Ordinary People: The Role of Historical Archaeology in Understanding American History.

Historical archaeology enables students to confront the mythology of the past with real knowledge about the past and thus provides them with significant insight and understanding. Students are often presented with an ideological past, both in textbooks and museums, that never really existed. For example, people often come away from living historical museums with the idea that the past represents simpler and more pure times. Archaeology, however, strives to uncover the full spectrum of life from the lower rungs of society to the highest. Only when students are confronted with archaeological evidence, such as the existence of privies next to water wells, illustrating the 18th century's lack of germ theory does the separation of myth and reality occur, confronting the mind with a more real past. (Author/KC)