Memories of home: Dunbarton and Meyers Mill remembered
In 1962 Lewis Binford ushered in a seminal period in Americanist archaeology when he cited Willey and Phillips` contention that ``American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing`` (Binford 1962:217; Willey and Phillips 1958). More recently, a senior scholar in historical archaeology has issued a call for a new ``historic ethnography.`` This historic ethnography implies a recognition of the view that culture is carried in packages -- functional units with temporal and spatial boundaries, and not as disembodied variables or processes. This perspective places great importance on context, and a return to an earlier partially functional anthropological image of culture (Schuyler 1988:36-42). Under this rubric, non-archaeological (archival, oral history, ethnographic) as well as archaeological data would be woven into a single presentation of the past. This contrasts with current practice, in which data sources often form the basis for artificially-drawn boundaries imposed by the archaeologist. The Savannah River Archaeological Research Program`s (SRARP) Community History Project is one component of an effort to apply a historical ethnography perspective to cultural resource management. This volume, the first of the SRARP Heritage Series, provides preliminary results of the first stage in the Community History Program at the Savannah River Site (SRS). This initial stage of a multi-year research project includes both oral and primary archival data gathered from 68 informants who once lived in Dunbarton and Meyers Mill, South Carolina. The data collected as part of this study form the foundation for the construction of a historic ethnography of Aiken and Barnwell Counties.
- Research Organization:
- South Carolina Univ., Columbia, SC (United States). Savannah River Archaeological Research Program
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- FC09-88SR15199
- OSTI ID:
- 10171577
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/SR/15199-T2; ON: UN94015305; BR: 39NP01000/GE0116000
- Resource Relation:
- Other Information: PBD: 1993
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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