Symbolic Interpretation of Homelots

Although the material and functional aspects of households are the most readily amenable to archaeological interpretation, symbolic archeologists would argue that one must surpass the purely material and functional understanding of domestic structures, to examine households as symbolic representations of the people who inhabit(ed) them.

Symbolic archaeology arose in the 1980’s under the umbrella term ‘post-processual archaeology,’ as a reaction to the rigid materialism and ecologically-deterministic view of culture which dominated prior archaeological study. Symbolic archaeologists, like Ian Hodder are often critical of the ability of material culture’s “function and utility in explaining social and cultural systems,” where “material culture is seen simply as a passive object of functional use” (Hodder 1982: 3). Instead, Hodder (1982) believed that culture, and material remains, should be interpreted for meaning rather than function. Historical archaeologists, Rotman and Nassaney (1997) subscribe to Hodder’s notions of symbolism in their investigations of the evolution of a residential homelot in Plainwell, Michigan from the mid-19th century up to 1990.

Rotman and Nassaney’s (1997) argument centers around the idea that landscapes, particularly residential architecture and the surrounding Woodhams homelot, serve as a “medium of communication that symbolically expresses status or other social roles” (1997: 42). In their investigation of this particular Michigan homelot, Rotman and Nassaney (1997) utilize historical documents (including: government and legal documentation, historic maps, newspapers, and photographic and architectural evidence), along with interviews of current and past residents, and archaeological subsurface excavations of the house and surrounding garden and outhouse areas. The historical evidence indicates that the village of Plainwell, Michigan “witnessed political, economic, and social changes at the local, regional, and national levels since the mid-19th century” (1997: 42). However, despite the changes in American society on these multiple scales, the archaeological excavations of the Woodhams homelot suggest evidence for a considerable amount of continuity in glass and gender relations. In particular, evidence of the shared use of the barn (a traditionally male space), the garden (traditionally tended by women), and the simplified floor-plan of the house are indicative of a sexually-integrated space, reflecting “the complementary nature of gender relations,” (1997:59) specific to this homelot. The authors argue that the particularities of this homelot do not fit more traditional models of the “urban farmstead,” commonly used to explain the lifestyle for people in this place and time period. Rotman and Nassaney (1997) stress that “landscape changes are more than merely physical adaptations to the external world . . . rather, they are symbolic elements that are shaped by social dynamics at multiple scales” (58)

This article speaks not only to the importance of a mixture of methodological approaches (historical, ethnographic, and archaeological), but also to the particular and contextualized nature of past people’s lives – a concept championed by symbolic archaeology. Rotman and Nassaney (1997) adequately illuminate how to symbolically interpret class and gender relations in a specific historical and geographical context, and “eludicdate how the seemingly static and opaque facades of American life can be penetrated by a critical eye to expose the connection between human action and its material product” (59).


By:Karen Wurzburger

References:

Hodder, Ian
1982 Theoretical Archaeology: a Reactionary View. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by I. Hodder, pp. 1-16. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Rotman, D.L. & Nassaney M.S.
1997 Class, Gender, and the Built Environment: Deriving Social Relations from Cultural Landscapes in Southwest Michigan. Historical Archaeology 31(2): 42-62.