The Historical Archaeology of Military Sites: Method and Topic

Introduction

The title of this text relates to issues concerning the methods and topics pursued by historical archaeologists as they address the study of military history and the evaluation of military sites. We do not suggest that this inquiry is new, nor do we suggest that the contents of this book are all-inclusive or an end unto themselves. As the walrus said, however, we believe that practitioners of historical archaeology of military sites have achieved the methodological and topical maturity that requires the significance of historical archaeology to the study of military history be considered. Further, we see the anthropological and historical interests of these researchers contributing to an important and appropriate redirection of the questions pursued in this historical perspective. In this compilation we seek to provide a setting for field methods that have proven successful in the study of military sites to be introduced to students, professionals dealing with military sites, and the interested public in the context of examples that illustrate their application. Through these examples, we also propose to illustrate a selection of the wide range of topical issues that define the modern study of military history and which serve to validate it as an increasingly significant part of public interpretation, preservation, and historic awareness at a global level. Our purpose is not to romanticize war or its conduct . Instead, war and aggressive behavior are seen as unfortunate but real expressions of human culture and history that need to be understood and placed in their proper context. Whether studying intertribal warfare in Europe, Afghanistan, or North America, or the aggressive competition of emerging civilizations , tribute states, empires, or colonial states into “‘The time has come’ the Walrus said, ‘To talk of many things . . .’” An Introduction ClarEnCE r. GEiEr, lawrEnCE E. babits, douGlas d. sCott, and david G. orr the twentieth century, war and hostility are established solutions to political, economic, and social problems. Right and wrong, moral or immoral, justified or not, are assessments usually left to the winners and to the cleansing perspective of time. The fact is, however, that as traumatic as war or hostile action is, such conflicts are symptomatic of underlying societal stresses and their conclusions typically mark the beginning of significant processes of change and not necessarily their resolutions. A number of issues—practical, scholarly, and methodological—prompted this book. While the priority of military sites can be debated, the greatest urgency is created by the rapid rate of residential and industrial development occurring in North America and in many other areas of the world that directly threatens these sites and the unwritten human history that they hold. Today, projects perceived as necessary for industrial, residential, and transport development are being debated relative to the value of history and preservation at local, regional, national, and international levels. Unfortunately, this debate is often uninformed and emotional. In many instances, it is ultimately influenced by entities and individuals who have no vested interest in the history that is being negotiated and often lost. Our principle motives then for publishing this work are described in the following paragraphs. 1. Good scholarship does not simply answer the questions under investigation. Good scholarship provides a better understanding of the complexity of the topic and allows researchers to identify a new set of often more correct questions to ask. The recent viii introduction work of anthropologists, historians, and archaeologists has changed the very essence of military history. Certainly, the field retains a continued interest in military engagements and the personalities, tactics, and significance that established their place in the historic record. Yet just as the larger fields of anthropology and history have come to understand the importance of the “common man” for interpreting historic events, so too, military history has begun to see armies and the troops from a different vantage point. Until recently, little effort was made to understand armies as human communities or address the lives of those who comprised them. Armies, or military units within them, were typically attributed to particular military leaders, e.g. the Middle Division, commanded by General Philip Sheridan, the Stonewall Brigade, or Emory’s XIX Corps from the American Civil War. In tying a group of men to the successes and failures of particular leaders, there is a dramatic failure to see those groups as distinct social units and, in some instances, selfsupporting societies structured around a defined social hierarchy, regulated by law, needing to be supplied and nurtured, and often at odds with the human community of the...