Ethnohistory

This type of research is typically conducted by historians, ethnologists, linguists, and archaeologists.

Ethnohistory can be claimed as a subdiscipline or methodology in either anthropology or history, and the debate continues regarding which field it should be placed in. Despite the fact that it is a common scholarly pursuit and has its own widely-read journal, very rarely does ethnohistory have its own academic department or program within a university. Additionally, ethnohistorians can be found in different university departments, such as anthropology, linguistics, and history, or organizations (libraries, museums, cultural centers, etc.).

Ethnohistory as a research tool and subdiscipline largely grew out of studies of colonialism and culture contact which focused on indigenous culture change starting around the mid-twentieth century. With this in mind, the discipline has its roots and subsequent developments in research in the New World: the clash of cultures and the generation of archives in North, Central, and South America from the Colonial Period onward provided the impetus for the creation of eth-nohistory as a discipline or research methodology.

One area of usefulness of ethnohistory in archaeology is its ability to help bridge time gaps. It is advantageous for substantiating evidence from the ethnographic present, which archaeologists rely upon for their analogies and interpretations of past human behaviors, in order to reconstruct the archaeological past. In fact, there is actually an inherent danger in applying analogies from the ethnographic present to reconstruct human lifeways in the deep past due to considerable culture change over time. However, if the behaviors are represented in the historic record which is closer to archaeological periods, then errors relating to the misapplication of ethnographic data to ancient times are minimalized.

For our purposes here, the positive uses (and not abuses in the field, such as taking all documents at face value for truthful past cultural reconstructions) of ethnohistory in archaeology are stressed. Much of the discussion and bibliographic sources here revolve around New World archaeology, especially Meso-america and the Caribbean, where the author has research expertise and where impressive amounts of ethnohistory in archaeology have taken place. Certainly, ethnohistory is used in archaeology in other parts of the world where European or indigenous documents and oral histories are available, such as Africa, China, and the Pacific, but this combination is popular in the Americas because of the abundance of historic sources and investigators. In Africa and the Pacific, for example, Portuguese and English writings along with native oral histories are accessed by archaeologists. Indigenous histories are important for excavators in China and India on the other hand.

In the archaeology of Europe, pre-colonial (Rome and Norway, for instance) and colonial-era (United Kingdom and Spain) sources are utilized in archaeology. In true ethnohistorical form, I will devote space here for an extensive list of sources that can be easily accessed by the reader to peruse ethnohistorical and archaeological research.

In these cultural and geographical regions, ethno-historical information is often used to singularly help archaeologists reconstruct specific aspects of the past societies that they are interested in. On the other hand, some ethnohistory is more comprehensive in nature or is focused on many social and historic issues regarding a past society. Political structure and ethnic borders in an ancient civilization, such as Maya and Aztec, for instance, are examined in light of what Europeans described for similar social conditions in these societies during the contact period or time of colonization. Stone tool manufacture and how lithics were used in the distant past are also similarly reconstructed with ethnohistoric accounts of a particular culture, including the historic Maya, Aztecs, and Inuit.

Importantly, archaeology fills in gaps in the historical record (see Time and History, Divisions). At times we know of certain behaviors and material possessions present in a past society through ethnohistory, but we may lack a more complete understanding of the native culture and social change. For example, through ethnohistory the settlement patterns of a certain ethnic group may be clearly described. But we may not have historic records of their subsistence practices and how they were transformed after interaction with foreigners. For example, we may comprehend nineteenth-century Yucatec Maya subsistence from accounts of explorers, but more information from archaeology may be desired regarding their burial practices and household economies if they are not historically evident.

Conversely, only through ethnohistorical data and analysis are archaeologists able to examine research topics such as ethnogenesis, native resistance to colonial rule, social organization, religion, cultural survivals, and late pre-contact societies. Ethnohistory also lends significant insights on issues that currently are, and will continue to be, scrutinized, including human agency, gender, ritual, microeconomics, and cultural diversity. It also provides the time depth that is the backbone in archaeological research so that we may witness culture change or continuity and how and why they occurred over a long period. The documentary record varies depending on the region, authorship, preservation, period in which they were created, and intended audience. Some documents cover population figures, household sizes and compositions, and tribute or tax lists. Other archival sources contain long discussions of native religion, social organization, and intellectual life. Additional written sources contribute maps, descriptions or drawings of material culture, and native language dictionaries, to name a few types of ethnohistorical information.

It is easy to see why ethnohistory is of great interest to archaeologists. Written records provide information on human behavior, culture change and continuity, and material culture that can be examined in the archaeological record. Often the time depth of the documents is helpful for viewing diachronic culture change which is a hallmark advantage of archaeological research.