In most instances, archaeologists turn to the historical record to apply cultural data to prehistoric conditions as described above generally after the excavations and lab work have begun. Nonetheless, some archaeological research has been driven by initial or coeval groundwork in ethnohistory, and this approach is becoming more common. Either archaeologists conduct preliminary searches in archives related to the problems and geographical area at hand, or he/she carries out archaeological research on historic indigenous cultures that supplements what is known from the written record. This type of interdisciplinary ‘eth-nohistorical archaeology’ is valuable since the written and material records complement one another aptly. Furthermore, the archaeological evidence provides additional windows or unique views regarding past cultures that are not available from written texts.
In this category of investigations, archaeological research focusing on the historic period, or to the time of European colonizers across the globe, is dominant. Furthermore, investigators study both indigenous and Old World societies and how they interacted in the contact period. The information and interpretations from the documentary sources and archaeology are interwoven into a seamless whole since the two data sets provide information that one or the other disciplines may not have alone. Also, there are often fewer temporal and cultural gaps between the historical and archaeological peoples and periods (vs ethnographic and ancient cultures), and one body of data directly informs the other.
For instance, studies of early Colonial Period Taino settlements, demography, and political organization in the Caribbean are balanced with Spanish descriptions of native villages, populations, and sociopolitical structure on the one hand and archaeological data on settlement patterns, numbers and sizes of houses, and distribution of status goods within Taino sites on the other. Likewise, the functions of Taino architecture and artifacts have been inferred from information in historic descriptions.
To summarize, the combination of ethnohistory and archaeology in academic research generally follows a few main goals, although they can be combined into a larger one as well: (1) the two subdisciplines and associated data sets are utilized to acquire additional insights on a past society during a specific period, (2) ethnohistory is used in conjunction with archaeology to reconstruct past societies over a long period of time stretching from recent times to the distant past or vice versa, or (3) the historical and archaeological data are combined to provide insights and reconstructions of past societies that normally would not be possible with one of the disciplines alone.
This approach allows archaeologists to work with diachronic culture change over an extensive period in a geographical or culture area and allows for a focus on particular social issues; these ends are normally not possible with archaeological or historical data by itself. For example, at the turn of the twentieth century, Jesse Walter Fewkes obtained archaeological, historical, and ethnographic data to reconstruct Taino society, the function of indigenous material culture, and outline social changes from precontact to modern times in the Caribbean. He was able to reconstruct the functions of artifacts, such as stone implements and pottery, and discuss them with regard to Taino religion and economics with the diverse data set. Additionally, researchers in Amazonia and Mesoamerica have explored culture continuities and change over thousands of years with ethnohistory and archaeology. In these cases involving the longue duriie, topics such as symbolism in art, specific subsistence strategies, human agency, and reasons for particular transformations in social organization are only visible through a compound historical and archaeological lens.
A useful outgrowth of ethnohistorical archaeology is material culture studies in the contact era. Scholars simultaneously conduct archaeological and ethnohis-torical research to catalog, interpret functions of, scrutinize changes in, and dissect the social relevance of artifacts for past peoples and cultures. Popular avenues of research in this vein include the production and distribution of stone tools and ceramics, which were widely used by indigenous groups from the Colonial Period up to the present, because of their cultural importance, availability, and durability.
These two classes of artifacts are also resilient in the ground and are studied by most archaeologists. Publications of Colonial Period and post-Colonial artifacts and their importance for examining time frames, ethnicity, economic interaction, religious symbolism, social relations, and identity are clear products of the archaeology-ethnohistory interface. In this manner, the production and consumption of stone tools and their relationship to social rank in post-contact Hawaii, California missions, and Australia are well known.
World History
