Rethinking Assemblage Analysis: New Approaches to the Archaeology of Working-Class Neighborhoods
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Rethinking Assemblage Analysis: New Approaches to the Archaeology of Working-Class Neighborhoods Penny Crook
Published online: 9 November 2011 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract In this paper I argue for an expansion of the role of assemblage analysis in understanding daily life in nineteenth-century working-class neighborhoods. The close and systematic examination of quality manufacture of nineteenth-century domestic goods offers a material link to consumer decision-making. This is demonstrated in a study of material culture from working-class sites in Sydney and London. Keywords Artifacts . Assemblage analysis . Consumerism . Quality
Introduction The material culture of working-class neighborhoods has been the subject of much interest among historical archaeologists for several decades. Artifacts and assemblage studies have inspired compelling stories and radical insights into the composition of working-class precincts from major cities across the globe (e.g., Karskens 1999; Mayne and Murray 2001; Praetzellis and Praetzellis 2004; Yamin 2001). As part and parcel of the slum debate, often it has been the goods and chattels rather than remnants of housing stock that have challenged our perceptions of “slum life” in the most immediate and persuasive ways. Some of these stories, however, have tested the foundation of archaeological knowledge and its service in the employ of consumption studies. How certain are we of the market price of “cheap” and common wares? Does a gilt-encrusted transfer ware plate signify wealth? What if it were discarded four decades after it had fallen from the height of popularity? Are there physical markers of the use of a high-fired ceramic vessel for mantel display or kitchen preparation? How does that change our assessment of these wares? Speculation about these topics and assumptions about the
P. Crook (*) Archaeology Program, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia e-mail: [email protected]
Int J Histor Archaeol (2011) 15:582–593
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value past owners might have attributed to such goods abound in archaeological reports and publications, including my own. With the archaeological focus fixed firmly on innately rich and complex landscapes (i.e. history and place), new methodologies to rigorously analyze and interpret material culture have been slow to develop. The core methodology of assemblage analysis in historical archaeology—the examination of form, fabric and decoration—has been inherited from a style of cataloguing developed for pre-industrial production processes and ancient civilizations, and specifically high-class goods. Historical archaeologists have adapted the general archaeological tools of typology, classification, and seriation to allow for period-specific issues, like the importance of decoration over fabric in the nineteenth century (Majewski and O'Brien 1987, p. 99; Miller 1980, 1991; 104; c.f., Worthy 1982, p. 334). Others have developed models to interrogate assemblages in a manner wholly unique to historical archaeology—th
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