Abstract
Three ironclad warships, C.S.S.Georgia, U.S.S.Cairo, and U.S.S.Monitor, are discussed as examples of industrial process in the United States Civil War period. In their archaeological study the author and others have relied principally on explanatory methodologies that stress their definition within social and technological contexts. This explanatory protocol is examined within concepts of technology which involve the function, and functioning, of manufactured things both within their own era as well as in present-day life. This consideration examines the mythologization of historic things, particularly shipwrecks, and cites the need to identify and account for this occurrence within the archaeological and historical analysis of these or any other industrial sites.
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Garrison, E.G. Three ironclad warships—The archaeology of industrial process and historical myth. Hist Arch 29, 26–38 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374215
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03374215