{"id":114,"date":"2025-06-28T11:33:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-28T15:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/?p=114"},"modified":"2025-06-28T11:35:56","modified_gmt":"2025-06-28T15:35:56","slug":"thoreaus-archaeology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/2025\/06\/28\/thoreaus-archaeology\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoreau’s Archaeology"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n


Why did Henry David Thoreau collect “Indian relics”? Some years ago I set out to answer this question for my own satisfaction.\u00a0 The results of my research were published late in 2019 (\u201cHenry David Thoreau, Archaeologist? The Concord Saunterer<\/em> 27: 42-67).<\/p>\r\n

Unfortunately, the published version became available only as the covid lockdown took effect and I fear it went down Orwell’s Memory Hole.\u00a0 For whatever reason, it did not elicit any discussion on the issue.<\/p>\r\n

The question remains open.\u00a0 Many disciplines like to claim Thoreau as “one of their own,” from abolitionists to zoologists.\u00a0 There is some justification for doing so.\u00a0 Thoreau’s intellect was wide ranging and in his short life his thinking contributed insights in many fields, from ecology to hydraulics to surveying.\u00a0 My question is whether he contributed to the emergence of prehistoric archaeology in the mid-nineteenth century.\u00a0 After all, Thoreau collected prehistoric artifacts and carefully studied the available literature on American Indian cultures.\u00a0 He was equally aware of the literature on geology and, at the end of his life, biological evolution, both of which required vast amounts of time.\u00a0 Did Thoreau put these different threads of thinking together and formulate a concept of “deep time” for human evolution?<\/p>\r\n

I found no convincing evidence that he did so, at least in a way that would resonate with professional archaeologists in our time.\u00a0 Why not?\u00a0 After all, the significant breakthroughs in prehistoric archaeology in Europe and the United States were the work of the 1830s-1860s, the most active period of Thoreau’s interests in natural history and the sciences.\u00a0 If not, then why did he collect stone tools and pottery, his\u00a0 “Indian relics” as he called them?<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why did Henry David Thoreau collect “Indian relics”? Some years ago I set out to answer this question for my own satisfaction.\u00a0 The results of my research were published late in 2019 (\u201cHenry David Thoreau, Archaeologist? The Concord Saunterer 27: 42-67). Unfortunately, the published version became available only as the covid lockdown took effect and … Continue reading “Thoreau’s Archaeology”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8088,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8088"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions\/123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/runnels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}