Oral History in Historical Archaeology: Excavating Sites of Memory

The use of oral history as a source in recent historical archaeology is a growing phenomenon. In this paper I advocate a site-based approach to this interdisciplinary work, combining archaeological, historical and memory work on a specific location to create and foster a public discourse of memory. This draws on the popular interest in archaeological work to form a nexus or meeting place for the expression, collection and communication of memory. An experiment to test this theory was carried out on a large community archaeology project on a Blitz site in East London. The results were successful, with stories and memories being volunteered by visitors to the site rather than being actively sought out.