Communities of American archaeology: Identity in the era of professionalization

摘要

This thesis examines the manner in which regional identity shaped the practice and social organization of American archaeology. Employing Benedict Anderson's concept of the imagined community, the analysis focuses on two key communities of Nebraskan practitioners. One, coalescing around the State Archaeological Survey under the leadership of W. Duncan Strong, approached archaeology as an extension of local history. The other, under the direction of Erwin Barbour and C. Bertrand Schultz, sought recognition for Nebraska by collecting spectacular fossils and artifacts for the State Museum.;Such regional loyalties, while crucial to the progress of regional archaeology, hindered the development of a national profession during the interwar years. A group of formally educated, Midwestern practitioners created the National Research Council Committee on State Archaeological Surveys in 1921 in order to promote and systematize research in the Mississippi Valley. In 1935, under the aegis of the Committee, this corps founded the Society for American Archaeology as a vehicle for consolidating the profession internally.;The Society failed, however, to integrate practitioners of American archaeology into a national, professional community and, in fact, alienated their Eastern colleagues as well as local hobbyists. Despite the founders' rhetorical appeals to the notion of a placeless science, members failed to imagine themselves as members of a community that transcended geographical boundaries. Practitioners identified with neighborhood communities rather than with an abstract profession.;Intertwining with identities based upon place, communities imagined in time influenced the interpretation of material remains. Whereas certain practitioners emphasized the discontinuity and exotic nature of the past, others accentuated the continuity of the past and their kinship with the region's previous inhabitants. As they peopled the contemporary landscape with scenes from an imagined past, this feeling of unity bound practitioners closer to the place itself. For the profession's leaders and local hobbyists alike, archaeology---its practice, substance, and significance-remained grounded in a particular place.