Historical Archaeology Through a Western Lens

"Mark Warner and Margaret Purser's edited volume, Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens, is an ambitious work that incorporates many of the most pressing issues in historical archaeology to research of the Old West. Rather than assembling a volume of isolated case studies, the editors succeed in making connections between scattered sites and structures by appreciating broader patterns driven by analyses of landscapes, social networks, and economic factors. The essays demonstrate the rich potential of multifaceted analytical tools and intriguingly different lines of evidence in a constant goal of finding a voice for the voiceless of the past."—Seth Mallios, American Antiquity
"These essays, with their focus on the American West, argue successfully the importance of historic archaeology to the scholarship and the understanding of Western expansion. The collection gives weight to the historic archaeology and promotes continued excavations into those sites that remain within our cultural memory."—Matt Donovan, Journal of the Iowa Archeological Society
"Historical Archaeology through a Western Lens offers an unprecedented overview of the broad range of research in which archaeologists of the West have been engaged."—Todd A. Hanson, Western Historical Quarterly
"Many of the contributions in this volume reflect a refreshing mix of work that is both academic and tied to public archaeology, compliance, and the National Register of Historic Places significance of historical sites. This will appeal to students, academics, and pragmatic practitioners of historical archaeology who wish to improve their research, evaluation, and interpretation. These chapters challenge the mythic history of the West in new ways and bring many new questions and intriguing directions for research by generations of future archaeologists."—Douglas C. Wilson, Historical Archaeology
“Warner and Purser have assembled a significant collection of archaeological essays that together speak powerfully to the ability of historical archaeology to contribute to the history of the U.S. West—and for the historical archaeology of the U.S. West to contribute to archaeology writ large.”—Barbara L. Voss, associate professor of anthropology at Stanford University and coeditor of The Archaeology of Chinese Immigrant and Chinese American Communities
 
“Well-written and broadly scoped, Warner and Purser have produced a compelling volume that presents excellent scholarship undertaken recently about the American West. . . . Keep it close at hand—the volume promises to be a much-reached-for resource on every archaeologists’ bookshelf.”—Carolyn L. White,  associate professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology and Mamie Kleberg Chair in Historic Preservation at the University of Nevada, Reno