"Who Did Archaeology in the United States Before There Were Archaeologists and Why? Preprofessional Archaeologies of the Nineteenth Century." by Thomas C. Patterson. In Processual and Postprocessual Archaeologies, edited by Robert W. Preucel, Center for A

Alice B Kehoe

doi:10.5334/bha.02106

Abstract

Patterson's paper is a condensation of two he had presented in 1988 and 1989, at conferences previous to the Carbondale Visiting Scholar Conference of 1989. He characterizes the early United States as harboring two contrasting political philosophies, agrarian versus mercantile capitalism. The agrarians, of whom Thomas Jefferson is of course the most illustrious example, followed the physiocrats in believing agricultural land to be the foundation of societies, therefore the manifest destiny of the new Republic was to conquer, and colonize more land. The mercantilists, primarily in Boston, emphasized civilization as the refinement of technologies, social order, and tastes. Both philosophies were cast in Enlightenment terms.

Highlights

Henry Moy. director of Beloit College Museums. deserve gratitude for their efforts to restore these collections, artifactual and archival, to public knowledge
The "Moundbuilder Controversy" reflected agrarian concerns with land development, while Cla ical and Biblical archaeology was pursued by Americans abroad, and financed by Americans at home, to uncover evidence of the progressive development of Civilization
"Preprofessional archaeologies,n to use the book's running title for the chapter, has a provocative thesis and brings in a number ofinteresting data. from the personal ties of William Prescott that led him to emphasize the elegance of the sophisticated Tezcocan court conquered by the Aztecs, to the fact, if an 1 896 article is correct, that a majority ofAmericans auditing Classics lectures in Gennan universities were women

Summary

Introduction

Henry Moy. director of Beloit College Museums. deserve gratitude for their efforts to restore these collections, artifactual and archival, to public knowledge. Anthropological Society's 1993 meeting, probably in mid-March, at Beloit: sessions relevant to the history of archaeology will be most welcome (CSAS program chair will be Myrdene Anderson, Department of Anthropology, Purdue University.). "Who Did Archaeology in the United States Before There Were Archaeologists and Why?

Results

Conclusion