Abstract
Since the early 1970s, advocates of the emerging field of historical archaeology have defended its worth and autonomy by appealing to the democratizing power of archaeological evidence over the alleged conservatism, the “inevitable elitism,” of text-bound history. Historical archaeology is the key, many have argued, to making visible “the inarticulate” (Ascher 1974:11), the “endless silent majority who did not leave us written projections of their minds” (Glassie 1977: 29), or were not of interest to those who did construct an articulate record of their activities and interests. While this sells short the radical potential of history, it does foreground the important contribution that archaeology can make to the investigation of periods for which we have documentary records. It captures what I take to be the central challenge facing historical archaeologists in the 1990s: that of realizing, of exploiting more fully, the potential of archaeological evidence to counter what Glassie describes as “superficial and elitist… tale[s] of viciousness” … “myth[s] for the contemporary power structure” (Glassie 1977:29), which are by no means unique to history. Because these are tales specific to capitalist ideology, at once mediating and obscuring its contradictions, this is the challenge that defines a historical archaeology of capitalism.
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Wylie, A. (1999). Why Should Historical Archaeologists Study Capitalism?. In: Leone, M.P., Potter, P.B. (eds) Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism. Contributions To Global Historical Archaeology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4767-9_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4767-9_2
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