Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Oral Sources and Oral History

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

Introduction

The archaeological use of oral sources has gained rapid popularity in recent years as archaeologists around the world have recognized the value and need of connecting their research with topics relevant to public interest and to local community concerns. Implicit in much of this orally informed research is the use of archaeology as a means of addressing issues of social justice by empowering marginalized groups “without history” (Wolf 1982) both to create a heritage narrative by and for the people and to insert these multiple narratives into mainstream national origin stories and provide them with a role in these. Scholarly citations in the Web of Knowledge with oral history or oral traditions as keywords greatly increase in the years after 1996 and are few and far between prior to 1994. Historical analysis of the literature indicates that oral sources were being used in some areas at the beginning of organized archaeological research in those regions, Africa (Posnansky 1966...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 5,499.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Angrosino, M.V. 2008. Exploring oral history. Long Grove (IL): Waveland Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barber, R.J. 1994. Doing historical archaeology. Upper Saddle River (NJ): Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bayliss-Smith, T., E. Hviding & T. Whitmore. 2003. Rainforest composition and histories of human disturbance in Solomon Islands. Ambio 32: 346-52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, W. & M. Somerville. 2005. Conversations between disciplines: historical archaeology and oral history at Yarrawarra. World Archaeology 37: 468-83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernardini, W. 2005. Hopi oral tradition and the archaeology of identity. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, A.M. & D.W. Clark. 1974. Koyukun Athapaskan houses seen through oral tradition and archaeology. Arctic Anthropology 11: 29-38.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cushing, F.H. 1886. A study of Pueblo pottery as illustrative of Zuni culture growth, fourth annual report: 467-521. Washington (DC): Bureau of American Ethnology.

    Google Scholar 

  • David, B., I. McNiven, L. Manas, J. Manas, S. Savage, J. Crouch, G. Neliman & L. Brady. 2004. Goba of Mua: archaeology working with oral tradition. Antiquity 78: 158-72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Echo-Hawk, R. 2000. Ancient history in the New World: integrating oral tradition and the archaeological record in deep time. American Antiquity 65: 267-90.

    Google Scholar 

  • Funari, P.P. 1997. Archaeology, history, and historical archaeology in South America. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 1: 189-206.

    Google Scholar 

  • Futch, J. 2011. Historical archaeology of Pine Level. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of South Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hornung, A.J. 2002. Myth, migration, and material culture: archeology and Ulster influence on Appalachia. Historical Archaeology 36: 129-49.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, T.F. 2003. Places that count: traditional cultural properties in cultural resource management. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • - 2007. Saving places that matter. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kroeber, A.L. 1916. Zuni potsherds. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 18: 7-37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levi-Strauss, C. 1966. The savage mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, T. 1997. Pioneer settlements in Rookery Bay and the Ten Thousand Islands. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of South Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maggs, T. 1980. The Iron Age south of the Vall and Pongola rivers: some historical implications. Journal of African History 21: 1-15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mason, R. 2006. Inconstant companions: archaeology and North American Indian oral traditions. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McIntosh, S.K. & R.J. McIntosh. 1980. Prehistoric investigations in the region of Jenne, Mali (Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 2). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.

    Google Scholar 

  • Metcalfe, J.Z. 2005. Multiple histories: the archaeology, ethnohistory, oral history, and national history of the Iximche’, Guatemala. Totem 13: 61-72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Metheny, K.B. 2007. From the miner’s doublehouse. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moshenska, G. 2009. Resonant materiality and violent remembering: archaeology, memory, and bombing. International Journal of Heritage Studies 15: 44-56.

    Google Scholar 

  • Murphy, E.M. 2011. Children’s burial grounds in Ireland (Cillini) and parental emotions toward infant death. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 15: 409-28.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pender-Cudlip, P. 1972. Oral traditions and anthropological analysis. Azania 7: 3-24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Portelli, A. 1991. The death of Luigi Trastulli and other stories. Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Posnansky, M. 1966. Kingship, archaeology, and historical myth. Uganda Journal 32: 165-82.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raharijoana, V. 1994. Archaeology and oral traditions in the Mitongoa-Andrainjato area (Betsileo region of Madagascar), in R. Layton (ed.) Who needs the past? Indigenous values and archaeology: 189-94. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt, P.R. 1978. Historical archaeology: a structural approach in an African culture. Westport: Greenwood Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • - 1983. An alternative to a strictly materialist perspective: a review of historical archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and symbolic approaches in African archaeology. American Antiquity 48: 62-79.

    Google Scholar 

  • - 2006. Historical archaeology in Africa: representation, social memory, and oral traditions. Lanham (MD): AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schuyler, R.L. 1978. The spoken word, the written word, observed behavior and preserved behavior: the contexts available to the archaeologist, in R.L. Schuyler (ed.) Historical archaeology: a guide to substantive and theoretical contributions: 269-77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scudder-Temple, K. 2009. An absence of presence: the voices of marginalized communities in the development and implementation of cultural resource management initiatives in the British West Indies. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of South Florida.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, T. 1977. Unearthing Igbo-Ukwu: archaeological discoveries in eastern Nigeria. Ibadan: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scully, R.T.K. 1979. Nineteenth century settlement sites and related oral traditions from the Bungoma area, western Kenya. Azania 14: 81-96.

    Google Scholar 

  • Simms, S.R. & K.W. Russell. 1997. Tur Imdai rockshelter: archaeology of recent pastoralists in Jordan. Journal of Field Archaeology 24: 459-72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, B.D. 1984. Mississippian expansion: tracing the historical development of an explanatory model. Southeastern Archaeology 3: 13-32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart, A., T.M. Friesen, D. Keith & L. Henderson. 2000. Archaeology and oral history of Inuit land use on the Kazan River, Nunavut: a feature-based approach. Arctic 53: 26-278.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swidler, N., K.E. Dongoske, R. Anyon & A.S. Downer. (ed.) 1997. Native Americans and archaeologists. Walnut Creek (CA): AltaMira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Terkel, S. 1986. Hard times: an oral history of the Great Depression. New York: Pantheon.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trigger, B. 1980. Archaeology: the image of the American Indian. American Antiquity 45: 121-37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vansina, J. 1965. Oral tradition: a study in historical methodology. Chicago: Aldine.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weisman, B.R. 2011. Florida archaeology confronts the recent past. Historical Archaeology 45: 16-41.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whiteley, P.M. 2002. Archaeology and oral tradition: the scientific importance of dialogue. American Antiquity 67: 405-15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolf, E.R. 1982. Europe and the people without history. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

Further Reading

  • Ferguson, T.J., K. Dongoske & M. Yeatts. 1995. Working together: Hopi oral history and archaeology. Society for American Archaeology (SAA) Bulletin: 13(2).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hemmings, S., V. Woods & R. Hunter. 2000. Researching the past: oral history and archaeology at Swan Reach, in A. Clarke & R. Torrence (ed.) The archaeology of difference: negotiating cross-cultural engagements in Oceania: 339-67. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

    Brent R. Weisman

Authors
  1. Brent R. Weisman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Brent R. Weisman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Claire Smith

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this entry

Cite this entry

Weisman, B.R. (2014). Oral Sources and Oral History. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_1401

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_1401

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-0426-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-0465-2

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation