. we will only let it, our tradition will also enable There are documents and ethnological findings us to free ourselves from dogmatic, scholastic with which comparison can be made in order to inhibitions, so that we can pay constant atten­ improve our understanding of a particular tion to the reasons for our study, the objects we people or to aid in the development of generaliz­ study, and the theories we use to relate our goals ing statements. Our theory, that is, nicely ar­ and objects, in order to fulfill ourselves as ticulated our ultimate historical goals with our thinkers and human beings. original study objects. We share together the obligation to restore The only limits to the theory's application are history to humanity and reason to scholarship. drawn by the data itselfand the student's energy and wit. Despite their inherent weaknesses, ar­ Department ofFolklore and Folklife tifacts can be transformed into a multitude of University ofPennsylvania

32 Glassie Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes Bibliography Most of the intellectual debts I incurred while de­ CHOMSKY, NOAM veloping this paper are too broad or too deep to be 1957 Syntactic structures. [anua Linguarum 4. captured in scattered parenthetical citations. I list Mouton, The Hague. below the works that influenced me while I wroteand 1966 Cartesian linguistics: a chapter in the his­ the works I intended, now coyly, now brashly, to refer toryofrationalist thought. Harper and Row, you to. New York. 1970 Aspects of the theory of syntax. M. I. T. ARMSTRONG, ROBERT PLANT Press, Cambridge. 1971 The affecting presence: an essayin humanis­ DEETZ, JAMES tic anthropology. University ofIllinois Press, 1967 Invitation to archaeology. Natural History Urbana. Press, Garden City. ARTAUD, ANTONIN 1971 (Editor) Man's imprint from the past: read­ 1958 The theater and its double, translated by ings in the methods of archaeology. Little, Mary Caroline Richards. Grove Press, New Brown, Boston. York. DETHLEFSEN, EDWIN and JAMES DEETZ BARTHES, ROLAND 1966 Death's heads, cherubs, and willow trees: 1970 Elements of semiology, translated by Ann­ experimental archaeology in colonial ette Lavers and Colin Smith. Beacon Press, cemeteries. American Antiquity 31(4): Boston. 502-510. 1975 The pleasure of the text, translated by DORSON, RICHARD M. (Editor) Richard Miller. Hill and Wang, New York. 1972 Folklore and folk/ife: an introduction. Uni­ BIDNEY, DAVID versity of Chicago Press, Chicago. 1967 Theoretical anthropology. Schocken, New EVANS, E. ESTYN York. 1973 The personality ofIreland: habitat, heritage, BINFORD, SALLY R. and LEWIS R. (Editors) and history. Cambridge University Press, 1968 New perspectives in archaeology. Aldine, New York. Chicago. 1975 Archaeology and folklife. Bealoideas 39­ BIRDWHISTELL, RAY L. 41:127-139. 1970 Kinesics and context: essays on body motion FELD, STEVEN communication. Conduct and Communi­ 1974 Linguistic models in ethnomusicology. cation 2. University of Pennsylvania Press, Journal of the Society for Ethnomusicology Philadelphia. XVIII(2):197-217. BLOCH, MARC FERNANDEZ, JAMES 1953 The historian's craft, translated by Peter 1974 The mission of metaphor in expressive cul­ Putnam. Vintage Books, New York. ture. Current Anthropology 15(2):119-145. BOCHEN-SKI, J. M. FISCHER, JOHN L. 1968 The methods of contemporary thought, 1961 Art styles as cultural cognitive maps. Ameri­ translated by Peter Caws. Harper and Row, can Anthropologist 63(1): 79-93. New York. FONTANA, BERNARD L. BROWN, ROBERT 1965 On the meaning of historic sites archaeol­ 1963 Explanation 111 social science. Aldine, ogy. American Antiquity 31 (1):61-65. Chicago. 1968 Bottles, buckets, and horseshoes: the unre­ BURKE, KENNETH spectable in American archaeology. Key­ 1968 Languageas symbolicaction:essays on life, stone Folklore Quarterly XIII(3):l71-184. literature and method. University of 1973 The cultural dimensions ofpottery: ceram­ California Press, Berkeley. ics as social documents. In Ceramics in 1969 A grammar of motives. University of America, edited by Ian M. G. Quimby, pp. California Press, Berkeley. 1-13. University Press of Virginia for the 1973 The philosophy ofliterary form. University Henry Francis duPont Winterthur Mu­ of California Press, Berkeley. seum, Charlottesville. BUTTERFIELD, HERBERT FONTANA, BERNARD L. and J. CAMERON GREEN­ 1965 The Whig interpretation of history. W. W. LEAF, et al. Norton, New York. 1962 Johnny Ward's ranch: a study in historic CHANG, K. C. (Editor) archaeology. The Kiva 28(1-2):1-115. 1968 Settlement archaeology. National Press GLASSIE, HENRY Books, Palo Alto. 1969 Pattern in the material folk culture of the 33 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

eastern United States. Folklore and Folk­ KNIFFEN, FRED life 1. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965 Folk housing: key to diffusion. Annals ofthe Philadelphia. Association of American Geographers 1973 Structure and function, folklore and the ar­ 55(4):549-577. tifact. Semiotica VIII(4):313-351. KUHN, ThOMAS S. 1974 The variation of concepts in tradition: barn 1970 The structure of scientific revolutions. In­ building in Otsego County, New York. In ternational Encyclopedia of Unified Sci­ Man and cultural heritage: papers in honor ences 2(2). University of Chicago Press, of Fred Kniffen, edited by H. J. Walker and Chicago. G. Haag. Geoscience and Man V:I77­ W. LEVI-STRAUSS, CLAUDE 235. School of Geoscience, Louisiana State 1966 The savage mind. University of Chicago University, Baton Rouge. Press, Chicago. 1975a Folk housing in middle Virginia: a struc­ 1967 Structural anthropology, translated by tural analysis of historical artifacts. Uni­ Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest versity of Tennessee Press, Knoxville. Schoepf. Doubleday, Garden City. 1975b All silverand no brass: an Irish Christmas 1970a Tristes trooiques, translated by John Rus­ mumming. Indiana University Press, sel. Athenum, New York. Bloomington. 1970b The raw and the cooked, translated by John GOLDSTEIN, KENNETH S. and Doreen Weightman. Harper and Row, 1964 A guide for field workers in folklore. Folklore New York. Associates, Hatboro. LOWES, JOHN LIVINGSTON GREIMAS, A. JULIEN 1959 The road to Xanadu: a study in the waysof 1971 The interpretation of myth: theory and the imagination. Vintage Books,New York. practice. In Structural analysis of oral tradi­ tion, edited by Pierre Maranda and Elli MASLOW, ABRAHAM H. Kangas Maranda. Folklore and Folklife 3: 1969 The psychology ofscience: a reconnaissance. 81-121. University of Pennsylvania Press, Henry Regnery, Chicago. Philadelphia. MERRIAM, ALAN P. HALL, ROBERT A. JR. 1964 The anthropology of music. Northwestern 1972 Why a structural semantics is impossible. University Press, Evanston. Language Sciences 21:1-6. MERTON, ROBERT K. HANSEN, WILLIAM F. 1967 On theoretical sociology: fiveessays,old and 1972 The conference sequence: patterned narra­ new. Free Press, New York. tion and narrative inconsistency in the NORBERG-SCHULZ, CHRISTIAN Odyssey. Classical Studies 8. University of 1968 Intentions in architecture. M. I. T. Press, California Press, Berkeley. Cambridge. HARRIS, MARVIN PACE, DAVID 1971 The rise ofanthropological theory: a history 1975 An exercise in structural history: an analysis of theories ofculture. Thomas Y. Crowell, of the social criticisms of Claude Levi­ New York. Strauss. Soundings LVIII(2):182-199. HYMES, DELL PANOFSKY, ERWIN 1972 (Editor) Reinventing anthropology. Vintage 1957 Gothic architecture and scholasticism. Books, New York. World, New York. 1975 Foundations in sociolinguistics: an ethno­ graphic approach. Conduct and communi­ PAREDES, AMERICO and RiCHARD BAUMAN (Edi­ cation. University of Pennsylvania Press, tors) Philadelphia. 1971 Toward new perspectives in folklore, special issue of Journal American Folklore 84. JENKINS, 1. GERAINT of 1968 Post-Medieval archaeology and folklife PIAGET, JEAN studies. Post-Medieval Archaeology 2:1-9. 1970 Structuralism, translated by Chaninah KANDINSKY, WASSILY Maschler. Basic Books, New York. 1964 Concerning the spiritual in art, translated PIRSIG, ROBERT M. by Michael Sadlier. The Documents of 1975 Zen and the art ofmotorcyclemaintenance. Modern Art 5. George Wittenborn, New Bantam Books, New York. York. ROSSI,INO KING, ROBERT D. 1973 The unconscious in the anthropology of 1969 Historical linguistics and generative gram­ Levi-Strauss. American Anthropologist mar. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs. 75(1)20-48.

34 Glassie Archaeology and Folklore: Common Anxieties, Common Hopes

SARTRE, JEAN-PAUL of the Modem Language Association 1958 Being and nothingness: an essay on phe­ LXX1X(4): 357-365. nomenological ontology, translated by VANSINA, JAN Hazel E. Barnes. Methuen, London. 1965 Oral tradition: a study in historical 1963 Search for a method, translated by Hazel E. methodology, translated by H. M. Wright. Barnes. Vintage Books, New York. Aldine, Chicago. SEARLE, JOHN R. WILLIAMS, RAYMOND 1969 Speech acts: an essay in the philosophy of 1973 The country and the city. Oxford University language. Cambridge University Press, Press, New York. Cambridge. WINCH, PETER STENT, GUNTHER S. 1973 The idea ofa social science and its relation to 1975 Limits to the scientific understanding of philosophy. Routledge and Kegan Paul, man. Science 187(4181):1052-1057. London. ThOMAS, CHARLES YEATS, WILLIAM BUTLER 1960 Archaeology and folk-life studies. Gwerin 1966 A vision. Collier, New York. IIl(l):7-17. 1968 Essays and introductions. Collier, New ThOMPSON, STITH York. 1964 The challenge of folklore. Publications

35 In Praise of Archaeology: Le Projet du Garbage

William L. Rathje ~- i,./

This paper is dedicated to the University of lem after problem has been met with a material Arizona Garbage Project's officialhonorary mas­ solution. Technological innovation has been cot, Sesame Street's Oscar the Grouch. In fact, heaped upon technological innovation until LeProjetdu Garbage isbased on the premise that man is now completely enmeshed in a material Oscar, whose home is a trash can, knows more network of his own making. To study any aspect about the American Dream than he is telling. of man's behavior anywhere is to study his posi­ Neither the considerable problems nor the tion in that network. products directly useful to traditional ar­ This truism has rarely been taken seriously in chaeologists in garbage analysis are considered the study of modern behavioral systems. The in detail here. These are, or will be, available analysts and manipulators of our society are elsewhere. The point ofthis paper is simply that basically split between those who study what the Garbage Project and modern material cul­ people say they do and sometimes how they ture studies like it are not dead ends; they are a actually behave in controlled environments, new beginning for talents and expertise accrued and those who invent, study and modify mate­ from decades ofanalysis ofancient garbage. rial things. Too often when a problem involving the interaction between people and objects arises, the solutions followtwo separate courses: SINCE MAN FIRST MET THE PEBBLE TOOL, his one based on inventing or modifying things own creations have been his most important without careful consideration of related be­ means of coping with his environment. Prob- havior; the other based on attempts to describe 36 Rathje In Praise ofArchaeology: Le Proiet du Garbage and modify the ideas and actions of people Garbage Project significantly contributing to without much thought to the nature of as­ modern social studies can be summed up in an sociated objects. The two courses join to a de­ evaluation given by one large and prestigious gree in some product development and market funding foundation: research endeavors of private business. Neither The Foundation devotes its efforts to supporting can be effective alone, as can be seen in the sea social science research on problems in our society. of urban renewal disasters awash in our cities. I regret to inform you that the analysis of house­ An area where knowledge needs to be ac­ hold refuse does not fall within the scope of our crued in our society is at the point where current funding program. We support research only. theories of how people willact and how material culture will work give way to real events-ob­ Despite this kind of reaction, the student vol­ servable interactions between people and unteers and staff of the Garbage Project have things. Such a contribution does not seem to be remained convinced that archaeology can con­ forthcoming from modern social scientists who tribute to knowledge of our society. The pre­ often overlook material culture, perhaps be­ liminary project study of the effect of inflation cause they have too many people to talk to. It on food waste has strengthened thatconviction. may, however, be brought forth out of a disci­ The current spiraling cost of food for Ameri­ pline which derived from an interest in the relics can consumers requires a concerted effort to of the past. Archaeology, because of the histori­ evaluate practices which are wasteful of food cal accident that all the people it wants to study resources at the household level. Little is known are dead, has been forced into looking at mate­ about household level food discard in America rial things in the context of their relation to or anywhere else, although discarded food has behavior. Archaeologists have begun to dis­ been called the world's greatest unutilized food cover (see other papers in this symposium) that resource. If household food discard could be material culture is not merely a reflection of even partially salvaged, it would free food re­ human behavior; material culture is a part of sources with the potential of saving lives abroad human behavior. and dollars in rising prices for consumers at Can archaeologists, trained to study the in­ home. teraction of people and their material networks Too often Americans try to solve their prob­ in the past, contribute significantly to needed lems by concentrating all their efforts on the studies of our present society? development of new technological innovations. Archaeology pioneer Emil Haury likes to tell Alternative approaches, however, are needed to his audiences, "If you want to know what is supplement technological research. To get to really going on in a community, look at its gar­ the real roots of the problem of household level bage." The University of Arizona's Garbage resource discard, the social correlates of food Project has taken "Doc" Haury at his word to waste must be identified and studied in different provide one example of the way archaeologists contexts. This is not a simple task. can attempt to contribute new insights to the The limitations of traditional interview­ understanding of contemporary problems. In survey techniques present problems for gather­ addition to this goal, the Garbage Project, in the ing accurate data on household level food dis­ tradition of ethnoarchaeology, seeks to test the card behavior in the U.S. The concept of "food methods and theories of prehistorians in a famil­ waste" is fraught with moral implications. Few iar on-going society. To implement these goals, Americans like to admit that they unnecessarily for the past three years Le Projet du Garbage discard food, and mere participation in a study has been analyzing quantifiable refuse collected of waste behavior is sure to bias results. As a in household units in Tucson, Arizona to de­ consequence, only a few food discard studies scribe the social correlates of modern urban have been attempted. For example, in the late resource management (Rathje 1974; Rathje and 1950's the USDA undertook some small studies Hughes 1975). of household food discard using records of The general response to the possibility of the weighed food discard kept by volunteer respon-

37 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS dents (Adelson, et al. 1961: Adelson, et al. 1963). in individual activities as stress abates or as They utilized small nonrepresentative samples people successfully adapt to it and begin to and the authors noted that the behavior of the routinize their actions. respondents waschanged by participation in the Perhaps the most interesting conclusion of study. What is needed, then, is a means of es­ archaeological studies of reaction to stress in the timating food discard which is nonreactive, past isthat, in the long run, changes in behavior which does not affect the behavior of the sub­ which may be consciously aimed toward jects (Webb, et aI. 1966). homeostasis, or stabilizing past patterns, often The Garbage Project has developed a new end in changes which do the reverse and create approach to the study of food discard (Harrison, the unexpected (Flannery 1972; Gibson 1974; et al, 1975). For the past two years in Tucson, Lees 1974). Does the same irony of counter­ Arizona, the project has been recording the productive reactions hold true over the short quantifiable remnants of food consumption and term-for example, during changes in indi­ discard in household trash from sample census vidual behavior in the initial phases of stress? tracts stratified by U.S. census and other in­ This question has ramifications which are rele­ come and ethnicity data. The advantage of vant to the current level of food waste in analyzing household refuse is obvious. Inter­ America. view data are always subject to questions con­ A simple efficiency model of today's behavior cerning whether they represent what people do, would suggest that under economic stress, what they think they do, or what they want an people would discard less food. An alternate interviewer to think they do. In contrast, gar­ implication can be derived from the stress bage is the quantifiable result of what people hypotheses in archaeology. Variety can be de­ actually did. fined in this case in terms of the number of Now that the problem and method are out­ different kinds and quantities of items a family lined, the challenge becomes, not only to buys in a defined period. As people under the analyze a meaningful current behavioral situa­ economic stress of rapidly rising prices change tion, but to do it in the context of further pursu­ from "habits" which are no longer affordable to ing an archaeological concern which has a sig­ new and unfamiliar forms of purchasing be­ nificant time-depth. The concept of "stress" is a havior, variety may increase. This variety in common term in archaeology today and has household input is likely to create increased been applied to almost every situation of rela­ food discard. For example, new forms of bulk tively long-term, large-scale change. With food buying may lead to improper storage resulting discard data it may be possible to test its utility in spoilage and bulk discard. Unfamiliar foods on today's rapid economic and behavioral fluc­ and recipes may produce unfamiliar results and tuations. unfamiliar discards. This suggests that a first Archaeological models suggest that at the reaction to increases in economic stress will be level of a whole behavioral system, stress creates increased discard of food. Further, it may be changes in actions by selecting from all avail­ suggested that as stress levels off or abates, able patterns of behavior those which initially people will be able to routinize their successful meet new problems most effectively. On an in­ experiments or return to old patterns. As a re­ dividual level, since changes in behavior are sult, variety and food discard willbe diminished. required to adopt the successful patterns, ar­ The alternate efficiency and stress expecta­ chaeological stress models imply that variety tions can be tentatively tested with garbage will increase for most of the system's separable data. These data, in fact, can provide two inde­ constituents while the transition is occurring. pendent tests: one involving beef, the other Thus, it will be proposed here that at an indi­ using most other foods. This distinction can be vidual level there are two major phases in made on the basis of differential price rises as­ change due to stress: (l)heightened variety in sociated with these foods between 1973 and individual activities during initial stress, fol­ 1974. lowed in time by (2) generally decreased variety In the spring of 1973, when garbage food 38 Rathje . In Praise ofArchaeology: Le Projet du Garbage waste data were first being systematically re­ can be compared and changes over time ob­ corded, there was a highly publicized "beef­ served. crisis." Beef was in short supply and prices Food discard was classified into two seemed exorbitant. During the spring of 1974 categories: straight waste is a significant quan­ beef was easy to obtain and prices were only tity of an item (for example, a whole uncooked slightly higher. Thus, based on the "efficiency" steak, half a loaf of bread, half a can of fruit); expectation, beef waste should be low during hard-to-save plate scrapings represent edible 1973 and perhaps higher in 1974. The ar­ food in quantities of less than one ounce or chaeological stress model predicts the opposite: unidentifiable remains of cooked dishes. As­ high beefwaste during the 1973 shortage, lower suming that straight waste is easier to minimize waste during the 1974 glut. than are plate scrapings, a test of the alternate Most other food prices show the direct in­ models can be made in terms of rates of straight verse of beef prices, with a dramatic increase waste. The archaeology stress model, for ex­ between spring 1973 and spring 1974. Thus, in ample, expects that high waste should correlate relation to these commodities the expectations with initial* attempts to react to rising prices; would be exactly the opposite. An efficiency low waste should correlate, generally, with model would expect higher waste in 1973, a stable or decreasing prices; that there will be stress model higher waste in 1974. higher straight waste of beef in 1973 than in To evaluate these propositions, food input 1974; lower straight waste of other foods in 1973 and waste data were recorded from the refuse of than in 1974. 226 households collected from 18 census tracts The Division of Economic and Business Re­ largely during February through June in 1973 search at the University of Arizona reports that and 392 households collected from 19 census in Tucson the cost of putting food on the table tracts from February through June in 1974. was, on the average, 10%higher in the spring of Refuse from randomly selected households 1974than in the spring of 1973. Garbage Project within sample census tracts was picked up by data for the same time periods indicate that Tucson Sanitation Division Foremen and although total food discard remained fairly con­ labeled only by tract to protect anonymity. stant at around 9% of food input, the percent­ Analysis was conducted at the Sanitation Divi­ age of food discard as plate scrapings decreased sion Maintenance Yard by student volunteers as the percentage of discard in the form of under the supervision of a field director. Food straight waste climbed from 55%of food discard input data were derived from packaging and in 1973 to over 60% in 1974. In some census therefore did not include items like some fresh tracts straight waste jumped from around 50% vegetables which come in unmarked wrappers. of food discard to over 80%. Food discard was defined as food remains that It has been assumed here that straight waste would have once been edible and is recorded by may be more easily avoidable through con­ weight. No bone, separable fat, eggshells, peels, scious effort than is the type of food discard skins (except potato peels), rinds, tops, etc. are classifiedas plate scrapings. If this assumption is included in the category (Harrison, et al. 1974, correct, the trend toward increasing straight 1975). waste as a proportion of total food discard in Garbage disposals, meals eaten away from Garbage Project sample households represents home, feeding of leftover food to household a trend toward greater inefficiency in utilization pets, fireplaces, compost piles and recycling of of food resources, even during a period of in­ containers, all introduce biases into the data creasing food prices and economic stress. acquired from the trash can. However, these Waste levels of most foods follow this trend. biases all operate in one direction-they de­ For example, although fruit and vegetable crease the amountof refuse. Thus, garbage data prices were on an average of 18Y2% higher in the can confidently be interpreted as representing minimum levels of household food utilization 'The analysis of Iong-terrn trends in food waste will have and waste. On this basis, population segments to await more time depth in garbage analysis. 39 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS spring of 1974 than in the spring of 1973, straight open; however, many implications and further waste of fruits and vegetables did not decrease; questions can be drawn from the preliminary in fact, straight waste actually increased from Garbage Project results which tend to support 16h% of household input of fruits and vege­ archaeological stress models. tables to 18Y2% of household input. The overall Using 1970 U.S. census and other data, social household input of fresh fruits and vegetables correlates can be related to food waste at the decreased by 19% between the spring of 1973 census tract level. Straight waste proved high­ and the spring of 1974. Nevertheless, the cost of est, between 70% and 85% of food waste among fresh fruit and vegetable straight waste, based census tracts with no households, or under 20% on extrapolating from Garbage Project house­ of the households, below the poverty level. holds to Tucson's 110,000 households, was Straight waste was much lower, between 50% probably $73,000 higher in the spring of 1974 and 70% of food discard in census tracts where over the spring of 1973. over 20% of the households were below the The costs and straight waste of beef show poverty level. The 1973-1974 increase in almost the opposite trend of other foods. On the straight food waste was less dramatic in the cen­ average, beef prices were up only 5% in the sus tracts with many poor households, and, in spring of 1974 over prices in the spring of 1973. fact, in some of these tracts straight waste de­ In fact, during the month of April 1974, beef creased. One implication of this, from an ar­ prices were 3% lower than beef prices a year chaeological standpoint, is that for the low in­ earlier and in May they were almost identical. come census tracts, economic stress is nothing Asa result, it is somewhat surprising that in 1973 new and that few new purchasing and prepara­ weighed beef waste in sample households was tion endeavors result from increases in this type 9% of beef input; in 1974 it was only 3%. The of stress. waste of beef was, therefore, almost three times This leads to another important point. For higher in sampled households in 1973, during most census tracts, total evidence of household the shortage, than in 1974 during a time of a input of food is down in 1974 from 1973 levels. more plentiful beef supply. Using actual quan­ However, there were no significant changes in tities of wasted beefand extrapolating from our input patterns for census tracts with no poor sample households to Tucson, $762,000 less households. But there were changes for house­ beef was probably wasted in the spring of 1973 holds in census tracts where more than 20% of than in the spring of 1974. the households are below the poverty level. Thus, on the basis of Garbage Project data, Their input of high protein foods decreased straight waste seems to be, at least in the short dramatically (meat, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese, run, correlated with the direction of price and nuts), in some tracts by over 30%. Again the changes. Itmay be provisionally concluded that implication is that poorer neighborhoods, as prices go up for specificcommodities, straight where economic stress has been a constant fac­ waste for those commodities goes up; and as tor, can do little to adjust to increases, except to prices level off, waste levels off or decreases. cut down on expensive foods, like meat, fish or As neat as this conclusion seems, in any poultry. single-dimension study there are many mud­ As in other archaeological studies there are dling factors. For example, the decrease in beef always a few surprises. One was provided by a waste and an overall decrease in total food in­ cluster of census tracts in which 20% to 40% of take more than compensated financially for the the households are below the poverty level and increases in the straight waste of other items. As over 65% of the residents are Mexican­ a result, reactions to stress in food cost culmi­ Americans. Food input remained at 1973 levels nated in a decrease of more than $500,000 in the and straight waste decreased from 75% to 56% cost of straight waste in the spring of 1974 over of all food waste. This same census tract cluster the spring of 1973. The question of the mul­ also exhibited a larger input of total food per tivariate relation of beef and other food prices household than any other population segment, and the cost of waste to inflation still remains a finding which is not surprising because of a 40 Rathje In Praise ofArchaeology: Le Ptoiet du Garbage relatively large household size in this subgroup. 1975, the Garbage Project reached millions of Thus the population segment which is appar­ American households as the subject of a report ently becoming more efficient in terms of waste on the NBC NIGHTLY NEWS. The project has also behavior is also managing a proportionally large provided the data for consumer education ar­ share of the food resources. The specific impli­ ticles and notes in high-circulation magazines cations here are unclear, except to identify this like Harper's and McCall's and in more as an important group to study further. specialized publications like Consumerisms. Through this kind of analysis it might be pos­ Project results were even the subject of posters sible to identify behaviors, and their socio­ printed by the Stop and Shop grocery store cultural correlates, which result in more or less chain. Finally, the Garbage Project staff is efficiency of food utilization at the household scheduled in the future to testify before Senator level; such information would be valuable for McGovern's Senate Select Committee on Nu­ policyand program formulation and for a public trition and Human Needs. faced with spiraling prices. The goal of this paper is not to demand that Finally, just as a sidelight, a further correlate all archaeologists attempt to be relevant or con­ to stress can be mentioned. There was only one cerned with studying the relation between product whose consumption dramatically in­ modern material culture and behavior. Its only creased between 1973 and 1974. Alcoholic bev­ aim is to attempt to show what archaeologists erages in 1974 made up between 15% and 25%, can potentially extract from modern material by volume, of all the food and beverages con­ culture studies. sumed in sample households. It is interesting to First, modern material culture studies in on­ note that "efficient" tract clusters seem to im­ going societies can be used to test archaeologi­ bibe the most beer at home. cal theories and methods. Even though mate­ Although the above data and inferences are rials change, law-like propositions and most oversimplified and highly speculative, they lay other archaeological hypotheses should be as the groundwork for significant hypotheses testable today as in the past; the same should be which need rigorous testing, evaluation, and true of archaeological mehods in sampling and expansion in the future. This contribution is analysis. based on the fact that the Garbage Project has Second, modern material culture studies can succeeded, in a very preliminary form, in pro­ provide unique new perspectives into the na­ ducing the only quantifiable data available on ture of our own society which can make the some of the social correlates of food waste (Har­ techniques and theories of archaeology im­ rison, et al. 1974), and the relation of food waste mediately useful. to economic stress. However, for current prob­ For over a century archaeologists have been lems a project's success cannot just be measured pushing back the frontiers of time-depth in the by its proposed results, but has to be measured relation between behavior and material culture. also by the interest shown in the results by re­ In the past few years, early man specialists have sponsible social scientists and governmental stretched this interaction back to two million planners and by the distribution of the results to B.P. while historic archaeology and ethno­ the people who can learn about their behavior archaeology have made contributions to the from them. other end of the time frame. Now it ispossible to In the past year, the Garbage Project has re­ utilize an archaeological perspective to study ceived some interest from scholars and con­ the present as it unfolds, thus defining ar­ siderable publicity from the press, but much of chaeology as a discipline studying the relation that coverage was based on viewing garbage between people and their possessions at all analysis as an academic "freak of the week" times and in all places. exhibit. This image is an important asset for the The procurement, use or consumption, and project to draw attention to its real contribu­ discard of material things is as much a part of tions, and recently these contributions have human behavior as speech. Through the study been taken more seriously. On January 23, of these activities and their remnants, ar- 41 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS chaeologists can relate us to our ancestors in the tained the project through many dark hours. past and bridge the gap from the first tool­ This investigation was supported by Biomedical makers to our own garbage cans. Sciences Support Grant RR 07002 from the General Research Branch, Division of Re­ search Resources, Bureau of Health Man­ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS power Education, National Institutes of Without the encouragement and the re­ Health. Work is continuing through Grant sourcefulness of A. Richard Kassander (Univer­ AEN716371 from the RANN (Research Applied sity of Arizona Vice President for Research), to National Needs) Division of NSF, Program Raymond H. Thompson (Head, Department of for Advanced Environmental Research and Anthropology, University of Arizona), and Technology, and through grants from SCA Herman K. Bleibtreu (Dean of Liberal Arts, SERVICES, INC., CHEVRON OIL, GENERAL University of Arizona), this project could not MILLS, ALCOA ALUMINUM, HOFFMAN- LA have been attempted. Tom Price, Director of ROCHE, Mr. Thomas J. Watson, [r., and the Operations (City of Tucson), was the initial in­ University of Arizona College of Medicine. gredient in the successful cooperation between This paper is the product of the ideas and the University of Arizona and the City of Tuc­ criticisms of Wilson Hughes (Field Director), son; Sonny Valencia, Director of Sanitation, Frederick Gorman (Assistant Director), and and his staff and workmen have made the pro­ Gail Harrison (Project Nutritionist). ject work. The unflinching dedication of stu­ dent garbage guerillas, who slogged their way Department ofAnthropology through kitty litter and dinner slops has sus- University of Arizona

Bibliography ADELSON, S. F., E. Asp AND I. NOBLE tion. Journal of Nutritional Education 1961 Household records of foods used and dis­ 7(1):13-16. carded. Journal of the American Dietetic LEES, S. W. Association 39(6):578- 584. 1974 The state's use of irrigation in changing ADELSON, S. F., I. DELANEY, C. MILLER and I. peasant society. In Irrigation's impact on NOBLE society, edited by M. Gibson and T. Down­ 1963 Discard of edible food in households. Jour­ ing. Anthropological Papers, No. 25:123­ nal of Home Economics 55(8):633-638. 128. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. FLANNERY, K. V. RATHJE, W. L. 1968 The cultural evolution of civilization. An­ 1974 The garbage project: a new way oflooking at nual Review of Ecology and Systematics the problems of archaeology. Archaeologv 3:399-426. 27(4):236-241. GIBSON, M. RATHJE, W. L. and W. W. HUGHES 1974 Violation of fallow and engineered disaster 1975 The garbage project as a nonreactive ap­ in Mesopotamian civilization. In Irriga­ proach: garbage in ... garbage out? In tion's impact on society, edited by M. Gib­ Perspectives on attitude assessment: surveys son and T. Downing. Anthropological Pa­ and their alternatives, edited bv H. W. pers, No. 25:7-20. University of Arizona Sinaiko and L. A. Broedling. Mcwp

Mark P. Leone

ThIS ESSAY HAS ONLY ONE REAL AIM: to explain the essayisthese things it could also be called art the new temple, the Washington Temple, built history or architectural analysis or plain ethnog­ by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day raphy, but I am interested in calling it archaeol­ Saints (the Mormons) in Montgomery County, ogy because it allows me to highlight the role of Maryland, just over the state line from the Dis­ form-built, three dimensional form-in trict of Columbia. This is a peculiar and star­ human behavior. tling building seen by tens of millions of Ameri­ Every important newspaper on the East coast cans yearly and built by a church ever more has written pieces on the new temple. For the prominent on the American scene. The promi­ most part, these occurred in the fall of 1974but nence of the Mormon building and nothing else in the Washington area attention has focussed prompts this article. on the rising bulk of the new building towering I want to use a simple structural analysis to over the Beltway for several years. The building show how the pieces of the temple fit together is immense, is astonishingly visible, and atten­ and thus make sense. And while using a struc­ tion has, not by accident, been commensurate tural analysis, I would alsoliketo call this effort a with its growing size and visibility. While atten­ piece of historical archaeology: historical be­ tion has been high, understanding has been low cause the Mormons are literate, and archaeol­ and architectural reviews have treated it as they ogy because it attempts to treat a piece of mate­ would a new arts center, a new hotel-a refer­ rial culture in itswhole social context. Insofar as ence to the involvement of the Marriott hotel 43 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS family (Mormons) in the enterprise, or the most clear. The method for describing this pattern of recent architectural excresence to be parodied thought involves examining what Deetz and in the service of liberal and chic causes by Glassie in this volume call cognitive patterns; would-be equivalents of Tom Wolfe. There is what Erwin Panofsky refers to as symbolical no doubt that the temple is a fertile topic and values (1955:31); and it involves what most of us was meant to attract attention. There is no know directly from Levi-Strauss as structure. doubt either that it does not follow many of the Further this is what is meant by archaeologists canons of modern architecture. There is even as style. In addition to using structure or style to less doubt that what it is meant to say by its understand this building, I also want to use the builders is heard dimly if at all by its audience, actual patterns of the material the temple is insofar as that audience consists of non­ built of to see how it guides people's behavior Mormons. It would be nice, to say nothing of and, more effectively than words, communi­ comfortable, to say that the Mormons built the cates the essence of Mormonism. That neither temple and started a dialogue with an eastern visitor nor Mormon may articulate the temple's population, and then for us to follow the messages is beside the point; they are there just dialogue. Well, they did start one to be sure, but as is the light that carries the whiteness of the much of the opening rejoinder from the other elephant to the eyes of the deaf mute. side was uncomprehending abuse. But beyond I want to preface this analysis by citing its that, the dialogue is peculiar because the Mor­ predecessors. In a short and intriguing essay mons will wave but not talk; signal, but not which he recently published, James Deetz speak; and stun the eye but not the ear. Tourists (1974) talks about some of the key differences went through the temple without guides and that characterize the material culture of colo­ asked few questions of people who could give nial New England. His key distinction is be­ only indirect answers about temple uses which tween an early New England tradition which must, by oath, remain secret. For its side, atten­ was essentially medieval and a later one "show­ tive America usually sees the building in small ing the impact of the Renaissance in the form of intimate units as the family car goes by on a the Georgian tradition" (Deetz 1974:22). Using highway completely unaccompanied by iden­ material culture, Deetz differentiated between tifying signs. As a result of all this, the temple the Middle Ages in New England and the Re­ has begun a conversation with its viewers, naissance showing the first to be a mixture of all Mormon and non-Mormon, which is like that parts with each embedded in the other, and the between two deaf mutes over an elephant. They second to be characterized by bilateral sym­ both know the object is there but can not talk metry and the isolation of individual parts. about what it means for each other. Neither can Deetz's characterization of the medieval in New even be sure that the other knows the elephant England is particular and inductive. His charac­ is really white. terization of the Renaissance is more sweeping Why all the muteness? I think the answer to and structural, and illustrates better what he that lies in the nature of Mormonism, and it is and Glassie mean by a cognitive pattern. It ishis obviously that nature which is both more im­ insight into the Renaissance which illustrates portant than the temple and is reflected in it. how a vast amount of material can be organized Mormonism, a highly public missionizing reli­ to illustrate a key pattern of thought which in gion, is hardly silent, nonetheless in key and turn isfound in many facets of a whole culture. central ways it is silent. Above all else, it is its This isthe kind of analysis that some art histo­ capacity for silence, for not integrating all its rians, some architectural historians and some areas in public, for guarding its private worlds, cultural historians have been doing for some for letting gestures stand uninterpreted, and for time. It is not psychologising, but it is rather letting resultant ambiguities stand unaltered, impressionistic. It is quite empirical, although which is its key and central way of thinking. as with structuralism as a whole, difficult to Once this way of thinking is understood, the disprove and consequently difficult to test. Its meaning and muteness of the temple will be popularity demonstrates its utility insofar as 44 Leone . The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C. popularity demonstrates strength. I personally is, "repetition of form (rhyme as opposed to think that neither Glassie nor Deetz hace done meterl ) and verticalism," (Panofsky 1955:188) much more than an impressionistic job at this while that of the Renaissance is bilateral sym­ type of analysis and, in not consulting the metry. The Middle Ages separates neither indi­ sources they might have, have missed reaching vidual, nor function, nor time; the Renaissance a level of generality on the Middle Ages that invented the individual, distinguished the parts they did hit for the Renaissance. Certainly a key of society, and discovered history. In the Re­ figure in establishing the critical differences be­ naissance discovery of perspective, which is a tween the Middle Ages and the Renaissance is spatial as well as a temporal concept as Panofsky Erwin Panofsky, who in dealing with form, is has pointed out (1955:51) and as John Rowe has more precise, perceptive and general. In reported to anthropologists (1965:1-20), there is characterizing medieval form, Deetz talks of a a segmented view of the world which resides in "medieval assymetrical relationship between the relationship of man to man, man to space, individuals and their material culture ... the and man to time. Not only were these distinc­ food was not consumed from individual pieces tions not available to or discovered by the (dishes);communal containers seemed to be the Middle Ages, they, in addition, resulted in the rule." And, "when one walks into a pre­ Renaissance theory of proportions which was Georgian medieval-derived house, one walks used by Renaissance artists and, which, when into the whole seething range of activities from imposed on form, resulted in the appearance of childbearing to cooking, homecraft and sleep­ organically real images. The "real" was created ing, all happening in one hall" (Deetz 1974:23­ through the use of an illusion. The picture was 24). Compare this undeniably accurate descrip­ the illusion, the technique used to create the tion with Panofsky who, taking all of the above illusion was perspective, and the structure or and all medieval art in general says, "Those who style of the illusion was a particular form of like to interpret historical facts symbolically symmetry: bilateral, in which each side exhibits [Deetz and Glassie using Levi-Strauss would say a regular repeated pattern of the component cognitively] may recognize in [Renaissance art] parts. . . . a specifically 'modern' conception of the It was with perspective that the individual world which permits the subject to assert itself could be isolated from the group or mass; that against the object as something independent time could be segmented givingrise to one of its and equal; whereas classical antiquity did not as units, history; and space divided with some "ac­ yet permit the explicit formulation of this con­ curacy." All this is what bilateral symmetry trast; and whereas the Middle Ages believed the means. It is what is inherent in style or struc­ subject as wellas the object to be submerged in a ture, and what is revealed by a study of the higher unity" (Panofsky 1955:99). What Deetz effects of such a "cognitive pattern" on a cul­ saw for medieval style was the individual sub­ ture. merged in the mass, but what he did not see was The value of this kind of structural, icon­ that functions were completely absorbed in ological or stylistic analysis resides in the broad each other. The Renaissance in creating bilat­ applicability of the insight to masses of data eral symmetry did indeed create the individ­ from the era and culture. It obviously-linking ual-and separate dining plates as well as Panofsky's high art and Deetz plebian arti­ Deetz's famous separate chamber pots-but it facts-enfolds all material form within a so­ also isolated functions so that as Deetz says, ciety, but additionally can profitably be applied "When one walks into the door of a Georgian to forms like music, dance, theatre, forms of house, one sees doors. And when one walks social organization, and rather logically, myth. through those doors, one is very likely to see As archaeologists, we are clearly concerned even more doors before getting to the final ac­ with material culture and as such the light that tivity that is going on" (Deetz 1974:24). Deetz and Glassie are focussing on the disci­ So to clarify, but not to disagree with Deetz, pline with their work highlights the problem we the cognitive pattern or style of the Middle Ages have traditionally known as style. In linking up 45 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS with Levi-Strauss both Deetz and Glassie have, categories: (1) baptism, (2) a series of ritual rather inadvertently, both identified what style dramas unfolding the spiritual history of man is and shown us how to analyse it. Even though and during which participants receive endow­ the job is impressionistic and by Levi-Strauss' ments which are gifts from the Holy Ghost con­ canons of detailed work, undone, the benefits to cerning admission to and behavior in the most be drawn are intriguing, and since this essay too exalted sphere of the next life, and (3) sealing, deals with a literate group, to say nothing of a during which living and dead relatives are living one, it is useful to attempt just such an joined to each other for all eternity. effort. These ceremonies, which are available to any Mormon who meets the requirements for enter­ ThE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER­ ing the temple, are participated in by family DAY SAINTS has built eighteen temples from units and to bring families there often, a whole Switzerland to San Paulo, and Hawaii to New group of ward members (associates from a Zealand. For a Mormon the temple isas close to parish) willgo through the temple the same day, the other-worldly as he can come on earth. The although not necessarily through any or all of temple is God's residence rather more than the the ceremonies together. A temple like the new local chapel where he does most of his worship­ one in Washington will have a complex sched­ ping and all of his congregational meeting. A ule, and for all the Mormons it serves on the Mormon visitsa temple once a year as a kind of East coast, eastern Canada, and in the Carib­ norm, but may go everyday, or several times a bean, it will set aside several times during the year. He may also go much less frequently than year when specific wards should plan to send once a year. But he cannot be a good Mormon members. Since it takes several hours to go and avoid the temple. through all the temple rites and since a temple Mormons go through a series of rites in the may serve a population of a hundred thousand, temple which guarantee them and their rela­ these buildings often operate at night as well as tives, living and dead, the rewards the church during the day. promises in the next life. The ceremonies are Every temple has a president, a vast staff long and complex, take the nature of initiation which is made up of local volunteers who act as rites centering on the individual and his family, guides, instructors and workers in the temple and do not center on the group or congregation. performances. A temple like the one in Wash­ They are the most sacred and meaningful acts a ington has a cafeteria for workers, a laundry for Mormon can perform. the special garments required during the rites, After its dedication, a temple is permanently and a whole support staff to maintain self­ closed to all non-Mormons and any Mormon sufficiency while operating. who has not paid a full tithe or has broken the The design and layout of the new temple are Word of Wisdom, which forbids smoking, and remarkable. It rises well above the usual or con­ alcoholic as wellas caffeinated drinks. There are ventional in church architecture and provides other more general requirements about quality one of the keys to a literal as well as a symbolic of faith and so on. In addition, the temple rites understanding of the nature of the temple rites. are secret; Mormons generally do not discuss As opposed to the expectation of most laymen, them outside the temple itself. All this elevates the temple is not one vast open space for group the temple experience to one that is unique and worship like a cathedral. Rather it is composed highly unusual and makes the temple a place of of seven floors, six of which are broken up into total security, for in it the faithful Mormon is in many small ceremonial chambers. The top contact with both his deceased relatives and his floor, the seventh, is a single hall called the own future. Time stands still in this building; or Solemn Assembly Room; it is essentially an au­ better, it is compressed. Time is overcome. ditorium and is almost never used. It does not The series of ceremonies in the temple which figure in the temple rites and most Mormons insure spiritual well-being fall into three never visit it. Not all floors in the Washington

46 Leone . The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C.

Temple are designed the same way but several impact on the individual. Its purpose is not to of the ceremonially most important are divided create group unity or communitas. The temple into six pie-shaped rooms and are linked by a and its rites are about order; they create a con­ corridor running around them along the wall of tinuous line of relatives stretching back through the building. The temple's basic ground plan is the otherwise personally meaningless epochs of hexagonal and this plan is followed on some history and do this through vicarious baptism inside floors so that six more-or-less triangular for dead kinsmen, and through endowments rooms efficiently divide the space on a floor. and sealings projecting the family forward to These rooms do not seem to lead into each infinity. The temple guarantees order in history other, but let into the circumferential corridor and reduces the future to a function of acts which ties them all together. performed now. Since all the temple rites use The many floors are linked together by two kinship as the basis for organization, every par­ monumental staircases at either end of the ticipant is an ego and builds his world, to be sure building; these ascend through the two main a magical vision of one, accordingly. An indi­ towers at each extreme point of the temple. vidual does this only once for himself; all other Elevators also do the same job and next to each times he assumes the ego of a relative or even on the appropriate floor is a hexagonal map of someone else's relative. the floor you are on showing the numbered Mormons express this interplay between the ceremonial rooms with lights behind so the individual and the group-be it family or viewer can tell at a glance which are occupied by church-by using the image of a beehive. ongoing rites. One gets the impression when Joseph Smith initiated this symbolism, which going through the temple of a vast assemblage reached its culmination during the church's of rooms arranged in relation to each other in a Utah period in the nineteenth century. Deseret, way which is not at all readily apparent. I think the name for the Saintly kingdom, meant honey the best way to convey the effect is to say that bee in "Reformed Egyptian," according to the during the public tours in the fallof 1974maybe Prophet. The beehive with the motto "Indus­ a hundred people were admitted as a group try" became the visual image of the Territory of every twenty to thirty minutes, which meant Utah and later of the state. Brigham Young built that hundreds of people were roaming through his famous Beehive House, his officialresidence the building at their own pace at anyone time. with a big, carved beehive on the top of it. The Yet half-way through this self-guided tour it was beehive expressed the relationship of the indi­ difficult to see another person. The building is vidual to the ordered whole: the individual can so large and contains so many rooms it merely realize himself only through his place in the absorbs people. It was quite possible to be alone, whole. The symbolism is very old in this removed and peacefully at ease without seeing church, is conscious and recognized by all or being seen by another person. These are members, and has been elaborated at one time useful, if personal observations, because they or another before all Mormons. Consequently reflect the highly individual, and private nature it is neither an accident nor a particularly un­ of the experience Mormons have in this build­ conscious action that the new Washington ing. It is very much tailored to the self and the Temple is hexagonal, the basic geometric pat­ idiosyncratic. tern inside a beehive. Temples, like beehives, The individual goes through the temple for build and demonstrate order, and the individual himself and is often accompanied by rela­ who goes through one is shown order and is tives-husband, wife and children. Socially it is empowered to create the very order he wit­ a family experience in a very profound sense nesses. The beehive imagery allowsus to see the because the family ties are given eternal perma­ relationship between the individual and the nence in the temple, but spiritually and whole in Mormonism, a relationship far more psychologically Mormons talk about the experi­ emphatic, far more latent with atomism, and ence in deeply personal terms; it has its deepest sponsoring far more independence and

47 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS idiosyncracy than we usually see in Christian tal and unempirical are the highest things a churches. Although this will be clearer later, I living Mormon can experience. This ispuzzling have raised the imagery here to stress the point in the face of Mormon worldly success. Many that the temple insures order but does so for ego modern Christians, it can be argued, are quite as opposed to the group. successful in the world and believe in tran­ The order and certainty of the beehive are substantiation, the efficacy of prayer and the both emphasized and partially created by the reality of magic. Yet what the Mormon experi­ temple's location. To get to it one must use the ences in the temple is more personal, coherent, Beltway and go through the traffic of one of the more enveloping and, I would suggest, requires country's biggest, busiest, most depersonalizing a bigger leap of faith if only because it is so new and frightening highways. One Mormon, no and untraditional, so ungrounded in popular doubt speaking for many others, has com­ acceptance, and so all-encompassing. The mented on the "contrast between Washington temple rites are extravagantly systematic in traffic and the peace of the temple." It is "like what they encompass of a man's life. They are going to Heaven and coming back again." The supposed to effect one's life deeply, and rather order and certainty of the temple are high­ obviously do just that judging from what par­ lighted by the experience on the highway where ticipants say. These are unlike most Christian uncertainty, tension, the immediacy of possible rituals, and for that reason are more difficult to disorder, and the nearly total lack of contact compartmentalize out of existence. So the with, and concern for, fellow human beings are question is: How can Mormons negotiate being all bred. Consequently the temple is even more Mormon and being in the world simultane­ meaningful because it represents guaranteed ously. And the answer is: Success comes not surcease and because the Mormon can see a despite the peculiarity of the messages received truth which frees him from the mad world he in the temple, but because of them. And to go has just driven through and which must, in one step further, the messages about the next sending him back to that same world, leave him life obviously deal with something unempirical, changed and stronger. It does this by showing but the way those messages are delivered is very the Mormon his individual place within life and empirical and in fact forms the basis for what a beyond it, and does so by immersing him in Mormon takes from the temple in order to deal disorder as he approaches the building and by successfully with daily life. There is one general immersing him in order once he is in it. piece of information a Mormon takes from the So far this paper has been a description of the temple. This is the knowledge of his place as a temple and its purpose for Mormons. The only specific individual in the endless family. thread that should come through to this point is Recall the silence of the temple (Mormons that the temple is not a usual church building. cannot talk about it outside even with each Part of its unusualness arises from (1) its stress other, and must remain silent during the cere­ on the individual and his family, rather than the monies) and the emphasis on meditation and congregation and (2) the individual's relation­ reflection. Discussion in the temple is usually ship to order. How is order created? with a spouse or son or daughter. Individuals, The Mormon lives successfully both in the knowing they are closer to God here, sometimes world of outside chaos and the world of order have visions and revelations, something Mor­ within the church. We can assume he does so mons are entitled to concerning themselves and because, among other reasons, his temple ex­ their families. Ceremonies are small and culmi­ perience shows and instructs him how to. nate in securing one's own or a relative's place in Mormon successes in business, government, the family for the next life. The whole takes management, and finance are too well cele­ place in the multitudinous vastness of this very brated to need relating here. Mormons a~d broken up and isolating building. There is no Mormonism handle the real world very well on emphasis on what is going on for anyone else, their own terms. Since the temple rites partake anywhere else and, indeed, there is no real way of heaven ("eternal things"), the transcenden- to find out. The individual is alone (but never 48 Leone . The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C.

lonely) with his family and his thoughts. On to the internal compartmentalization of the these last he is encouraged to spend time, to building. They mark not a single unit, but a resolve issues and questions of deep concern so plurality of them. This does not mean by infer­ that he can receive illumination. There is no ence that Mormons have an ununified or in­ discussion and certainly no checking on either completely synthesized theology, but it does the questions or the answers taken away from mean that their method for arriving at unity is the ceremonies. Answers to personal questions far more diversified than standard Protestant derived from inspiration could no more be ques­ Christianity, and indeed since the six towers tioned than a man's right to pray for them. All stand for all Mormon men (who are simultane­ this is sponsored in the temple, and coincides ously all priests) vs, the single Protestant tower with much other Mormon speculating and which symbolizes unity offaith as defined by its theologizing at a personal level in Sunday theologians, what we do have in these pinnacles Schools and Sacrament Meetings (Leone 1974). is an index to the fact that theology is in the It is interesting here because of the high level of hands ofall adults and that faith is defined by all idiosyncratic interpretation guaranteed to Mormons. Thus the many towers indicate huge Mormons on spiritual matters. This level of per­ potential diversity of meaning within the sonal interpretation is prefaced in the ambiguity church as well as the individuality necessary to of the temple's identity as one approaches it, the bring that about. silence while one is in it, the isolation with one's Mormons have invented a very diffuse system thoughts, the aim of the ceremonies to secure in which each believer takes the Reformation one's past and future, and the highly fragment­ injunction that every man be his own priest and ing and atomizing nature of the building itself. moves a further step, namely, that he be his own Mormons usually expect to have a deeply per­ theologian as well. This is a complex theme that sonal, spiritual and moving experience in the can not be developed here except to say that temple. such a system of idiosyncratic meanings needs I would not argue that what Mormons do in careful sponsorship and equally careful control. establishing personalized meanings is different Its sponsorship comes in the many settings for in kind from what Americans do in general, but and prescriptions to discuss the meaning of the it is certainly different in degree. The difference faith in terms of everyday problems. It comes in can be summed up architecturally when the the way ego must be fitted into the whole in the profile of the six-spired temple is compared temple. Personal construction of meaning can against the stereotype of American churches: proliferate freely only if, in addition to its being the single spired unit. The unity, comprehen­ encouraged, it is not seen as being in conflict siveness, and singleness symbolized by the one eitherwith what other Mormons believe or with tower on the standard American Protestant other segments of itself. church is so obviously in contrast to the com­ The particularity of the temple and its many plex of pinnacles on the temple that the mean­ isolated chambers preface, in an architectural ing of this most public of Mormon images is sense, and help guarantee, in a deterministic deliberately highlighted. The towers do have sense, the particularity of beliefs which can be explicit iconographic significance insofar as found from Mormon to -Mormon. The they represent the two orders of the Mormon categories or compartments which exist in any priesthood, each of which has three internal one Mormon's world view and in which he subdivisions. This of course matches not only holds incompatible ideas apart from each other the six towers, but their grouping in two sets, are all liscensed here. Incompatible ideas stem with one set higher than the other thus match­ from any system which involves secret oaths, ing the relative importance of the two orders. private knowledge, ongoing revelations and vi­ Each set of three is also ordered in height thus sions from the beyond. It stems from believing in also matching the grades within the two priest­ Biblical literalism and ongoing revelation; from hood orders. Aside from marking the definite holding alleged racial attitudes and backing civil maleness of the building, the towers are a clue rights for all; from opposition to evolutionary 49 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS biology and believing in the evolution of know1­ categories, it isdifficultfor nearly everyone there to edge; from sponsoring sexual prudery while understand how objection to a Mormon religious frankly enjoying sex in private. This amounts to belief could be translated into rudeness to the B. Y. U. basketball team. In reaffirming that priest­ saying that Mormons like all believers must hood orders, which every male Mormon must juggle discrepancies and contradictions, but, hold in order to participate fully in the Church, unlike most other Christians, they must do it would remain closed to Negroes, the First Presi­ individual by individual without professional dency clearly stated not only that the matter was thinkers to invent syntheses from them. wholly within the category of religion but also that in the civil category the Church specifically The highly compartmentalized and much teaches that all of God's children should have commented on mode of thought that results equal constitutional rights. Furthermore, the from this is as much reflected in the temple as it University's president has pointed out, the Church is sponsored by the way the rituals and ap­ has nothing to do with arranging athletic events; paratus of the temple operate. The structural, and, furthermore, the coaches often say, some of the players are not even Mormons, and the athletic cognitive or stylistic principle behind all this is: field would obviously not be the place to argue close but mutually exclusive categories. As the politics or religion even if they were. Yet B.Y. U. medieval was form piled on form vertically, and basketball players can hardly appear anywhere the Renaissance was bilateral symmetry, so the without being hooted at as racists, and Stanford Mormon is real but unseen contradiction. Any University announced last fall (1970) that it would no longer meet B.Y.U. in athletic contests. Keep­ culture's mode of thought obviously must con­ ing the argument within its original category, Er­ sist of categories and oppositions, but it is how nest L. Wilkinson, the president of B.Y.u., called they are combined that gives rise to the differ­ Stanford's action 'flagrant religious discrimination' ences between groups. And beyond that, for (Trillin 1970:120). many cultures, categories do touch and overlap Mormon categories are exceptional in two as was the case in the Middle Ages (recall ways. They are often, as with the quote, at Deetz's medieval house) and may even be con­ variance with and contradictory to the catego­ sidered well-integrated as was the case with the ries of the surrounding, dominant society. Renaissance. (The well-known idea of the Ren­ Furthermore, they are, in a system which de­ aissance man expressed just such integration.) pends on revelation for its logic, frequently at Such integration either does not exist for Mor­ odds with themselves. This does not make the mons or, if it does, happens in a rather un­ system unique, in fact it probably accounts for usual way. its considerable strength, but it does make the Not only do Mormons live in a world of position of any individual Mormon more sensi­ categories, but those categories are of a distinct tive to the cognitive adjustments the world de­ type. Not to be too esoteric or too removed mands than ordinary Americans have to be. about it, consider the following quote. After all, we as average natives in the dominant society are not forced at every turn to compare Most Americans believe that a moral issue can be our notions to those of some superior power. contained within a category, and they often find themselves astonished or irritated by those Ameri­ Further, there are masses of clever people cans who do not. A lot of University trustees can't whose job it is to juggle for us any discrepancy imagine whystudents who are receiving a perfectly into the proper shape when it appears. What we peaceful liberal education should concern them­ as average Americans face the Mormon must selves with the fact some other department of the do individually. He is very good at it, is given a same institution happens to do research for the Department of Defense. Most Americans do not lot of practice, and in the temple rites is shown hold a Rockefeller in New York accountable for how to hold the world together. what kind of regime his family'sbank helps support What clashing categories do Mormons bring in South Africa. But a lot of black people and to the temple? Mormons are encouraged to young people insist on considering everything bring their problems to the temple, and some do connected. Because Brigham Young University, which is operated by the Mormon Church, hap­ visit the temple during times of personal crisis. pens to be one of the few places in the country All do expect deeply personal and integrating where even the students believe in the sanctity of experiences there. There are other expectations 50 Leone The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C. as well. Originally, of course, Mormons ex­ rejects them and describes himselfas waiting for pected the millennium momentarily and to some God to enlighten him truly. This isa fragment of extent they stilldo. The crisis of that non-event the drama which is followed by more conversa­ as well as of continuing persecution are also tion between the protagonists who are basically brought to the temple. So, to some extent one God and the Devil. The audience is represented comes to the temple with something on one's by and asked to identify with Adam, one who mind. Consider then the pressures the ordinary waits, seeks and is fulfilled. This particular part Mormon is under in his day-to-day life, pres­ of the ritual drama enunciates the dilemma sures no more acute than those arising from facing every Mormon: how to believe what he having to make sense of the world within a knows to be true while the majority of people he religion which is most public about its most is surrounded by in daily life remains steadfastly spectacular differences with America (formerly indifferent, to say nothing of opposed. How to polygamy, now the place of the black), and then remain faithful and different? match these against what actually happens in Later in the ceremonies just before entering the sacred ceremonies. the final or Celestial Room the individual Mor­ The following is a general account of the mon approaches the veil separating it from the ceremonies drawn from several sources. Terrestrial Room and is actually interviewed by The core of the rites involve a ritual drama. The the Lord and shakes hands with him. The par­ creation of the world and the 'Fall' of man in the ticipant whispers his secret temple name into Garden of Eden, respectively. In the 'World Room' the Lord's ear and presents the various signs of Satan's preachers are ridiculed as they present the priesthoods which were bestowed during their devilish opinions ... (then) there is a recog­ the immediately preceding rites. He then nition of the restoration of the 'gospel' to earth through the Prophet Joseph Smith. The culmina­ crosses the veil, joins the Lord and enters tion ... occurs in the 'Celestial Room' ('heaven') heaven in the Celestial or Glory Room. To re­ which is entered through a sacred veil from the call a phrase used earlier from a Mormon who 'Terrestial Room.' This veil is the ultimate link, or had been through the temple, "It's like going to alternately the boundary, between heaven and Heaven, and coming back again." Mormons earth. The ritual [which is roughly three hours long] concludes with the 'sealing' ceremonies clearly know they have neither talked to God which join husbands and wives or parents and personally nor been in heaven, but they talk as children for 'time' and for 'eternity.' The rites may though they have experienced something quite be participated in for the living (oneself) or for the real, not a set of elaborate metaphors. What dead, in which case the individual serves as 'proxy' does the drama mean? How does it highlight ego for a particular dead ancestor or friend. At appro­ priate stages throughout the rites the various 'de­ and his place in the eternal family? And what grees' of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods does it do to allowa Mormon to live successfully are conferred upon the participants, who recite and happily in a world so at odds with his reli­ oaths under specific penalties of bodily harm that gion? will befall the unfaithful (Dolgin 1974:536). I think the place to seek an answer is in Levi­ The ritual drama which individuals watch is Strauss' analysis of myth in The Effectivenessof played out by temple functionaries who portray Symbols (1963:186-205). Adam, Eve, Lucifer, Jehovah, Elohim, the Levi-Strauss tells how a woman undergoing Lord and various apostles. Elohim is God the difficultchildbirth was treated by a shaman who Father, Jehovah is Christ, and Lord, another told her a myth of a gigantic struggle, a telling word for God the Father. In the dialogue be­ which eased and delivered the birth. Levi­ tween these heavenly persons the key ceremo­ Strauss likens the relationship between the nial acts are setout (Whalen 1964:177-179). The pregnant woman and the shaman to that be­ dialogue between them is a set script, and is tween a patient and a psychoanalyst. The sha­ both modern and compelling. In the dialogue man invites the woman to be absorbed in the Adam, who represents man, listens to a typified myth, to experience the genuinely intense but Protestant preacher expound his views at abnormal pain she is feeling, pain which the Lucifer's urging. Adam finds the viewswanting, shaman tells her is part of the struggle of the 51 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS supernaturals elaborated in the myth. Byallow­ the church and an end to its persecution, the ing the woman to come to terms with, and to latter being something Mormons still dwell on fully experience the pain, tension and con­ and from time to time genuinely experience. tradiction of her situation, the shaman eases the That they may invite it unawares may indicate birth. By listening to the myth of violent and how essential that persecution is to maintaining gargantuan struggle, a struggle which, accord­ millennial expectations. ing to the myth, is being played out in her loins The effectiveness of reciting a myth about a right now, the woman can give free develop­ blissful future to a congregation disappointed in ment to the conflicts and resistances inherent in its millennial hopes has been pointed outby John her situation and can do so in a way allowing for Gager (1975:43- 57) in an illuminating analysis their resolution. Levi-Strauss suggests that all of that rather obscure text, the Book ofRevela­ this is effective even though the role of speaker tion, St. John's Apocalypse. The telling of the is reversed, with the therapist talking and the myth about the millennium to a group who ex­ patient listening. pects it immediately allows the group, in Levi­ There are three elements involved in this Strauss' use of Freud, to experience directly and analysis: (1) the individual who is experiencing thus to resolve the conflicts between the prom­ some troublesome conflict, (2) the recitation to ised coming and its non-fulfillment, and be­ this involved audience of a conflict of transcen­ tween continued persecution and unarrived dent importance which isbeing played out right bliss. now inside him or her, and (3) a transference Consider then what is going on for the Mor­ relationship between listener and speaker. mon in the temple. He brings expectations of Reflecting back now on the temple rites, re­ profound experience and sometimes specific call that Mormons enter the temple under two problems to be solved. Narrated before him by simultaneous conditions. They come there ex­ supernatural personages is the whole of human pecting a deeply moving experience, one which history comprising the creation, fall and re­ ispersonal and fulfilling. Any Mormon entering demption of man. At one point there is actually the temple will also face two other problems; verbal and physical contact with God himself these being his general reason for doing temple and then God actually invites the purified to work. He faces the problem, as does his whole enter and experience heaven. Throughout the church, of redeeming all those generations of narrations people are listening to Adam, God mankind who lived before the "restoration of the Father and Christ talk, not as read by a the Gospel," i.e. before the advent of Mor­ reader out of the Gospels, butby people playing monism. This problem is double faceted: why the heavenly beings. And for additional emo­ was the church founded so late in time? and tional impact the audience overhears private, why were previous generations excluded from off-stage conversations between God, Christ, it?This isa problem about how to viewthe past. Peter and others making plans to redeem man The second paradox which every Mormon based on his worthy performance. Ifhe believes faces just because he is a Mormon and inciden­ what he is hearing, the Mormon is hearing a tally because he is a Christian as well, is the level of reality not present even in Revelations. non-event of the promised millennium. The The contradictions in the past and the future Prophet Joseph unambiguously promised the are overcome, and so consequently is time. Second Coming before the generation to whom Time is held stilland all the paradoxes arising as he was speaking passed away. Mormons are al­ a result of the way time does indeed pass are lowed very free personal rein in suggesting faced and resolved in the temple experience when Christ will return to earth and many ex­ which is along, fully participatory, emotionally pect to see him in their lifetime. Nonetheless profound recitation and enactment of the an­ Christ has not come and Joseph's generation swers to life's basic questions. has passed away. That problem is doubly poig­ I have suggested two sets of problems any nant because the Second Coming would estab­ Mormon faces when going through the temple: lish a blissthat would show both the triumph of the problem of the past and future on one hand 52 Leone . The New Mannon Temple in Washington, D.C.

and, on the other, specific problems which we temple. The individual has time to meditate, suppose derive from experiencing the arbitrari­ pray, may and often does have visions, receives ness and incoherence of the world, especially as personal revelations, and from what we may it conflicts with Mormonism. The degree to judge from modern Mormons and from the which this consciously presses on a Mormon ecstatic experiences commonly attributed to mustvary a great deal and it isquite possible that temple work in Joseph's and Brigham's lifetimes, most Mormons enter the temple without may enjoy other altered states of consciousness specific awareness of any strong problem in par­ as well. I think we may assume that the union of ticular. Nonetheless every Mormon is aware of the general and specific problems encountered the fact that he isdifferent from all other Ameri­ in the temple helps heighten the experience a cans, and that those differences, while central Mormon has there since he can understand the to his religion and well being, are peculiar and general problems via his own specifics and his often invite persecution. The Mormon then own problems in terms of the solution to the goes through an emotionally compelling ritual general ones. Each is essential to working out which narrates his basic fears, rejection by his the other. Father, a consequently chaotic world, the tre­ The temple context is one of several where a mendous power of the world's temptations, the Mormon can work out the paradoxes created by great fear that he cannot remain steadfastly and resolved through the way he sees the world. separate against them, and the horrendous Here he overcomes time to experience both punishments awaiting him outside the faith. He past and future, and overcomes space to experi­ is treated to reunion with his dead relatives, ence spirit persons dwelling in another world. permanent union into the next life with his By experiencing such a melting of categories closest kin;he enjoys the sight of God and enters into each other the Mormon can tolerate the what can only be regarded as a foretaste of eter­ incoherence and arbitrariness he lives with nal bliss. A whole set of the profoundest crises daily. His own mode of thought seems to be to are faced for what they are, with their full impli­ hold onto incommensurable notions, notions cations for all to see. which are all quite essential to existence. The The Mormon comes to the temple as a separation, although part of living a good Mor­ member of a family unit. Even if he goes mon life, creates a tension which is resolved through it alone, he is working for his dead through the temple rites. The resolution can be relatives, and ultimately willenter the Celestial only temporary since Mormons cannot change Room paired with a Mormon woman, which the world or their place in it. Both their place in means that one enjoys the fullest level of it, a subordinate one given their status as a heavenly bliss only in conjunction with one's religious and economic minority, and the suc­ family. Only through her husband can a woman cess they have made in exploiting their position, enjoy this ultimate exaltation and only with a exert some pressure to maintain things as they wife can a man. The unit is not bigger than the are. Since Mormons are very American and family and, although the family is in theory very Mormon, and since to be Mormon is to be inclusive of all mankind, emphasis is on the both suspicious of America and to be ultra­ nuclear family. And given the nature of kinship, American, any Mormon may love his society ties are always calculated from ego, or the indi­ and be in rebellion against it at the same time. vidual, which means that while the family uni­ He is perforce divided and lives in society and fies, kinship ultimately atomizes. Each person is apart from it; he must live in and think about given a secret temple name and uses it to iden­ very close but quite exclusive categories. And if tify himself to the god-impersonator. This level the categories are not maintained, his distinct­ of individuality which must be seen as impor­ ness is eliminated and his identity along with it; tant in allowing a Mormon to solve his indi­ also lost would be his ability to adjust to the vidual problems, to resolve his own paradoxes, demands of being a member of a minority, in to address what is peculiarly incoherent and short, his way of earning a living. arbitrary in his own life, isgiven free reign in the Now reflecting back on the temple we can see 53 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS that the experience connected with it keeps a Catholic Shrine was begun early in this century man a whole individual by helping him resolve and isstill being decorated, and that, as opposed the tensions of being Mormon, which in turn to this, the Washington Temple was begun in allows him to continue using the same conflict­ 1971 and completely finished in three years. ing categories that come from daily life, The National Cathedral is a Gothic building categories which make his participation in it which has been built using only material appro­ possible in the firstplace. Allthis categorization, priate to the style;there is no steel or reinforced the very close but exclusive categories are seen concrete in it. The Catholic Shrine is a Byzan­ in the physical aspect of the temple: the com­ tine building also employing technology which partments, the floors, the lockers, the lighted is thought to be appropriate to the style. The maps showing which of the many rooms are in Mormon temple is completely modern. Stylisti­ use, the multitude of towers and the silence. All cally it is closest to the Kennedy Center for the this planning can now be understood in terms of Performing Arts and technologically it is as the general structural or cognitive principle that modern as the Mormons could make it. It con­ informs Mormonism; close but mutually exclu­ tains 16,000 tons of reinforced concrete. sive categories. The temple isolates the indi­ The National Cathedral and Catholic Shrine vidual, resolves that isolation, but does so only were continually plagued with financial to plunge the individual back into it again when troubles. The Mormons raised at least two mil­ the ceremonies are over. So unlike psycho­ lion dollars more among themselves than they therapy and Levi-Strauss' childbirth myth, but needed to pay for the building. rather likeGager's analysis of the function of St. The Cathedral, the Shrine, and the Temple John's Book of Revelation to its first century are all tourist attractions. They are all set in listeners, the tension is resolved but not elimi­ parks, welcome the general public, have tours nated: the future cannot be realized but merely and were all consciously constructed to attract assured, or perhaps glimpsed. both the faithful and the curious. In short, they To step back now outside the Mormon world all use themselves as missionizing devices. But and to reflect on the ambiguous dialogue the except for the sixweeks when it was open to the temple sets up with its isolated viewers, I would general public before its dedication, the interior like to explore how the building and the way it is of the Mormon temple is closed to all but treated maintains the same basic structural rela­ worthy Mormons. You can walk around it, but tionship in its silent conversation with the out­ there is no entry. side world. What can be seen when the Washington The new temple can be isolated by creating a Temple is compared to Utah temples? The series of oppositions. The Washington Temple, Washington Temple is the only one east of the actually located twenty to thirty minutes from Mississippi, aside from two in Europe. Since downtown Washington, can be seen against the most Mormon temples are in the Great Basin, other national religious monuments in the they are also incidentally in deserts; succulent Washington area. It can be compared with the deserts to be sure, but semi-arid deserts National Cathedral which is Episcopal, and the nonetheless. The Washington Temple sits on a National Shrine which is Catholic. There are lush green Maryland hillside with no other obviously many others, but comparison with buildings in sight-just green woodland. Utah these two willmake the point. The Washington temples are always in towns. The Washington Temple can also be seen against the other Temple is on a hillside overlooking the Beltway, Mormon temples, mostly against those in the Route 495, that carries millions of cars annually Great Basin of the western United States. past it on the way north and south around When we compare the new temple with the Washington. The temple is, however, isolated other national religious buildings in Washing­ and is not part of any visible community; it is ton we learn that the National Cathedral was nonetheless the most visible thing on the begun in the 1880s and is not going to be beltway. finished for more than another decade, that the All Mormon temples are surrounded by lush 54 Leone The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C. gardens; the garden around the temple in Wash­ capable of quite un-American behavior. The ington is very attenuated. All Utah temples are temple is becoming a peculiar building. It is rectangular; the Washington Temple is hexa­ even more so when the passer-by realizes that gonal. Utah temples have one or two towers he thinks of Mormonism as a small religion that are uncrowned with any symbol. The Salt somewhere in the West. And then remembers Lake Temple has sixtowers the highest of which that the death of God was proclaimed almost a is topped with an angel blowing a trumpet. The decade ago. Yet, paradoxically here is a religion Washington Temple, consciously copying the healthy enough to build a $15,000,000building Salt Lake Temple in this respect, has sixtowers, right under his very nose. These are the obvious three at either end, and the highest tower has an puzzles to be read out of a non-Mormon viewof angel blowing a trumpet on top. the Washington Temple. So the Mormons have built a temple which For Mormons this temple is the visible sym­ quite consciously is not in a desert, not in a bol of their arrival on the East coast, of their town, and does not have a real garden. It mir­ success in the center of power. All of the visi­ rors their major visual symbols:the beehive, the bility, money, and speed in construction the Salt Lake Temple towers, the trumpeting angel, temple signals are deliberate messages the and sits on a bluffoverlooking the passing world. Mormons want to give. They are coming to It is also the biggest and most expensive temple national power and prominence; they are very of the eighteen the Mormons have built. rich, very well-organized and disciplined. The All we can conclude so far is that the Wash­ temple, as one Mormon said, "is built to last." It ington Temple is a very unusual national is also built to correct-better to change-the church and a very unusual Mormon temple. national stereotype used to characterize Mor­ What are the Mormons trying to accomplish mons. Not only does the temple obviously with this building? Consider the millions who demonstrate that the church is alive, well, big, drive by it on the beltway. And the 800,000 rich, and powerful, more to the point for Mor­ people who toured it in the six weeks between mons, it says Mormons are growing, rich, and early September and mid-October 1974. But powerful in the heart of the East. consider also that for most people who willever Further it says they are Christians. The ques­ see it, the building must remain a mystery; they tion most frequently asked of someone knowl­ can never get in. The temple begins to look like edgeable about Mormons is, ''Are they Chris­ a prominent paradox. It is astonishingly visible; tian? Do they believe in Christ?" The answer is it glitters and dazzles above the highway with its so unambiguously yes-the name of the reli­ gold towers and white marble walls. And yet it is gion is after all The Church of Jesus Christ of ultimately remote. Its style is an easily recogniz­ Latter-day Saints-that it is the question, not able mixture of contemporary, Edward Durell the answer, that merits attention. Mormons, Stone, art nouveau, Disney World, and a touch like all minorities, live under a stereotype which of Gothic. It is a workable pastiche of the ar­ is both imposed on them and, like all chitectural cliches of the late 1960s and early stereotypes, effective because it isbelieved in by 1970s. In short, it is a familiar building, and a those on whom it is placed. Mormons question very American building. But it belongs to a themselves because they have begun to believe group of people whom every viewer knows used they are what others say about them. Mormons to be polygamous and who are today, depending recognize that they are widely regarded as on the viewer's outlook, blatantly racist, suffer­ non-Christian and they attempt to correct that ing from the Negro problem, or simply honest misimpression, to destroy that part of the about their racial preferences. Now neither stereotype which limits some of their freedom, polygamy nor exclusion of blacks is very Ameri­ by prominently displaying large pictures or can. And so we have added to the paradox of statues of Christ in the temple precincts. high visibility but no accessibility, the paradox Mormons also know they are easily labelled of an easily identified American building built peculiar and even un-American. As with the by a group who have been and continue to be Salt Lake Temple and many others, the main 55 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS approach has a huge American flag flying in mon ideology, what can be read into the front of the towers of the temple. These towers building. were once the visible symbol of all that was The Washington Temple is a political move loudly anti-American within Mormonism, and designed to challenge and change national con­ the viewer can now see them only within the ceptions about Mormons. It is also a device for context of the national flag. This display is making Mormonism into a national religion. meant to tell the viewer that this church is loyal When seen as such wecan also see why it issuch to America, and hints at the depths of its Ameri­ an unusual national church, and such an un­ can character. usual Mormon temple. In being the biggestand Using rather obvious devices like the most expensive, as well as the most prominent stereotyped portrayals of Christ, American flags temple Mormons have ever built, they an­ and the purest American building styles, Mor­ nounce their shift to the east, outof the western mons attack two of the most common mistakes desert. The temple announces Mormon politi­ used to isolate them as a minority group. The cal ambitions both to the non-Mormon world temple proclaims them to be both Christian and and to themselves. In this sense the Mormons American and attempts to change the have built neither a challenge to national stereotype. churches, nor just another Mormon temple; With data of this sort we begin to see that we they have built a challenge to the national capi­ are not looking at just a religious building, we tal. And insofar as we see this ideological artifact are looking at a political one as well. And once as a political building in theological guise, we we see that, a whole volume of material comes can begin to fathom its deeper purpose. The into play. Mormons regard their church "as temple is a very real and quite concrete chal­ true," that is founded by Christ using his lenge to the present conception of things in the Prophet Joseph Smith, [r.; they believe the Sec­ United States, as the Mormons think they per­ ond Coming will take place in America, and ceive them. more precisely in Independence, Missouri, It is one thing to announce a challenge to a which wasalso the scene of the Garden of Eden; dominant worldview,and quite another to bring they hold the United States Constitution to be it about. But by building a carefully conceived divinely inspired, and if it is not a revealed and executed monument to hasten desired po­ document likethe Bible, it isthe next thing to it. litical changes the Mormons are acting in a very They feel the Second Coming is imminent and old and successful tradition. Every utopian that it will be preceded by the decay and fall of group, including Mormons in the nineteenth earthly governments-including our own. We century, set out to modify behavior by modify­ need not dwell on the accuracy of that predic­ ing the physical environment the believers lived tion, just on the potential use a millennial reli­ in (Kanter 1972:74-126; Leone 1972: 125-150). gion can make of it. Mormons feel that in the The construction of a physical setting whose days just before the destruction of the world and form was both to enable and enforce desired the Second Coming, they, and more accurately behavior and attitudes is behind the sacred their priesthood-whose orders are represented technology found in almost every American in the six towers on the temple-will save the utopia, and indeed in almost every utopia in the Constitution by holding the reigns of govern­ western world. That this nineteenth century ment after massive evil has corrupted the nor­ tradition, which was a conscious part of Mor­ mal run of office-holders. Seen in this light the monism, should be expressed in its most recent temple now becomes not just a political state­ temple comes, then, as no surprise. ment, it has become the active launching site However, more than a utopian tradition of for political millennialism. This is part of the behavior modification through technological political ideologyexpressed in theological terms determinism is involved here. Anyone who has that is represented in this temple. It is what can ever walked through St. Peter's in the Vatican be read out of the building, and knowing Mor- understands the principle that the prestige that

56 Leone . The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C. a religious hierarchy wants to achieve can be quired fifteen million dollars for the new brought about by building a monumentto itself. temple. This gift was met with a response from St. Peter's was begun with the return of the eastern Mormons who raised six million as op­ papacy to Rome after the Babylonian Captivity posed to the four Salt Lake stipulated. This has in Avignon. It was a low point in the papacy's two meanings it seems to me. The first is spon­ power and prestige and coincided with the an­ taneous gratitude at being included in the ranks nouncement of plans to rebuild St. Peter's. The of normal (having a temple readily available) plan of course, even though not fully completed Mormons. Second, the response gives part of for two centuries, celebrated the central posi­ Salt Lake'sgift back. Gifts require reciprocity by tion, the authenticity, and the glory of the pa­ creating a debt. In giving part of the gift back pacy. It did this, as the old basilica built by eastern Mormons indicated that the Church Constantine did not; but it did build, like its underestimated their strength and loyalty, and predecessor over one of the chief pilgrimage indicated too that closer integration into the spots in Christendom. The popes combined church meant a loss of certain unspecified in­ massive pilgrim traffic with architectural state­ dependence which is gone once the gift is ac­ ments about their own importance to achieve a cepted. So from both sides the temple as a gift level of prestige they had never before enjoyed. willcreate a tighter Mormon community: more Asa political act the Mormon temple has two closely integrated in the East because they constituencies: Mormons and non-Mormons. raised so much money, and more closely tied to Its effect on Mormons is more precise and cal­ church headquarters in the West, since the culated. The temple serves the many tens of temple was an overwhelming gift and must be thousands of Saints in the eastern United States, acknowledged as such. eastern Canada, and the Caribbean. Since a The temple will aid church growth and visi­ Mormon ought to go through the temple once a bility in the outside world. The name of year or more, the Washington Temple will re­ everyone who visited the temple was taken focus the pilgrimage traffic of up to a third of a down along with an address. Mormons plan to million Mormons with all the economic, politi­ have missionaries call on that ocean of 800,000 cal, and emotional shifts that entails. I would visitors in the year and a half after dedication. have guessed that such refocussing would have Here they are employing a self-selected popula­ sponsored both a looser integration of eastern tion to enhance the likelihood of their own Saints into the church in general, and more growth. Since a large percentage of all Mor­ independence for this traditionally more liberal mons in the Northeast are converts made at the group of Mormons. But all Mormons I spoke to Mormon pavillion at the last New York World's stressed that the Washington Temple would Fair, the Washington Temple represents the bind them more closely to the church and make same missionizing model on a larger and more them feel as though they were on a more equal permanent scale. footing with those in Utah. What seems to be Four million of the fifteen million dollars the behind the feeling of greater equality, and be­ temple cost was to be raised in the Mormon hind having a temple as well, is the notion of areas the temple was being built to serve. In gift-giving as a way of creating subordination effect, this meant the Mormons in east coast and undermining independence. Eastern cities. This may amount to 40,000 Mormons Mormons have long been troublesome to the spread between Washington, New York, and church, which was happy to have growth in the Boston. This relatively small group raised at East but was unused to the degree of liberalism least 50% more than they were called on to and sophistication that that particular growth raise. General tithing funds from the church brought into the church. To this population paid for the rest of the building, this being the which often felt distant and less than well­ usual policy whenever any temple or ward integrated into the church, the institution then chapel isbuilt. This fact says more than that the announced that it would pay eleven of the re- east coast Mormons are successful people who

57 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

make heavy donations or heavy sacrifices to sents is American and Mormon, similar but not their church. the same, living in the same place and members The capacity to raise vast amounts of money of the same culture but not unified; very close among a group of people who are scattered and but ultimately, by Mormon desire and Ameri­ provincial in relation to the source of power can compliance, exclusive. So the basic struc­ bears some attention. Bymaking many hitherto ture repeats itself, and does so while playing on autonomous entities dependent on an organiz­ some similar inclinations in American culture ing hierarchy, a new level of efficiency is itself. created. It is a mistake to take a giant building But the placing of the temple near Washington, effort as an index of political coherence; it is the but not in it, suggests. . . impulses to be near but means to guarantee that power and centraliza­ not in the main culture. The idea of the temple as tion will follow as was the case with St. Peters. closed to the public [suggests] they are using the Keynes called this deficit spending, but its real American drive for discovery, success, achieve­ purpose is the economic success that follows ment, ladder-climbing as a lure for getting people into the church in every sense of that word. Here is from the organization required by a massive a secret every American can not have-a club he construction effort (Mendelssohn 1971: 210­ must join before entering-Such a message would 220). Alabor likethe Washington Temple brings have special appeal for the wealthy, success­ cooperative effort and efficiency in fund-raising motivated easterners. Even the theology which to a new peak for Mormons in the East. The projects three levels of heaven is attuned to the mentality of status and ladder-climbing. Along the successful execution of such a labor equips the same lines, the idea of a secret has long had great area's Mormons with organizational machinery appeal for Americans who live in a society which is of a scope and kind different from what existed supposedly open and democratic. Here is a group before the building of the temple, and one ca­ which admits that there is a secret to be kept-is pable of drawing more converts and of placing the secret in a way its bigotry? Does the church have special appeal to white middle class people those converts in better jobs as a result of more who are at heart racist but want religious conver­ people knowing Mormon behavioral traits, and sion and theology to justify their racism? Such of more Mormons to do the hiring. With more conservative Americans alwaysknow ... that the and better jobs, Mormons feel their religion is Federal government is eventually going to cause worthy and true and credit the building of their them to giveup yet another true American ideal as the country moves from tradition to Communism community and specificallyof its temple to Di­ (Elliott 1975). vine Providence. All this illustrates how build­ ing the Washington Temple affected hundreds The temple takes advantage of a tension­ of thousands of people. ridden situation to communicate its message. It After showing that the building and operation provides a quite peaceful and whollyenveloping of the new temple actually have concrete, real scheme for the non-Mormon visitor just off the effect on the non-Mormon and Mormon popu­ Beltway. In taking the tour of the visitor'scenter lation and after realizing that this rather static and grounds, which anyone is welcome to, one building is in fact quite active in terms of what is confronted with the promises Mormonism its advent and use have organized, it is impor­ holds ou t, as wellas the withholding of a glimpse tant to return to the temple's more peculiar of what ultimate peace and coherence look like characteristics: its isolation. It is closed, it is not inside the temple. The American can get close in downtown Washington with the other na­ but not across. He is confronted with the basic tional religious buildings, its architecture is structure of the Mormon worldview: you can peculiar. Itisa massivelyconfusing paradox: it is not be American and Mormon, the two must not identified, its use is secret, it is a closed remain distinct in order for the latter to con­ magnet in the sense that it draws but does not tinue to exist. The two categories must exist but draw inside; it tempts but does not satisfy. It not cross or mix. Only in this way can the Mor­ looksveryAmerican, but represents a theocracy; mon, in his own eyes, help show America the it fliesthe flagbut access is not democratic. The way. And only in this way can America continue building like the religion and the people it repre- to make use of the Mormon minority. The 58 Leone The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C. casual tourist is the potential convert, but he Basin and Utah. Driven ever farther from has to have been at odds with his own system America with every effort to improve life within before the paradoxes highlighted by the Mor­ it, they did not want to be anything less than mon temple strike him and allow him to ap­ American citizens. For Mormons the U.S. preciate the resolutions Mormonism has wait­ Constitution remained a divinely inspired ing for him inside. The temple basically, is document and the Utah Mormons tried to ob­ about joy. Mormons say this. But joy cannot be tain statehood many times before success was experienced without the preceding pain; Mor­ reached in 1896. All this and far more informa­ mons do not say that, but instead have located tion supports the basic historical tension arising the temple in such a way as to bring the recep­ from wanting to perfect America, wanting to be tive visitor into maximum confrontation with separate from it, being persecuted by it, and how unsatisfying the world is as he is currently never being independent of it. Throughout the experiencing it. nineteenth century Mormons were inside and The Mormon too, like everybody else, ex­ outside American society at the same time: in periences pain in the form of the problems of rebellion, but to be a vanguard. From 1847 everyday life. But in helping him to resolve the when they entered Utah, to 1896and statehood, pain, which iswhat the temple experience isfor, the Mormon population was to some degree it helps the believer come to terms with the really isolated from the rest of the United States. profundity of it. In making it more conscious For the early part of that period the Mormons and in sharing it with others the temple rites give were all but politically independent, which it meaning, organize it and consequently as­ meant that the pull between being Mormon and suage it. But because of the structure of Mor­ being American was not so strong, and meant, monism, the pain can neither be resolved nor further, that in isolation the differences that finallyeliminated. The structure insistson sepa­ came to characterize Mormonism could and ration and can only relax the resultant tension. even had to be well-developed. And the tension must remain because of the With the federal government's active cam­ structure of Mormonism. paign against plural marriage in the 1880s and It is appropriate to ask what brought such a 1890s, with statehood, and with the economic structure into existence and what makes it con­ development of the area by non-Mormon rail­ tinue. I think the answer to these two questions roads, mines, timber and agricultural interests will show why the paradox of its structure can came two forces to change-or perhaps bet­ not be resolved. The historical origins of close ter-to highlight the nature of Mormonism's but non-overlapping categories lies in Mor­ relationship to the country as a whole. A large monism's nineteenth century utopian history, a and vocal anti-Mormon population entered the history made up of a long struggle, so charac­ state, and second, eastern capital possessed its teristic of American utopias, between removal economy at the same time that federal agencies and alienation from the parent society on the replaced the church's economic institutions one hand, and a plan, on the other, to show that which had previously underwritten the area's same parent a way to a better and more perfect economic self-sufficiency. Thus, by 1900, Utah version of itself. Mormons were in rebellion, was reduced from economic self-sufficiency to but did not intend to be independent. In trying colonial dependency. While earlier it was pos­ cooperative ventures, novel family relations, di­ sible to be Mormon and American because the rect revelation to a prophet and a theocratic worst aspects of the latter did not enter isolated government, Mormons attempted to solve Utah, now with the beginning of the twentieth many of the social ills common to the early century, it was necessary to come to terms with industrial United States and western Europe. living in both Mormondom and America and These experiments brought them persecution doing so closely and simultaneously. for their pains and forced Mormons from New Mormons began to live in an economic set­ York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. They went ting where they were in competition with other finallyto the completelyempty (of whites) Great Anglos, Chicanos, and several American Indian 59 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS

groups. Moreover they had lost control over ful; shows the bliss that comes from being val­ their economy. This set of circumstances pro­ iant in the face of them; takes the fear out of duced a population maximally responsive to ex­ them by immersing him in them inside the ternal change and which has become, as a re­ temple; and then sends the individual back out sult, highly successful at exploiting its own to start again. colonized situation. "Mormons make the best ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS second-in-commanders in the world" epito­ mizes the Mormon worldview that has evolved I am particularly indebted to Professors in the course of the twentieth century. I have Jean-Paul Dumont, Emory Elliott and James detailed elsewhere (1974) how the process of Boon for long conversations on the substance adjusting to rapid change and rationalizing and theory in this paper. Professor John Gager flexibility works. But here it is surely enough to clarified points in his own work for me. Profes­ say that what we see these people living in is a sors Charles Peterson and John Sorenson read world of high ambiguity, incoherence and arbi­ drafts of this paper and made valuable com­ trariness. They live in it in such a way that they ments on it. I am indebted to George S. Tanner exploit these very features of it and build success and Robert L. Schuyler for their help in assess­ by utilizing them. Mormons can do this by ing the sensitivity of some of the material in this keeping the world divided into categories-but paper. Alfred Bush made very importantcorrec­ special categories-whose contradictions they tions on the place of the individual in the temple do not attempt to resolve, but rather accept. rites. A helpful conversation with Lewis Binford This means that they rarely have to bother with at the time this paper was read allowed me to synthesizing myriad contradictions, but rather, keep in mind how much the work here departs juggle at will. from positivist epistemology. Fascinating as this sounds, I think it is also David and Janice Allred and David Tolman accurate, and can happen only in the face of patiently answered my questions about the nearly total blindness to what is happening. temple and taught me its importance for Mor­ Probably the most noticeable feature of a Mor­ mons. I am grateful to them. mon when you meet him ishis certainty. He not The firsthand impressions of the Washington only "knows" his church to be true and Joseph Temple were gathered during a tour in Septem­ to have been a prophet of God, he is certain he ber 1974 while the building was open to the understands what lifeisabout, his place in it and public. his role in the past and future. He has the an­ Permission has been granted by The New swers-and he really does. Producing that cer­ Yorker for the quote by Calvin Trillin. tainty are experiences and institutions like the temple which takes the categories a Mormon Department ofAnthropology lives with, calls them true, necessary and pain- University ofMaryland

Bibliography

DEETZ, JAMES F. ELLIOTT, EMORY 1974 A cognitive historical model for American 1975 Personal letter of June 17. material culture, 1620-1835. In Recon­ structing complex societies, edited by Char­ GAGER, JOHN G. 1975 Kingdom and community, the social world lotte B. Moore. Supplement to the Bulletin ofthe Schools ofAmerican Research, No. 20. of early Christianity. Prentice Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs. DOLGIN, JANET 1974 Latter-day sense and substance. In Reli­ KANTER, ROSABETH M. gious movements in contemporary America, 1972 Commitment and community, communes edited by I. I. Zaretsky and M. P. Leone. and utopias in sociological perspective. Har­ Princeton University Press, Princeton. vard University Press, Cambridge. 60 Leone The New Mormon Temple in Washington, D.C.

LEONE, MARK P. MENDELSSOHN, KURT 1972 Archaeology as the science of technology: 1971 A scientist looks at the pyramids. American Mormon townplans and fences. InResearch Scientist 59:210--220. and theory in current archaeology, edited by PANOFSKY, ERWIN C. L. Redman. Wiley-Interscience, John 1955 Meaning in the visual arts. Doubleday and Wiley and Sons, New York. Company, Inc., Garden City. 1974 The economic basis for the evolution of ROWE, JOHN H. Mormon religion. In Religious movements 1965 The renaissance foundations of anthro­ in contemporary America, edited by 1. 1. pology. American Anthropologist 67:1-20. Zaretsky and M. P. Leone. Princeton Uni­ versity Press, Princeton. ThILLIN, CALVIN 1970 March 20, U. S. journal: Provo, Utah, LEVI-STRAUSS, CLAUDE categories. In The New Yorker, New York. 1963 The effectiveness of symbols. InStructural anthropology. Basic Books, New York. WHALEN, WILLIAM J. 1964 The Latter-day Saints in the modem day MCCONKIE, BRUCE R. world. University of Notre Dame Press, 1966 Mormon doctrine. Bookcraft, Salt Lake Notre Dame. City.

61 The Structure of Historical Archaeology and the Importance of Material Things

James E. Fitting

THE TASK OF A DISCUSSANT at a symposium is chaeology and the Importance of Material fairlyclear. He is to listen carefully to the papers Things" started as a morning session. The ideas and hear what they have to say in themselves discussed at the session infiltrated many of the and what they have to say as a group. He is to other sessions. A hall was provided for an addi­ point out the strengths and weaknesses of indi­ tional four hours of evening discussion and this vidual presentations and deal with their com­ ran on in informal talks for entire nights in hotel plementary nature. In relating divergent styles rooms, bars and restaurants. I have a large file of and paradigms, he isto be, in Leland Ferguson's correspondence including the cross checking of words of instruction, "pragmatic and cogent." references and review from after the meeting. A symposium is a living thing with a group of At the Philadelphia meeting in 1976, a few real people sitting on a single platform. They are diehards continued the dialog. constantly reacting to each other and to an au­ Well over a year after the original meeting, I dience. Facial' expressions, body language, au­ received copies of the revised papers from the dience feedback and the styleof the script which symposium; some substantially altered and en­ each participant uses to take notes on the pres­ larged, others essentially the same as they were entations of the other participants are a part presented. I had I) the preliminary copies of the of the "happening." At Charleston, South symposium papers, 2) my notes and observa­ Carolina, the symposium on "Historical Ar- tions on these papers, 3)my notes on the papers

62 Fitting . The Structure ofHistorical Archaeology and the Importance ofMaterial Things as they were presented, 4) a tape of the synthesis theoretically deny the existence of a priori as­ of the two sets of notes and 5)the revised set of sumptions. The first of these, and here I para­ papers prepared after the symposium. Was the phrase the logical positivist Ernst Mach, deals discussant to become the book reviewer?Or was with the knowability of material things. The it still possible to capture some of the exuber­ world does not consist of mysterious things; but ance of the actual symposium? I have chosen things, in themselves, in association with an the latter course with the hope that some of ego, produce sensations; sensations, as directly what occurred in Charleston can transcend the observed, are realities. This leads to the tacit studied limitations of the printed word. Classie exclusions of several systems of thought; sys­ really did talk about his conversations with Irish tems which define observations as being depen­ peasants around peat fires and Binford did re­ dent on the observer are excluded although this spond with an acid and predictable preface to excludes several basic rationalistic systems of his written paper in response to Deetz's presen­ thought that are very close to structuralism. tation. These occurrences, and many others, Mystical systems are also excluded and neither were portions of the symposium excluded from Khalil Cibran or Carlos Casteneda are included the present volume. on the program. Leone's paper, however, While the focus of the symposium was on suggests that nonrationalistic belief systems can material things, the analytical mode was struc­ have an effect on material things and that mys­ tural. It was delightful to participate in an ar­ tical systems should not be dismissed out of chaeological symposium where Levi-Strauss hand. Perhaps there is something worthwhile was one of the most cited sources. My analysis beyond our tonal. of the symposium was also structural. Ferguson Therefore, we are left with material things as presented his concepts of the structure of the a starting point; that is, with the idea that a symposium in preliminary correspondence. material thing can be studied. In reality, the Added to this is my structural analysis of Fergu­ attributes which a material thing may possess son's structure and the final structures of the are infinite. Itwould be safe to state that at no symposium and the papers which have come time has anyone done a complete descriptive from the symposium. There are enough levels study, let alone an analytical study, of a single of "reality" with all the inherent transforma­ material object. Such a study would be physi­ tions, to confuse even Levi-Strauss. cally and psychologically impossible. We all An essential part of any structure is sym­ utilize a series of preselected attributes, and the metry, or the available transformations to ac­ conclusions drawn from such a study are cir­ count for symmetry, or Bororo villages of ar­ cumscribed by our philosophical framework; by chaeology. Several key elements were included the operative paradigms of the analyst including in the initial planning for the symposium which his criterion of "proof." are not in this volume. David Clarke was The analogy of the blind man and the scheduled to participate but was unable to at­ elephant used by Deetz is particularly appropri­ tend. Robert Ascher was invited to participate ate. We are all blind men looking at elephants but was unable to do so. Both Clarke and and our interpretations of elephants are as di­ Ascher represent essential positions for the verse as the parts of the elephant that we are study of the structure of the study of material allowed to touch. The parts which we are al­ things and Analytical Archaeology and lowed to touch are artifacts of our theoretical "Tin-Can Archaeology," recently published in orientation. A corollary of this is that our blind­ Historical Archaeology, are real and vivid parts ness is, in effect, our vision. of the symposium which are not included in this A further limitation to this symposium is an volume. These are part of the "missing data" accident of participation and might have been which is included in this analysis. avoided if Ascher were here. Jean Piaget, in A There are a number of a priori assumptions Structural Study of the Sciences of Man, has used in these papers, even by those who would divided the sciences of man into, (1)nomothetic

63 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS and (2)historical and, of lesser interest to us, (3) can be logically, even "scientifically" studied. legal sciences and (4) philosophical disciplines. I would tend to disagree with his observations Nomothetic sciences seek to identify "laws," or on the convergence of attitudes. I do not believe regularities in human behavior. They operate in that it exists or can exist; and this is based, in what Levi-Strauss has called "statistical" time part, on an interchange of letters with lain which is noncumulative and reversible. They Walker several years ago. This interchange did generate models which some archaeologists not result in a convergence but rather in an might call processual. Historical sciences are agreement to disagree. More important than those which propose to reconstruct or reconsti­ convergence is the recognition of diversity. An tute events as they have happened in the past. interdisciplinary study, developing a single These are idiosyncratic analyses. The object is paradigm, is very different from the multidis­ mechanical models, using Levi-Strauss' term, ciplinarystudy, with a series of mutually coexist­ which duplicate the event and exist within a ing paradigms, which seems to be developing in time frame which is irreversible and continu­ historical archaeology. Ferguson may be cor­ ous. This distinction between mechanical and rect but tolerance may be a better word for what statistical models and time, between nomothe­ has been happening than convergence. tic and historical paradigms, is one of the major Deetz made several key points of which the sources of failure to communicate in contem­ most important might have been the impor­ porary archaeology. tance of not taking anything in archaeology too In spite of the nomothetic nature of the sym­ seriously. On one level, this might mean that we posium papers, it is possible that the majority of become ridiculous when we lose our ability to the membership of the Society for Historical laugh at ourselves. On another level, it points to Archaeology think in terms of mechanical time the transient nature of "truth." Glassie has his and have the reconstruction of actual events as folklorist spying on anthropologists, who are a goal. With their tacit acceptance of statistical spying on linguists, who are spying on physi­ time, most of these papers may be misdirected. cists. In an age where such immutable "facts" as As an aside, Piaget sees the maturation of his­ the speed of light and elemental particles are torical sciences in the process of history becom­ changing everyday, we might all be better off ing part of disciplines rather than existing as a reading Blake. All archaeological "conclusions" field in itself. Therefore, the Society for Histori­ will certainly be revised and the difference be­ cal Archaeology may be a part of a predictable tween a "bad" and a "good" archaeological re­ process as the nomothetic approaches of ar­ port may be in the number of months that is chaeology incorporate the idiosyncratic data of required to alter its conclusions. It is courting history into, as lain Walker has proposed, a ridicule, if not disaster, to stand by "old" in­ single discipline. terpretations in the face of new data. Asa result, Given this basic background to the sym­ the individual who is taken the least seriously by posium, it is possible to approach each of the others is the one who takes himself most seri­ individual presentations. Ferguson has set that ously. stage for the symposium by calling, first, for an As I followed Deetz's presentation, I took a extension of our vision, for a new emphasis on series of notes. "Is Deetz a silent structuralist?" material things that is perhaps carried to its "Is this Sassurian Archaeology?" And finally, conclusion in Deetz's paper suggesting that ''Anyone who quotes Tristes Ttopiques can't be universities develop Departments of Material all bad." Deetz has made an elegant case for the Things. Another important observation is that importance of structural analysis in archaeol­ both the historical and archaeological records ogy, far more eloquently and subtly than any can be studied as real entities in themselves. that has gone before and to realize this requires This may produce divergent conclusions but more than his symposium paper, although Invi­ this is a result of the peculiar blindnesses of tation to Archaeology is a good starter. each. They may be contradictory but both I have often wondered why structuralism,

64 Fitting . The Structure ofHistorical Archaeology and the Importance ofMaterial Things with its obvious applications to the study of Binford has emphasized this point and material things, has either been ignored or re­ criticized "intuitional" interpretations as being jected by American archaeologists. While es­ nonverifiable metaphysics (and poorly reasoned sentially positivistic, it has developed from the metaphysics at that). The interesting result has intellectual traditions of rationalism rather than been that he has opened the door to a wider Anglo-American empiricism, although it claims range of potential interpretations by forcing the to be empirical. The divergence is in the defini­ workaday archaeologists to ask themselves tions of reality and the criteria of proof. As Bob "Exactly what is verifiable?" Scholte phrased it in an article in American At this point, we need to insert one of the Anthropologistin 1966, "The protagonists of the missing elements of the symposium, the paper French anthropological tradition generally as­ that should have been presented by David sume the primacy of the human mind, their Clarke. Binford and Clarke need to be con­ investigations proceed along formal and struc­ sidered at one time because, in spite of the tural lines, and their questions are posed in disclaimers of both, they are considered as simi­ synchronic-relational and deductive terms. The lar by so many others. adherents of the Anglo-American tradition, in Binford's analysis of how he differs from its widest sense, assume the primacy of the be­ Clarke sounds, to the Aristotelian, like St. Au­ havioral act, their methods are essentially quan­ gustine's argument with the Platonists; Tweedle titative and descriptive, and their problems are Dee and Tweedle Dum. Like St. Augustine and phrased in diachronic-causal and empirically the Platonists, there is a real difference. Clarke's inductive terms." intellectual tradition goes back through Hume The preacher in Ecclesiastes had the answer, and Locke to Bacon. It is eminently logical and "There is nothing new under the sun." The leads to the formulation of constructs from ma­ arguments used by the students of both Des­ terial things that must be accepted as real even cartes and Spinoza against the empiricism of though they are untestable. As Ferguson Bacon are, in essence, the only refutations quoted earlier, "archaeology is archaeology is needed to defend rationalism against empiri­ archaeology. " cism. Empiricism is an essential element of This brings us into the realm of what Piaget positivism but so is rationalism. So struc­ has called "metasociological" interpretation or turalism and positivistic archaeology converge, back to the metaphysics that the positivists ini­ at least in the structural interpretation, in spite tially rejected. The term which we might use of the protestations of both. They are at oppo­ would be "meta-archaeological." Although this site poles only within a very limited universe. has a most unpopular sound, it might not be all Still, Binford's paper following that presented that bad. Albert Einstein and Max Planck were, by Deetz, was a major contrast; much more of a in the truest sense of the word, metaphysical in contrast than that of subject matter. Binford's many of their formulations. They could not be symposium reactions to Deetz's paper were directly proven and could be tested only even more predictable. through axiomatic corollaries. Their concepts Binford represents the position of logical form the basis of modern physics. If physicists positivism. His conscious, or unconscious an­ can be metaphysical, why should archaeologists tecedents, as Robert Butler pointed out in his not be meta-archaeological? Both should read review of An Archaeological Perspective, can be Blake. traced to the "Vienna School" of the early 20th The paper which Binford did present had century. It is significant that the more promi­ many interesting attributes. It does manage to nent members of this school, such as Moritz relate the study of a contemporary Eskimo Schlick, came from the "hard" sciences rather community to the study of Middle Paleolithic than philosophy. The stated goal of the school artifacts. What Binford intended to be the main was the exclusion of metaphysics and the con­ point of his paper, however, is not necessarily centration on empirically verifiable realities. what I would consider to be the most outstand-

65 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS ing part. I immediately recalled the moment of this paper. A rigorous intellectual approach first contact with the natives, the frustration of works very well for the solution of very small conflicting data and the exhilaration at the problems. It has less application to the solution finding of order that Levi-Strauss recorded in of bigger problems like the existence of God and Tristes Tropiques. the place of man in the Universe. How can the Is Binford practicing the positivist's vice of positivist generate an hypothesis on the nature humanism in public? Will this not lead to of beauty, not the beauty of a specific culture rationalism? It is not Deetz who is our secret but as a universal concept? It may be easy to win structuralist, but rather Binford. We may have a game at a very small chessboard but who is to finally uncloaked a fundamentalist M.D. who say that the actual squares do not extend to the has misled us into believing that he is a Unita­ ends of the Universe? rian chiropractor. And this leads us back to The Tuscon Garbage Project is something Deetz's observation that we should not take any apart from the other papers. It is more in the of this too seriously. line of a traditional site report on a larger scale. Classic's paper gives us, as archaeologists, a Its conclusions are essentially inductive and, chance to see ourselves as others see us. It also although it has been supported and praised by gives added weight to Deetz's observation that "useful" organizations, its ultimate contribu­ material things are not the sole property of the tion is still inchoate. In some respects, it is archaeologist and that the Departmentof Mate­ nomothetic and positivistic in its goals. It rial Things needs to be open to many people sounds somewhat like the voluntaristic currently housed in other academic Balkan positivism of Parsonian Sociology. countries. I think that this comes out in Leone's Leone's paper is difficult to deal with since, in paper as well. many respects, he goes beyond the symposium Classic's candid observations on the search to deal with some of the major problems in for novel paradigms in folklore are certainly western culture. One thing that was im­ familiar. I am sure that many of his colleagues mediately striking about this paper was the ob­ are as certain that they are dealing with certain jective and scientific description of the temple truth as are the archaeologists with "science" and its function. This seemed to parallel flowing in their veins. When "truth" is served Michael Valentine Smith's temple in Robert outby the zealot, the quest for truth itselfislost. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land in an un­ So we borrow, and discover Blake anew through canny fashion. the physicists, and go back to the drawing board The paper has also dealt with material things for a new look at our old, old problems. not necessarily as the product of a culture butas Glassie comes back to Levi-Strauss as the the determinant of it. This is the "houses make creator of a completely open system of thought. people" approach and it places Leone in a cate­ There are other open systems as well but this gory with Palao Solari and Buckminster Fuller. one is rigorous enough to convince the The logical conclusions of this line of thought humanist that he is being scientific long enough lead back to the eventual limits of knowability. that he no longer cares about it. Levi-Strauss This recognition of the limits of knowledge was an avowed positivist when he wrote within any single logical system has been hinted Elementary Structures ofKinship, but noted in at in several of these papers and finds a fuller his second preface to the English translation expression in William Irwin Thompson's At the that he no longer understood it and failed to see Edge ofHistory. As with several papers in this why it had excited so many people. In the final symposium, Thompson comes back to the im­ volume of the Mythologiques, he questions the portance of introspection, reflective thought existence of a "science" of man. As I suggested and the basic, rather than scientific, problems in a book review in Science in 1972,is the objec­ of mankind. tive study of subjectivity more objective than There is another door which Leone has the subjective study of subjectivity? opened for us. In the New York Times review of There is another point that is well taken in Zaretsky and Leone's Religious Movements in 66 Fitting . The Structure ofHistorical Archaeology and the Importance ofMaterial Things

Contemporary America, the book was ap­ the antithesis of humanism. Furthermore, all plauded for its recognition that religious sys­ systems have their own historical development tems could be studied as entities having validity and none is really closed, for all do continue to in themselves rather than simply as objects develop and change. Our"elephant" of material viewed through the lenses of other ideological things has been viewed in many different ways. systems. Leone has invited us to see the internal The presentations in this volume, and related structure, and validity, of mystical systems and approaches within the structure, have in­ if we follow through, we might have Carlos cluded, both empirical and humanistic rational­ Casteneda's observations on the importance of ism, logical and voluntaristic positivism, empir­ material things, the tonal, at a future meeting. ical idealism and idealistic positivism. In addi­ Mention should be made at this point of some tion to material things, structuralism has also of the missingdata, particularly Robert Ascher's been a persistent elephant in both recognized "Tin-Can Archaeology." While empirically and unrecognized forms. based, it is essentially idealistic rather than The results of the symposium have been var­ positivistic.There might be some question as to ied. We have seen what can be done with mate­ the use of "empirical idealism" as a logical cate­ rial things using different conceptual tools. The gory. As I recall, it has been used before, and most important result of the symposium, as I see even presented in an algebraic formula in the it, is the recognition and definition of our con­ famous Footnote B in Talcott Parson's Struc­ ceptual heterogeneity, the recognition of ture of Social Action. It certainly helps to paradigmatic pluralism. The past debates to round out the structure of the symposium. which Ferguson referred now appear to be In the few weeks prior to the symposium, I sterile name calling; a false opposition in a var­ became aware of still another philosophical tra­ ied world. Our future is not in unified theory, dition which might have been incorporated as the selection of a single blindness, butin the well. This is Hans Vaihinger's philosophy of realization that "truths" arrived at with different als-ob, or as-if. It has also been referred to as criterion of proof, are as true as those of our "fictionalism." Vaihinger's fictionalism is of an own, even if they contradict each other. We extreme sort and he maintains that fictional should hope for a greater understanding of constructs of the mind "contradict" reality and, "method" rather than violent reactions to tran­ in the case of the boldest and most successful, sient "conclusions." are self-contradictory. He makes a distinction There is also a word of warning here as well. between hypotheses, which are real, and fic­ The blindnesses, or conceptual frameworks, tions, which are hypotheses which have been which we select for the study of material things accepted as true. The result is a logical system are no more than a part of the tools which we where you are absolutely certain that you are use in this study; the intellectual trowels, back­ wrong as soon as you accept anything as abso­ hoes and calipers of the archaeologists. There lutely certain. It is interesting that historians of is the persistent danger that these tools may philosophy, notably Ledger Wood, have clas­ become more important than the objects of sifiedthis as "idealistic positivism"which would study themselves. It is at this point that we will place it wellwithin the symmetrical structure of have reached, as Ferguson and Deetz have this symposium. warned us, the point of "sterile methodological Systems of thought are, or should be, inter­ virtuosity." nally consistent. They are defined by what they are, not what they are not. Idealism is not the Gilbert/Commonwealth antithesis of positivism and rationalism is not Jackson, Michigan

67 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF MATERIAL THINGS Bibliography

ASCHER, ROBERT LEVI-STRAUSS, CLAUDE 1975 Tin-Can archaeology. Historical Archaeol­ 1%9 The elementary structure of kinship. ogy VIII: 7-16. Beacon Press, Boston. BUTLER, ROBERT 1973 Tristes tropiques. Jonathon Cape, London. 1974 Review of An archaeological perspective, by PARSONS, TALCOTT Lewis R. Binford. American Antiquity 1949 The structure of social action; a study in 39(4), pt. 1:646-647. social theory with special reference toagroup CLARKE, DAVID of recent European writers. Free Press, 1%8 Analytical archaeology. Methuen & Co., Glencoe, Illinois. London. PIAGET, JEAN Cox, HARVEY 1970 A structural study of the sciences of man. 1974 Review of Religious movements in contem­ Harper Torchbooks, New York. porary America, edited by I. I. Zaretsky and Mark P. Leone. New York Times Review of SCHOLTE, BOB Books, Dec. 22, 1974, p. 13. 1%6 Epistemic paradigms: some problems in cross-cultural research on social an­ DEETZ, JAMES thropological history and theory. American 1967 Invitation to archaeology. Natural History Anthropologist 68(5): ll92-120l. Press, New York. FITTING, JAMES ThOMPSON, WILLIAM I. 1972 Book review: archeology and science. Sci­ 1971 At the edge of history. Harper-Colophon, ence 175(4025):97&-977. New York. HEINLEIN, ROBERT A. WALKER, lAIN 1961 Stranger in a strange land. Putnam, New 1%7 Historic archaeology-methods and prin­ York. ciples. Historical Archaeology 1967l: 23- 34.

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