An Archaeology of History and Tradition

by Matthews, Christopher N.

• ISBN13: 9780306467561
• ISBN10: 0306467569
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-06-01
• Publisher: Plenum Pub Corp

Summary

As the foundations of the modern world were being laid at the beginning of the 19th century, Annapolis, Maryland, identified itself as the Ancient City. This unusual appellation has served Annapolis into the present as a city that has consistently defined and redefined for itself what being ancient means. The process of historical recognition and preservation that has played out in Annapolis provides valuable insights into the way modern Americans in general have come to know and use the past. Though often conceived to be in opposition, modernity and tradition can be paired as cultural strategies that allow the modern world to be articulated with the tradition it hoped to replace. The multiple histories and historic landscapes derived from archaeological investigations in Annapolis are presented to show that the physical world below the surface of the city has been defined by constructions of modernity in tandem with the survival of certain traditions. This volume will be of interest to historical archaeologists, archaeological theorists, historical preservationists, historians of the middle-Atlantic states, and community historians.

Table of Contents

History and Tradition, Archaeology and Authenticity	1	(16)
The Struggles of the Past in the Present	6	(6)
An Archaeology of History and Tradition	12	(5)
Historical Process and Narrative in Annapolis, Maryland and the Chesapeake	17	(14)
The Historical Process of Annapolis	18	(4)
A Narrative History of Annapolis	22	(3)
The Bordley-Randall Site and Archaeological Research Design	25	(4)
Conclusion	29	(2)
Monuments: The Finishing of Annapolis	31	(32)
Plantation Culture and Class Formation in the Chesapeake	33	(5)
The Foundation of Thomas Bordley's House	38	(6)
The Completions of Stephen Bordley	44	(6)
The Time of Patriarchy	50	(4)
Finishing Annapolis	54	(4)
Conclusion	58	(5)
Memorials: The Making of the Ancient City	63	(36)
The Making of a Modern Maryland	64	(4)
Slavery and Southern Culture	68	(5)
The Forgotten City: Annapolis, 1815--1845	73	(4)
Being the Ancient City	77	(7)
The Randall Landscape in the Era of Decline	84	(4)
The Naval Academy and the Introduction of Modernity	88	(4)
Conclusion: Conflict in Elite Identity	92	(7)
Objects: The Modernization of the Ancient	99	(32)
American Geography and the Commodification of Place	100	(4)
Antimodernism and the Objectification of History	104	(5)
The Modernization of Annapolis	109	(4)
Modernizing the Ancient Landscape	113	(12)
Conclusion: Necessaries and Nuisances in 1900	125	(6)
Moments of Danger and the Practice of Archaeology	131	(8)
Six Ruptures	131	(2)
Against Archaeological Experience	133	(6)
Notes	139	(4)
References	143	(14)
Index	157