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well to the partnership of historical and archeological research. A type of outdoor museum, historic parks not only preserve the architecture of the past, but attempt to interpret a more complete story of the historic community whose architecture is now the most visible part. Examples of outdoor museums include those that interpret our country’s historical past—such as the best-known Colonial Williamsburg—or a diverse immigrant ethnic experience—such as Old World Wisconsin. Historic Washington State Park is a historic park that interprets community life in nineteenthcentury Arkansas. The interpretation at an outdoor museum or historic park can take many forms. Structures can be restored to their earliest appearance. Interiors can be filled with date-appropriate furnishings and utensils, the walls displaying period wallpapers and appropriate colors. House lots can be planted with heirloom varieties of flowers and shrubs in period garden settings, and suitable outbuildings and fences can be re-created to fill the lot (Fig. 2.2). Costumed interpreters can inhabit the buildings, and living history reenactors can demonstrate the skills of craftsmen or the daily life in kitchens and homes. While historical documents can provide much information on major events that affected the town or give insight into the wealth of individual families, the documents do not provide much evidence for the activities of daily life. But daily life does leave a great deal of evidence, and that evidence can be found in the ground. This is where archeology can contribute to the interpretation of a historic park. Every earthmoving activity, no matter how minor, leaves behind changes in the soil that can be read by a skilled archeologist. Archeology can reveal where outbuildings were placed on a lot and for what purpose they might have been used. It can unravel the architectural changes in a building, such as where porches were placed. It can discover lost personal items, like buttons or an earring, that provide clues to styles of dress. Excavations can locate trash pits or abandoned wells, often discovering broken dishes and remains of meals that can tell much about what and how people ate. Archeology is not, however, about discovering treasures. In fact, most of what archeologists find are really the remnants of people’s trash. But even trash can tell a detailed and intimate story about the people who left it, providing clues about the details of daily life and filling in many blanks in the historical record. Archeology at Old Washington The Arkansas Archeological Survey has been involved in archeological research at Historic Washington State Park since 1980. The Survey, established in 1967, is a unit of the University of Arkansas System. In addition to a coordinating office in Fayetteville, there are 11 research stations located throughout the state. The mission of the Survey is to conserve the state’s heritage through research and to communicate the results of this research to the public. The research undertaken at Historic Washington has included both very short-term as well as more extensive projects that have aided the park in the restoration of its historic buildings, in locating outbuildings, in examining lots upon which buildings will be relocated, and ultimately WHY DO ARCHEOLOGY AT A HISTORIC PARK? ■ 17 Fig. 2.2: Interpretation at the Sanders block includes the historic landscape of the urban farmstead. Photo by Jay S. Miller, Arkansas State Parks. in broadening the interpretation of nineteenth-century life in this Arkansas town. Archeological testing at Historic Washington began in 1980, when an initial survey of the park properties and auger testing was done over a two-day period to examine the potential for historical archeology in the park and to set priorities for followup research. An auger is a tool that drills a narrow hole into the earth and removes a column of dirt that can be examined for soil variations and evidence of artifacts. Auger tests were made at the Block, Sanders, and Monroe houses, which led to more extensive research projects that were later conducted and will be discussed in succeeding chapters. Much of the archeological work that has been done at Historic Washington has been on a very limited scale intended to provide architectural information to the park for the purpose of reconstruction of the buildings. This is an extremely important service, for it enables the park to accurately reconstruct its historic buildings, providing the information necessary for the park to be seen as it really was, not colored by the impressions or misinformation of later...

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