The Gibbs Farmstead: Household Archaeology in an Internal Periphery
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The Gibbs Farmstead: Household Archaeology in an Internal Periphery Mark D. Groover1
The Gibbs farmstead, a rural domestic site in Knox County, East Tennessee, was inhabited by four generations of the Nicholas Gibbs family between ca. 1792 and 1913. In the following essay, world systems theory is combined with primary historical sources and the archaeological record to explore how aspects of the emerging global system influenced daily material life and household-level economic strategies among the Gibbs family in Southern Appalachia, regarded as an internal periphery within the world system. Focusing upon domestic architecture and foodways, consideration of material life reveals the presence of a strong vernacular orientation among the Gibbs family that was also substantially influenced by larger trends within national-level consumerism and popular culture. KEY WORDS: farmstead archaeology; Southern Appalachia; world systems theory.
INTRODUCTION Since the 1980s, prehistoric (Champion, 1989; Kardulias, 1999; Peregrine, 1992; Peregrine and Feinman, 1996; Plog et al., 1982; Stein, 1999) and historical archaeologists (Cabak and Loring, 2000; Crowell, 1997; Lewis, 1984; Orser, 1996; Paynter, 1988; South, 1988) have been increasingly influenced by world systems theory. This strand of thought is particularly applicable to studies in historical archaeology that focus upon the interrelated topics of globalization, the influence of capitalism, and the development of the modern world during the past 500 years. World systems theory provides a coherent interpretive framework for studying cultural and historical change within different regions of the world since A.D. 1500. As a general theory, one of its main values is its ability to 1 Department
of Anthropology, Ball State University, 2000 W. University Avenue, Muncie, Indiana 47304; e-mail: [email protected]. 229 C 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 1092-7697/05/1200-0229/0
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illustrate broadly occurring historical and economic trends that influenced large regions. An inherent weakness of world systems theory identified by some historical sociologists (So, 1990), however, is precisely this issue of geographic scale. Scholars in historical sociology and other related fields, for example, do not usually consider how cultural–historical processes that were unfolding during the past 500 years influenced daily life among household and communities in the larger global system. They are aware of the larger results of these processes, but are not specifically concerned with the effects of these trends at household and community levels. Fortunately, household and community level analyses are usually the main types of studies conducted by historical archaeologists. Due to the information sources, level of scale, and methods that historical archaeologists rely upon— material culture, primary historical records, and a diachronic perspective— historical archaeologists are uniquely qualified to address and track the influence and impact of larger cultural–historica
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