Starve.Org White Noise Usenet Archive: "Re: Amateur surface collectors...."

[snip]

>And what if the artifact has writing on it?

Then it's a document!

>Is it then only a matter
>of interest to historians, and not to archaeologists?

Archaeologists and historians both read documents!

>And what if the historian makes use of the information provided by the
>artifacts collected and analyzed by archaeologists?

Then they're practicing cross-disciplinary research!

> Is the historian
>then doing archaeology or history?

They're employing the knowledge from another discipline in they're work,
namely, archaeology!

>The truth is that except for prehistory, where there are no
>contemporary written records from the culture being studied (there
>frequently are lots of written records from their enemies) there is no
>way to separate these two disciplines.

Hogwash! The proto-historic is a classic example of where the fields of
history and archaeology intersect. The methods employed by each are, however,
distinctly different. You demonstrate by this statement, a basic
misunderstanding between the subjects, practices, and methods of both history
and archaeology.

> And even with prehistory,
>there is still the record of what was done by archaeologists and
>historians in the past.

Come again? By "past" do you mean the "archaeological" past or the
"historical" past? Big difference there!

>Even with prehistory there generally is some
>kind of written record to be dealt with.

News to me, but I thought you didn't know a thing about it, and cared less
about how it was all done? Curious thing to say.

See ya',

--Lenny__

"If you can't remember what mnemonic means, you've got a problem."
- perlstyle

In article <4ne6l7$91q@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com> S.NEMETH@IX.NETCOM.COM (Stella Nemeth) writes: