Shovel Ready: Archaeology and Roosevelt's New Deal for America

9. Culture, Time, and Practice: The Shifting Interpretive Potential of New Deal–Era Collections

9 culture, time, and Practice the shifting interpretive Potential of new deal–era collections Sissel Schroeder the field investigations conducted with new deal funds in the eastern United states significantly expanded the quantity of excavated sites,many of which serve as type sites or yielded type specimens for archaeological taxa still in use today, provided a rudimentary understanding of chronology, and were pivotal to the initial construction of a synthetic culture history for eastern north America. the key components of the new deal–era archaeological research programs in the southeast were a shared systematic field and laboratory methodology that produced comparable results of scientific integrity; the conservation of heritage resources;development of a research agenda that coalesced around the question of chronology, thereby challenging the perceived timelessness of the native American past; and an expanded view of archaeological cultures that led to the investigation of habitation as well as mound sites (dunnell 1986:30;fowler 1986a;haag 1986;Jennings 1986:56; setzler and strong 1936). the public investment in research also provided substantial and lasting benefits for the nation and its people through efforts to preserve ancient monumental construction, villages, and other sites. At national parks, national monuments, and state parks—like ocmulgee national monument and moundville—mounds and earthworks that were excavated were subsequently reconstructed to aid public interpretation and ensure that the research and preservation legacies of the past endured for future generations. nearly 80 years after the first new deal–sponsored archaeological projects ,the quality,integrity,and comparability of collections (at least those excavated following similar field methods) are important factors contributing to the continuing value and research potential of these materials. Across the southeastern United states, there are many current and recent reinvestigations of these old collections that serve to highlight aspects of the new deal projects that placed them at the forefront of archaeological investigations 166 / schroeder in the 1930s, stress the important legacy of these collections, and demonstrate their potential for studies that pose fresh questions, revisit the conventional interpretations derived from the new deal work,apply new analytical methods, use new inferential frameworks, and support the reworking of interpretative narratives presented to the public. over the past 20 years or so, the collections from sites identified as mississippian have been an especially rich source of innovative research ranging from the instability of chiefdoms to questions about gender and status to subjects of daily practice and ritual life,reflecting the diverse interests of contemporary archaeologists (e.g.,coe 1995; hally 1994; hammerstedt 2005a, 2005b, this volume; lunn, this volume ; Peebles 1981; regnier et al., this volume; schroeder 2005, 2006, 2009, 2011; sullivan 1987, 1995, 2007, 2009;welch 2006;wilson 2008). throughout this chapter,i weave examples derived fromwilliam s.webb’s research at the Jonathan creek site, situated in the tennessee valley in western Kentucky, in with results from my own ongoing analyses of the collections to trace the research potential and significance of new deal–era collections . in particular, i contrast webb’s use of architectural evidence from the site to investigate chronology and culture, two key research questions of the 1930s and 1940s, with my ongoing reanalyses of the same data to demonstrate the promise that these legacy collections hold for inquiries that look at chronology from a more nuanced perspective, eschew simplistic trait-list approaches to the definition of culture, draw on more recent developments in anthropological theory that allow for both external and internal sources of change, and rely on practice theory to build inferences about the origins of architectural variability. the remnants of perishable architecture at the site were the foundation for the original interpretation of site chronology, which has not withstood the test of time. in addition, new analyses of the architectural data provide unanticipated insights into everyday life, including the engineering of roofed space and diversity of the above-ground appearance of buildings. the beginnings of Professionalism in American Archaeology the community of American archaeologists in the 1920s and early 1930s was small and, at least in terms of the amount of dirt moved each year, dominated by amateurs. formal training in archaeology was available at about a half-dozen institutions, mostly private universities located in the northeast .this mixed composition of the field at the beginning of the new deal is evident in the backgrounds of the 31 individuals who signed the constitution that created the society for American Archaeology (sAA) in 1934. chapter...