ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes some of the results of a long-term study into the history and archaeology of modern Tameside which have been published in eight volumes. An Archaeology of Capitalism, by Matthew Johnson (1996), is the most explicitly theoretical of the volumes and appears to echo a wider trend in archaeology in explaining how the rise of the concept of the individual, seen by some as crucial to industrialization, can be demonstrated by changes in a wide range of physical remains. This archaeological model combined with the earlier historical research allowed us to create a ‘narrative’ about the nature of the Industrial Revolution as it occurred in two lordships on the edge of the Pennines. An holistic approach meant treating the period in the same way as we might treat the remains of the Bronze Age by giving in the initial phases of the study equal weight and importance to all elements of the physical remains.
