The Archaeology of Britain: An introduction from ... - waughfamily.ca

The industrial revolution
• 295 •
INDUSTRIAL AND HISTORICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY
In compiling this brief survey, it has not always been
easy to see how distinctively archaeology is
contributing to our understanding of the period. The
problem is not lack of application—much hard work
has been done in the field and in the library, and
many good inventories compiled—but one of
defining how archaeology might best be utilized and
which approaches should be taken.
The theoretical basis for the archaeology of the
past two centuries is much better developed in
countries outside Britain such as the United States
of America, Canada and Australia, where it has long
been recognized that the archaeology of the
historical period is a proving ground for
methodological developments (Connah 1988). In
such countries, industrial archaeology is a sub-set
of the wider field of historical archaeology.
In Australia and New Zealand, historical
archaeology deals with the buildings, landscapes and
artefacts of the whole period from pre-colonial
Figure 16.10 Slip-glazed chamber pot: an example of the
ordinary domestic ceramics that became important in the
second half of the eighteenth century.
Source: Kate Clark
contact until the present day. Key themes in Australia include the tension between imported and
locally developed technology, the role of the penal system, the process of clearance and the
development of distinctive building types. The process of colonization, whether successful or failed,
is an area that has been explored in a number of countries, including Canada, Sweden and the
Caribbean (Dyson 1985). It is to America or Australia that the archaeologist interested in the material
culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and in particular ceramics, should turn, because
here sequences of artefacts tend to be better published, and better dated. More recent American
studies are dominated by themes such as women’s roles, consumer behaviour, ethnicity and
urbanization, and it is argued, for example, that struggles between different groups in society, be
they women and men, slaves and planters, capitalists and workers, may all be seen in the use of
pottery and material culture, in town planning or in the design of buildings. In an age that has seen
a new fascination with the impact of information technology, the relationship between people and
technology, or the way in which innovations are adopted, has also gained a new relevance.
The other factor that has shaped industrial archaeology has been the need to consider, rank,
research, defend and care for industrial monuments as part of the wider spectrum of heritage
conservation. On the Continent, major conservation initiatives in France and in the Ruhr in
Germany have generated a renewed interest in the remains of the period, and in Britain, the
systematic surveys of English Heritage’s Monuments Protection Programme have greatly enhanced
our understanding of the range of sites that remain. Perhaps the emphasis on the ‘industrial’
aspects of historical archaeology are particularly strong in Britain because, as Cossons argues, it
was an epoch when Britain ‘for a brief period of perhaps five generations, held the centre of the
world stage as the first industrial nation, birthplace of the Industrial Revolution’ (1987, 10).
The subject matter for industrial archaeology is vast, and the contribution of archaeology is
limited only by the number of archaeologists who are prepared to tackle it. The impact of the
new technologies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have barely been touched upon, nor