To discuss the term we must of course start with the piece that coined it, this speech by Noel Hume who at the time was directing excavations at Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia and is now considered an early promoter of historical archaeology.. As far as archaeological theory goes, 1964 was a looooong time ago. No fewer than two monumental paradigm shifts have occurred since then. Hume was speaking as processual archaeology was developing in the States- a movement which, in short, put archaeology in anthropology departments in the Americas and chronicled social development from an evolutionary lens. Processualism dominated the 70s, until post-processualists reacted against it in favor of more subjective, interpretive, and post-modern approaches. Processualists do still hang around in some regions (e.g. students of Kent Flannery in Oaxaca); some might say that post-processual has had its time as "normal" and is on the way out. But further detail on that is not why we're here. The real point: The theoretical landscape Hume knew was several times removed from ours.

Hume caricatures the archaeologists of his day as either bespectacled armchair "Methuselahs" or preppy young men with privilege, curiosity, and a bucket. He's exaggerating for a point, yet not too much. I've written about the early days of American archaeology both here and here. Archaeology in Europe had long been tied with history, but there was no tradition of study of any kind for Amercanists to build off of. Thus, you got folks like George Thruston, whom I talk about in the second link, a retired Civil War general and Nashville socialite who used his wealth and leisure to document the prehistoric stone-box tombs of Middle Tennessee and curate an impressive artifact collection. He wasn't Hume's preppy young man, but he was an amateur in any light. On the other side, academic minds, like those I describe in the first link, essentially took after the naturalists of their day: sketching, recording, drawing, and cataloging but not so frequently interpreting. This "bag and tag" collector attitude continued (at least from Hume's view) until the 50s and early 60s:

The temporary nature of many Indian habitation sites, coupled with the distrubing agencies of wind, rain, vegetation, and plowing, together ensure that surface collecting can be extremely informative- largely because there is often very little else that one can do. But in historic archaeology there is so much that can, and must, be done. [...] In short, the amateur collector who frequently does valuable work in the field of Indian archaeology cannot expect to turn chameleon-like into a historic archaeologist, just by setting himself down on a Colonial site. [Emphasis mine]

Hume, importantly, is British, so he is keen to differentiate American "Indian archaeology" from European "historic archaeology." Again, archaeology in Europe is to this day part of history departments. He adds that he "would not dare- [he] would not presume- to attempt to excavate an Indian site." This is where the speech and arguments begin to show their age. (More obvious signs include the phrases "War Between the State" and "my coloured laborer" later in the text). It's not that Hume looks down on American archaeology- he acknowledges he lacks the particular knowledge for it- rather it's that he is looking at a field that is incredibly different than ours, one on the verge of an identity crisis that would spawn processualism, one so focused on material collection that Hume must ask and reply:

What is the purpose of archaeology in the historical period? Assuming that its excavated artifacts are still not generally sought by collectors, the answer is simply that the only reason for archaeological interest in the historic period is to obtain, not relics, but information.

Even such a small, passing mention of an artifact's collector-value as a legitimate motive for archaeology distances the field of 1964 from the North American field of today. That's not to say that archaeology was a free-for-all scavenger hunt- but it means something that a notable name, no matter how accustomed to European archaeology they are, should claim that there's little value in excavating in non-historic North American contexts. There are modern movement that value public, or even amateur archaeology, but the phrases "amateur collector" and "valuable" have not been seen together in decades.

If that's confusing- good. We can't classify any one field at any one time as anything specific. British Hume is going to think differently than his Virginian compatriots, who will think differently than those working out West. The main point is that archaeology and history were very different things in 1964 than they are now in North America .

So what does he mean by titling his speech "Archaeology: Handmaiden to History?" Not much. The very first sentence is:

The very glib title which I coined for this speech a year ago- long before I started to give it any serious thought was "Archaeology: Handmaiden to History"

People took this phrase and ran with it, as people do, but Hume's attitude it not at all derisive to archaeology as merely an assistant or tool for history. It's a spotlight on his successes that show it can be so much more. The printed speech reads more as a manifesto of the need for and benefits of a compound historical archaeology done by historians "with a pen in one hand and a trowel in the other." Sure, Hume does say "The archaeologist is, of course, merely a means to an end." This is really more of a rhetorical statement to beg the question 'To what end?" Hume goes on to discuss numerous interesting (legitimately I highly recommend reading them) stories of how archaeological data corrected historical narratives or created entirely new narratives. He says of these studies:

I hope that [the results] will serve not only as a useful contribution to historic site archaeology, but that they will also demonstrate how archaeology and history complement each other, to show how the two disciplines combine to give the past a new dimension. [...] It is my contention that by accepting and using the techniques and products of archaeology the historian is not only able to broaden his own knowledge, but he can also make his studies more readily acceptable to the general public.

These are good words. I like them. They support Hume's claim that the "Handmaiden" title was truly quite glib. While there have been situations when archaeology was indeed the handmaiden, the term comes from a rejection of that relationship and the creation of a cooperative one. It most certainly does not originate as a definition of archaeology or as an endorsement of such a state.

That's a very roundabout way to say this: Hume was not saying archaeology was "nothing more than" the handmaiden of history, but was proving that the two could and should work together with examples from his work as a pioneering historical archaeologist.

Further thoughts:

I, personally, will always fight strict departmentalization of fields, and much of the "historic social sciences" are moving this direction. "Interdisciplinary" is the buzzword on campuses. There's a running joke that you can get more scientific grants if slap the prefix "ethno-" on your field of study since it appears more holistic. It doesn't matter if you suddenly study "ethnohydrotoponymy" (yes, that is a real word from an article)- it looks good because it crosses disciplinary borders. And yes, this does reflect the reality. I do archaeology, but have used ethnographic interviews, historical land-grants, oral histories, geology, and other not-archaeology things in my work. As fields merge, split, and rejoin, one thing is always going to end up as the handmaiden of another- typically because people train in a specialty, e.g. archaeology, and then reach out to work with other specialties. History, when I use it, will always be the handmaiden since that's not my thing. But, at least in the Andes where I work, the distinction is only so great. We expect to make use of any and all information we can get, no matter what methods we use.

A currently hot topic worth noting is the relationship between archaeology and oral history, with articles asking whether one should be the "handmaiden" of the other. Often the conclusion is similar: neither should be. Archaeology cannot be a scientific dictator of truth, nor should we suppose any standard, monolithic, "official" oral history. Just as academic, textual history archaeology can cooperate and inform each other like Hume championed, oral history, textual history, and archaeology can exist in multivocality. This three-way conversation is foundation for the emerging "indigenous archaeology" concept.