Investigating the Ordinary
Investigating the Ordinary
Everyday Matters in Southeast Archaeology
Shifting the focus to everyday life in the archaeology of the Southeast US
Focusing on the daily concerns, activities, and routine events of people in the past, Investigating the Ordinary argues for a paradigm shift in the way southeastern archaeologists operate and urges them to think of the archaeological record in new ways. Instead of dividing archaeological work by time periods or artifact types, the essays in this volume unite separate areas of research through the theme of the everyday.
The contributors to this volume bring together case studies detailing ordinary people and their lives, spanning the Paleoindian period to the nineteenth century. The essays include an examination of how the white-tailed deer was entangled in the lives of Middle Archaic people not only as a food source but as a social and spiritual creature, as well as a look at the domestic lives of those who made exotic goods for the political and social elites in the Middle Woodland period. Cooking vessels in the Late Archaic period help trace the daily lives of the many people involved in their production, use, and eventual deposition. Mound sites are reconsidered in light of the everyday—assessing not only the meaning of the sites but the mobilization of labor and the deployment of resources that went into creating them.
Taken together, these essays demonstrate that attention to everyday life can help researchers avoid overemphasizing data and jargon and instead discover connections between the people of different eras. This approach will also inspire archaeologists with ways to humanize their research and engage the public with their work and with the deep history of the southeastern United States.
A volume in the Florida Museum of Natural History: Ripley P. Bullen Series Contributors: Philip J. Carr | Sarah E. Price | D. Shane Miller | Jesse Tune | Christopher B. Rodning | Jayur M. Mehta | Bryan S. Haley | Lance Greene | Kandace D. Hollenbach | Stephen B. Carmody | Ashley A. Dumas | Christopher R. Moore | Richard W. Jeffries | Asa R. Randall
“A phenomenal collection of case studies written by prominent southeastern archaeologists which asks thought-provoking questions about the past, and more importantly, offers suggestions for the future of our field.”—North American Archaeologist
“Offer[s] concrete, science/data-driven perspectives on the everyday. . . . The value here centers on challenging archaeologists to explore unfamiliar contexts, ideas, and methodologies from numerous perspectives, a transdisciplinary approach for a twenty-first century public-oriented archaeology.”—Southeastern Archaeology
“Provides theoretical, empirical, and imaginative inspiration. . . . Recommend[ed] for any practitioner interested in pushing the boundaries of inquiry.”—Journal of Anthropological Research
“Addresses critical issues, including how the everyday and the exceptional are fundamentally entangled to produce one another, contributing valuably to a substantive archaeology of everyday matters.”—Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
“Convincingly argues that investigating the ordinary does matter in ‘real’ archaeology for many reasons, including formulating research questions, integrating data, collaborative research, and even theory building.”—American Antiquity
“Encourages archaeologists to consider the complexities of everyday life, and to recognize that the practices, animals, and materials that people engage with on a daily basis have important effects in the broader sociocultural context.”—Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology
“Investigating the Ordinary makes a convincing case that the everyday matters in archaeological discourse, and that we, as producers of this discourse, have a responsibility to continue its relevance in today’s world.”—Mississippi Archaeology
"Makes the case that the everyday should and does matter in archaeology. The content is fresh, the approaches are varied, and the case is convincing."—Adam King, editor of Archaeology in South Carolina: Exploring the Hidden Heritage of the Palmetto State
Sarah E. Price, senior archaeologist with Wiregrass Archaeological Consulting, is coeditor of Contemporary Lithic Analysis in the Southeast: Problems, Solutions, and Interpretations. Philip J. Carr, professor of anthropology at the University of South Alabama, is coeditor of Signs of Power: The Rise of Cultural Complexity in the Southeast.
