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6 / Archaeology as a Compelling Story The Art of Writing Popular Histories Sharyn Kane and Richard Keeton Because the human past is the foundation of the science of archaeology, relating both the exciting and the everyday details of how earlier people lived is the goal behind the popular histories we write. For the past dozen years we have had the pleasure of learning about recent archaeological discoveries and sharing them in accounts intended to inform and entertain. From the start, National Park Service archaeologists John Ehrenhard and John Jameson have encouraged us to be creative in our efforts and not to be bound by what has been done before. Taking the archaeological and historic record and weaving the facts and theories into compelling stories to capture the imagination is where science and art meet in writing popular histories. Dramatic events, character sketches, and vivid settings are among the important elements we use to try to create dynamic portrayals far removed from dry, scienti¤c writing, but accounts that nonetheless accurately convey research ¤ndings. Finding a way to make this information accessible to readers who have little or no familiarity with archaeology is an ongoing challenge, particularly because technical reports, which we cull for much of our information, are, well, awfully technical. We discovered this dif¤culty ¤rsthand as we prepared to bid for the our ¤rst contract with the National Park Service to write a popular history about archaeological studies along the Savannah River in Georgia and South Carolina. Although we had written about technical subjects as reporters for the Chicago Tribune and as magazine writers, we were taken aback by the unfamiliarity of so many archaeological terms. We pored over two and three reports at a time, written about the same archaeological sites, as we tried to understand theories, ¤ndings, and conclusions. The more we read, the more we were hooked by the excitement inherent in archaeology, and soon we were submitting our own 100-page proposal for Beneath These Waters, the story of 11,500 years of human life. This ¤rst project, which began our experience in cultural resource interpretation , led to writing a companion volume about African-American history, another book about archaeology at Fort Benning, Georgia, and another about the archaeology and history concerning a Civil War battle at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We have also explored the dusty past surrounding Brownsville , Texas, and the more recent story of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. All of these experiences have deepened our understanding of how what happened yesterday affects what will happen tomorrow. In short, we have a longer view of human existence, and that, we think, strengthens our writing. The art of writing about archaeology, for us, comes in our attempt to stir an emotional response in readers. We want them to feel the terror of waiting at dawn for the bugle call to battle, along with gaining an understanding of how a talented archaeologist re-created the long-ago battle by interpreting spent bullets. A skilled painter such as Martin Pate (see chapter 4), who illustrates books and other projects for the National Park Service, draws the viewer into a painting. As writers, we try to do the same thing by creating passages that we hope are vivid enough for readers to be able to see, hear, touch, smell, and taste the things we describe. To achieve this, the words must be full of sensory details that reveal something of what life was like in a particular era. In the Middle Archaic period, for instance, we might describe the barking of dogs as they ¤ght over a piece of meat near a camp¤re or the screeching of an eagle soaring overhead while a Native American chips stones to make weapons. Our objective is to bring people of the past to life in a realistic setting so that readers can understand how they lived. Here, in a passage from chapter 2 of the book Fort Benning: The Land and the People, we describe an early hunting scene to introduce details about an excavation at Fort Benning: In the early morning quiet 10,000 years ago, hunters along Upatoi Creek moved stealthily into place. They had camped overnight on a high ridge overlooking the rushing waters, a spot they chose for its strategic advantages. Downstream about 100 yards, the creek rolled over a series of sandstone ledges, creating small rapids. Behind the rapids, the water backed up into a calm pool where deer drank in the...

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