Once considered unapproachable, the topic of religion has been gaining recognition as both important in past life and in archaeological studies. Archaeologists have increasingly recognized that religious ideology is relevant for the interpretation of material culture and impossible to ignore as a central factor in processes of identification over the last five centuries. Kimberly Pyszka’s book continues and expands on this trend through three case studies from very different contexts across two centuries in the US South.
The first considers English colonization of South Carolina and the different religious communities present there in the seventeenth century; it culminates in a study of the 1707 St. Paul’s Parish Church. The site, known through ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and excavation by the author, is placed in the context of South Carolina’s early economic development and the ongoing confrontation with the Native communities on which European-descended peoples were encroaching. The religious diversity of early South Carolina White society is seen as a factor in decision-making by the church builders, whose twofold goals were to reinforce the power of the established church and to broaden their reach among Dissenters. Pyszka’s use of geography and comparison to nearby sites within the Colony of South Carolina help build the argument that the charged choices of site selection and building orientation were made with social and political factors in mind.
A century and a half later, and several hundred miles to the west, the next study examines the Episcopalian St. Luke’s Church in Cahaba, Alabama’s first state capital. Tracing the rise and fall of this community, primarily in the context of the years just before and after the Civil War (1861–1865), this section focuses on extant architecture and architectural history to show how the building was a product of both broader, international cultural forces and local ones. Key here are departures from contemporary published church plans, which Pyszka connects to local Whites’ need to establish a race-based identity over a religious one.
The final case study moves farther west still and considers the mid- to late nineteenth-century Cane Hill College in Arkansas. Again, historical work and extant architecture are combined with archaeological testing to trace multiple buildings and their potential meanings for a group of Cumberland Presbyterians, the founders of the school. A solid case is made for the discovery of an early building related to the college, and the study considers the placement of the various structures on the landscape—a useful throughline with the other studies in the book. Here Pyszka brings in historical archaeology work by others, such as Mark Leone’s famous work in Annapolis, to argue for the relationship between sightlines and power at the site. A fourth chapter largely summarizes the points made in the case studies, and the book concludes with a brief epilogue that rightly lays out the potential of a contemporary archaeology of religion.
Pyszka’s arguments in each case study are laid out in detail and are well supported. Several times I found myself with objections only to find those addressed in the next paragraph. As often happens, archaeological data can be limited or ambiguous, and the book recognizes those limitations honestly; limited data can also push an analyst to careful and thoughtful consideration of the data at hand and what can be said, extending the analysis more than might be done in a cursory study: I think that is the case here, to the book’s credit. The book is also strong when it considers the interaction of religion and other forces, such as race, wealth, and political power, rather than trying to isolate religion as the sole social factor at work on these sites. Slavery, for instance, is inescapable in these landscapes, and its role is frequently recognized; for instance, through the exclusionary gallery and dual entrances at St. Luke’s, which Pyszka argues helped “reinforce their [White enslavers] own dominance and authority, both within the church walls themselves and the larger society” (p. 62).
In places, the arguments may push a little beyond what the data presented support, as when labeling the unadorned, Carpenter Gothic St. Luke’s “opulent and elaborate” (p. 101) for having a few extra windows, external buttresses, and a tall tower. Because the discussion is in the context of “High Church” versus “Low Church” forms of Episcopalianism, and the argument is explicitly made that American Episcopalianism largely mirrors British Anglicanism even after the American Revolution (p. 56), the reader is invited to compare St. Luke’s to the far more “elaborate” High Church Cathedrals of England, which make St. Luke’s seem relatively plain. Although all Pyszka’s case studies include elements of comparison, reaching beyond the somewhat artificial boundaries of South Carolina to compare St. Paul’s with other colonies or denominations, for instance, or arguing for St. Luke’s “opulence” through comparison with other churches, or delving into the growing literature on college campus archaeology when considering Cane Hill would have extended the relevance of these case studies and helped them make a larger statement within the field overall.
That said, Pyszka’s studies are an excellent example of the union of archaeological excavations with attention to broader geographic and social landscapes, historical discussions, and archival records—always the goal of historical archaeology. Each section comes with a detailed and well-researched local history, which provides useful context and helps the reader understand the arguments to follow. Overall, this book is a solid contribution to the growing field of the historical archaeology of religion.
