On The Irony of Archaeology, Or, Jimmy Knight and the Trenches of Despair

“The nice thing about Colonial Williamsburg,” someone told me during my first week as an intern, “is you always know who to blame.”

Well, not always, but often. More often than at many other sites that have been disturbed at some point in the recent, or even not-so-recent, past. That's because in CW, we, the researchers, are sometimes to blame.

On my second or third day on-site, I was introduced to the “Jimmy trench”, as it's commonly referred to by Williamsburg archaeologists. It's also often called simply “a Jimmy”. There's not just one of them, though. They're everywhere. Hundreds of them, cutting across nearly every part of the colonial area. They appear now as relatively narrow dark stripes in the soil, with very straight edges (clearly man-made), where they were dug and then filled in later with dirt that didn't necessarily match what was around it. They may vary a little in width and somewhat more in depth, but, as I understand it, there's no mistaking them. Excavating them takes extra time, can be awkward if they're particularly deep, and is rather dull work compared to some of what's there to be excavated besides the Jimmies.

So what is a Jimmy? In the 1930s/40s, when restoration work at Colonial Williamsburg was first underway, the foundation's architectural historians faced the challenge of determining exactly where the buildings indicated on eighteenth century maps had been located on the ground, not to mention how big they were, which direction they faced, and various other details that become necessary when trying to recreate something exactly as it once was.

And if one wants to locate the buried foundations of hundreds of structures spread across a large swath of land, what's the most efficient way to go about it?

According to James Knight, the architectural historian for whom the Jimmies are not-so-affectionately nicknamed, by systematically digging parallel trenches, so many feet apart, across every plot of land in the area in question.

They served their purpose: It's very unusual nowadays to uncover the foundation of an unknown building in CW. Nearly all that exist were found and recorded decades ago, even if, for whatever reason, it was decided not to reconstruct that particular building. Unfortunately, what Jimmy's trenches also did was disturb everything in them. They cut through other features that Jimmy and his crews weren't interested in, and any artifacts in them, dug up and dumped back in, are now completely out of context. They may or may not be anywhere near their original resting places or other artifacts with which they were once associated, and all time periods are jumbled up together. The Jimmies can tell modern archaeologists very little aside from where Jimmy (under whose name are now lumped all the men who ever did the actual digging for him) was. Which was everywhere.

Hooray: Wanton destruction in the name of research. It's a common theme in early “archaeology”, when people were singlemindedly looking for one thing, be it Pre-columbian treasures or just colonial-era building foundations, and completely disregarded everything else, never imagining that the other information they were obliterating might be useful to future researchers.

To be fair, Jimmies did far less damage than some other methods would have; at least the area between them remains more or less untouched, except where there are other trenches for utility lines and sewer pipes—and those we would have to contend with anyway. The Jimmy trench may be the bane of the CW archaeologist, but as irritating modern features go, they're relatively benign. Nonetheless, I was still reminded of the tale I heard in Belize about an “archaeologist” in the discipline's early days who went around dynamiting the tops off of Maya pyramids in an effort to get at the treasures inside. I saw one of those disfigured temples at Xunantunich—not a pretty sight, either literally or in terms of what it represents. In the olden days (also known as the early decades of the twentieth century...), archaeologists really were somewhat like Indiana Jones: looters and treasure-hunters, not systematic researchers.

It's worth noting that not only was this a broader phenomenon than the raiding of ancient ruins, but here in Williamsburg, destruction took place even before the first limited archaeology could be undertaken. The restoration and reconstruction of Williamsburg's historic area to an approximation of its 1770s appearance did not take place on land that had gone unused in the intervening century and a half, and required that nearly all of the more recent buildings be torn down. Many of these were also historic buildings, dating from as far back as the early nineteenth century, but didn't make the cut because of the focus on recreating colonial-era Williamsburg.

I'm not going to pass judgment on this, but I think it's worth knowing and bearing in mind, along with the other facts of how the landscape and layout of the town were altered by the restoration. I think the question it raises about when and how something becomes a part of history, even if it obscures or comes into conflict with an earlier part of history (What do you save? Where do you draw the line? Who gets to decide?), is worth thinking about, and it's something I'll probably return to in the future. The bottom line is that the past is not some static entity. Time does not happen in easily defined stages, succeeding one another neatly with abrupt, simultaneous change. It's an overlapping jumble of many people's many actions in many times. It's a rare site indeed where anyone can try to turn back the clock to an earlier time without undoing what's happened since. The eradication of nineteenth-century Williamsburg, as well as the Jimmy Knight trenches and the clay-filled ravines that plague our excavations, is as much a part of the story of Williamsburg as the eighteenth-century material we're actually looking for.

Restoration often springs from archaeology; archaeology often results in restoration. They are linked by the sharing of information, but also by their inherent destructiveness. It's been said in many ways by many people cleverer than I—archaeologists and non-archaeologists alike—but archaeology is almost unique among academic disciplines because it inevitably destroys the very things it studies. True, archaeology can lead to restoration or reconstruction, but to do so it must undo decades or centuries or even millennia of change. Or, in some cases, it must destroy things that have survived on their own for all that time, untouched. An excavation can never be repeated; once you dig something up, it's impossible to put it back exactly as it was. And it's just as impossible to record or keep or preserve everything you find—but then no one who comes after you will have the opportunity, either.

This is something every archaeologist must come to terms with, and the sooner the better. It's difficult for many of us. People like me become archaeologists because we want to understand and preserve what we can of the past, and it's a tough day when we first realize what excavation actually entails beyond the chance to hold some centuries-old artifact in our hands. (I have not forgotten how I felt the first time I was made aware that on certain sites, under certain circumstances, the backhoe can be a legitimate excavation tool, and it wasn't pleasant.) We may be the first to see what we've uncovered in hundreds or thousands of years, but we are also the last ever, no matter what, to see it in context and as intact as it will ever be again. And then we must undo it, to shuttle its artifacts off to a shelf in some lab, to see what's underneath it in the next layer, and finally to rebury the ravaged site once more. A handful of sites will be preserved and protected, perhaps even at least partially reconstructed based on what we've found, so that others can see what remains, or what might have been once upon a time. But we have undone everything before us, and we can't repair it again, no matter how much it teaches us. And anything we've missed, whether because the tools or methods to study it don't exist [yet?] or because we just didn't think it was important, is lost forever.

As I said, it's something all archaeologists learn to accept, or they wouldn't continue to pursue a career (or even a hobby) in archaeology. But privately, I've wondered for a while now if that's secretly a part of why archaeologists have such a reputation for being heavy drinkers.

"Well, we're in the business of faking it, aren't we?"

Fair warning, this post might be a work in progress, because it's long and I don't really feel like editing it further at the moment.

And again, the “these are my own observations and not necessarily anyone else's” disclaimer.

Also, in case anyone out there is interested in the official/technical version of the project I'm involved with right now, or if you just want to know details about stuff I may not know or just don't get into here, here is Colonial Williamsburg's website for the Armoury Project. The blog seems to be more about the reconstruction work than the archaeology, and I don't think either of the webcams currently has any of the excavation work in the frame (although at least one of them has in the past and might again at some point), but it's interesting nonetheless.

Anyway. Williamsburg is a small city that sometimes feels more like a very concentrated suburb. It's a city of quaint neighborhoods full of tiny little houses, of untold numbers of hotels for tourists and apartment complexes for college students and poorly paid service-sector employees, of more shopping centers and restaurants than anyone needs in one place. It's a city of clapboards and picket fences, of unfathomable street layouts, of Southern heat and abrupt coastal rainstorms that are quick to flood its many low-lying roads, and of astonishing variety in gas prices from one street to the next. I love it. I hate it. I want to stay here forever, and I don't understand why anyone finds it so appealing. I'm not sure anymore whether the contradictions are in the city itself or in me. Or both.

But speaking of contradictions, I do know one thing: Colonial Williamsburg is an interesting place. Part nonprofit museum and part vacation-business corporation; part historic downtown area and part semi-falsified reconstruction (read: part window to the past and part hilariously misleading facade); part lovely (and loving) venue for learning and reflection and part corny and vapid entertainment center. Many cities have historic districts, and many of them are tourist attractions or host special events, and many of them are preserved and/or reconstructed to some extent, or at least have rules about how things have to look. None that I've ever seen takes it to the same level as Williamsburg.

Among other things, I've been really struck by the geographical scale of Colonial Williamsburg. Even all my years of reading and the intense discussion, accompanied by a not-so-flattering monograph about a study of CW's operations ca. 1990, in my historical memory seminar this past semester did not fully prepare me for the size of the place. It's literally a town within a town. It goes on for blocks. It takes me close to a good fifteen minutes to walk the length of Duke of Gloucester Street, the main street of the historic area, and that's without stopping or entering buildings or exploring side streets, of which there are many. And I walk somewhat fast, too.

For the sake of full disclosure, I should probably mention that this is not actually the first time I've seen Colonial Williamsburg in person. We did the whole family vacation thing over Thanksgiving break when I was in fifth grade, which pretty much made my life at the time, but about which I barely remember anything now. For all intents and purposes, I saw it all—historic area and city at large—with entirely fresh eyes when I first arrived here two weeks ago. I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing in the end, but it certainly means that I do not, and never will, have a baseline perception of CW through the eyes of a tourist and casual history buff. I am behind the scenes, maybe even behind behind-the-scenes, and even when I'm not, if I wander through on a Saturday morning, for example, then my perception is still colored, if not by that, then at the very least by my training as an academic historian, with a critical eye towards presentation and interpretation as much as factual accuracy.

I ran into a woman in colonial garb at the grocery store after work the other day, and had to turn away before she saw me laughing—not at her, just at the ridiculousness of the situation. I'm told you stop noticing things like that if you live here long enough, but for me, right now, it's still jarring.

A lot of it is jarring, actually. I've been around theatrical productions enough that having a conversation with the costumed blacksmith, who takes an active interest in the archaeology going on, or with one of the first-person interpreters* who comes over on a break to see what we're up to, didn't strike me as that strange. On the other hand, the first time I saw a contingent of Redcoats marching down the street, it got my attention in a much bigger way. Each day at lunchtime, I and two others on the field crew get soft-serve ice cream from a tavern outbuilding where two people dressed as 18th-century colonists operate 21st-century soda fountains in an air-conditioned shed. The whole juxtaposition of 21st-century tourism, vacationers wandering haphazardly around, with this elegant facsimile of a colonial city, where there are also people who dress and talk as if they actually belong there, is very unsettling to me. I like for things to be ordered and realistic and in their right place. I like the idea of time travel, but the anarchic feel of CW's faux time travel gets to me. And although it's fun (and funny) to be on the inside and able to see what's behind the curtain, so to speak, it's also a little bizarre.

That said, if you really want to pretend to step back in time in Williamsburg, the secret is to walk into the colonial area super early in the morning. The archaeological field crew arrives at 7:30 (so that we can work before it really heats up for the day, ending earlier than usual in the afternoon). That's an hour or so before the buildings and shops open for tourists, and half an hour before they even close the main roads to anything with a motor, not that there's a lot of traffic other than some police/security cars and maintenance vehicles—and those are allowed through, at least in some places, even during the day when the streets are officially closed. When the streets are empty, except for an earlybird employee in costume here and there, and maybe a jogger or someone walking a dog or two, it's a very different feel from when we leave the site and walk back through town at noon or at the end of the day, when everything is bustling with herds of tourists in shorts and tank tops, carrying maps and shopping bags and typically looking vacant. That's just strange. With no one around, it's a bit like a ghost town—but at least it's a ghost town that doesn't feel like some kind of time warp. Or just fake (even though, depending on how you define “fake,” much of it probably is). As someone argued on our lunch break today, “CW is kind of Twilight Zone-y,” a statement with which I agree wholeheartedly.

On the other hand, before-hours is also a good time to catch costumed employees showing up for work, wearing 18th-century clothes, but walking bikes or carrying backpacks.

And of course, the empty streets are still paved, which makes me giggle a little. Sandy and unmarked, but definitely asphalt. I also caught a guy in costume wearing sneakers the other day. They were black sneakers, and partially concealed, so it was subtle. But not subtle enough you wouldn't notice if you looked at his feet. Sometimes, if you're in the northern half of the colonial area, or even the southern half and just listen carefully, you occasionally hear the unmistakable roar of a freight train passing by on the other side of Lafayette Street, the northern boundary of the historic area. I know for a fact that the perfectly manicured hedges are not trimmed by hand, but with gas-powered lawn equipment, and that the infamous horse poop on the streets is in fact cleaned up now and then—just not while tourists are around to have their experience detracted from. (I guess it's a question of balance. Not enough horse poop and the tourists complain it's inauthentic; too much horse poop and they complain that it's dirty. Never mind the fact that either way, [I strongly suspect] the number of horses here is far below what would actually be representative of the 1770s. Think about that.) If you look closely enough at your surroundings, you can sometimes see the hidden air conditioners in certain windows and the small parking lots concealed behind shrubbery. The archaeological excavation at the armoury complex goes hand in hand with the armoury reconstruction project, and over at the construction-site portion of the site, backhoes and forklifts and dump trucks abound, though they're out of sight of Duke of Gloucester St and possibly far enough from the beaten path that many people don't notice. Those foundations don't get laid by hand, even if much of the rest of the building might be built the old-fashioned way.

One thing I respect and appreciate is that most of the buildings have small plaques on them indicating what they were and/or who owned them in the period to which they've been restored, and these plaques, for the most part, clearly indicate whether the building in question is the restored original or a reconstruction. In general, I take no offense to reconstructions if they're clearly indicated as such and are at least someone's best educated guess as far as accuracy in appearance is concerned. And as for the educated guesses, when research brings up new information that changes the guesses, CW makes changes to the buildings. Right now they're rebuilding the armoury (formerly known as the blacksmith's shop) as a substantial brick building to replace what was essentially a wooden shack in the incarnation that was torn down last fall, because it makes far more sense historically that it would have been something big and sturdy and lasting. (Or so I understand; I don't pretend to have actually read any of the research on this. I assume someone has. It's probably even summarized on the informational signs on-site, at which I haven't looked very closely.)

However, I have yet to see or hear anything that makes clear the extent to which the very landscape of Williamsburg was altered in the “restoration” (you'll never hear anyone say “reconstruction΅ in such a general sense, although I think more was rebuilt than was merely restored) of the historic area. And that's something I think I have a right to be bitter about, not just because it's a misleading contradiction of CW's mantra of authenticity, but because I'm currently part of the field crew that spent the last week digging our way through two solid feet of clay that was used to fill in a ravine in the 1930s and bring the ground there up to the same level as everything around it. Apparently, the perfect colonial city was flat. Even if it wasn't.

Like I said, it's interesting. Williamsburg masks the past even as it attempts to bring it back to life. And then it masks the masking. There are layers upon layers (HAHAHA ARCHAEOLOGY PUN) of facades.

* CW's fancy way of saying an actor playing a character, as opposed to others, like some tour guides, who wear a costume to blend in but retain their modern persona.

An Armchair Archaeologist/Historian Ventures Forth

I've been thinking about starting a blog like this for a while, although I make no promises about sticking with it. I'll try to keep my observations as intelligent and mature as possible, but I make no promises there, either.

My main motives for starting this blog right now are
1) I'm finally/abruptly done with college and [theoretically] have time for hobbies again, and
2) I have commenced my transition into the real/adult world by moving to Williamsburg, VA for an internship with the archaeologists at Colonial Williamsburg.

It's an adventure in more ways than one. Among other things, I've never lived on my own before except while I was in school, which doesn't really count, and although previous fieldwork was a prerequisite for this internship, my previous experience was as a student/slave at a large and somewhat disorganized field school. This is the first time I've felt like a REAL archaeologist, and I've really gotten a kick out of being able to introduce myself to my new roommates and their friends as "an archaeologist" instead of "an archaeology/anthropology/history student".

True, it would be better if I could also say I was getting paid for it, but we've all got to start somewhere. I may be a mere intern, but everyone around me is getting paid. That means there's hope. (… Right?)

Anyway, these first week's of this blog's existence are [again, theoretically] going to be full of what I am seeing and thinking and learning as I dig (literally!) into eighteenth-century Virginia. I'm already behind, as I've been here two weeks already (time flies), but that just means I have a backlog of what I hope are interesting things to impart—things about archaeological fieldwork and historical archaeology in general, but also about historical and archaeological tourism and about Colonial Williamsburg itself.

Having said that, this is probably a good time to reiterate what's written at the bottom of this page, which is that anything I have to say is coming out of my own head unless otherwise noted. I might get information from other people, but any opinions I express about that information are my own. I'm not purporting to speak for anyone else, least of all CW or anyone I work with there. As I've already mentioned, they're not paying me, so any praise I have is genuine, and any criticisms are... well, if they're not paying me, I feel like they can't tell me what not to say, as long as I'm not knowingly revealing anything confidential (which I won't).

Now, if I may be a dork for just a moment, I just want to say that words cannot express how excited I am to be here. It's objectively a great opportunity, but I think maybe it's still a greater opportunity in my head than it is in reality. I have been a history nerd since I can remember, always with a special boner* for colonial-period America, and despite the fact that I am now [theoretically again?] an educated grown woman, it never occurred to me until very recently that there are people, even people who did not grow up on the other side of the country and who are not totally clueless about the world at large, who have never heard of Colonial Williamsburg. This came as a shocking and somewhat appalling discovery for me. Williamsburg has loomed large in my mind for my entire life, and not just because I have family connections to the College of William and Mary. As a historical entity, it's the epitome (or close to it) of English-colonial America; as a modern creation, it's the museum to end all museums.

And you know, we can debate the purposes and responsibilities of museums and of historical scholarship, the meaning and importance of accuracy, the pros and cons and benefits and flaws of reconstruction and of living history all day, but at the end of that day, academic persona and scholarly opinions aside, I am still a geeky ten years old at heart and I still just plain love this shit.*

For anyone from my Historical Memory seminar last semester who's reading this: I totally had an American Girl doll. And it was totally Felicity.


* Okay, I should probably also note that I'm going to try to keep things PG, but sometimes this is going to happen instead. I apologize in advance.