ABSTRACT
Any researcher with serious intentions today, whether in the Humanities or Sciences, mustnotonly produce a clear programme of proposed study but present some explanation of the methods he or she intends to use in order to achieve these ends. This is a clear recognition of the fact that method and theory are not optional extras but fundamental to how any academic discipline works. Method involves abstracting the main issues concerning a problem and explaining the practical procedures to be applied in order to resolve these issues. In the case of ancient economies, an essential prerequisite to this process, as mentioned in the Introduction to Part1 of this volume, is the actof making explicitassumptions and ways of thought which have previously been implicit. Although the organization of contemporary research programmes does owe a good deal to the organization of research in the natural sciences, this is partly the result of a growing trend towards inter-disciplinary studies beyond the core area of the humanities, rather than the imposition of practices used elsewhere. The use of statistics and information technology, forensic science and genetics, has affected the way historians set about their work. The impact of these tools on studies of the past is most apparent in archaeology. Archaeologists have been preoccupied with problems of method for many years. Like all pioneers, they have often been viewed by less theoretically-minded students of the past as cranks or avid followers of intellectual fashions. But the debate has done a great service to traditional historians by providing possible angles of approach, exploring the implications of scientific method and flagging the pitfalls of a simplistic relationship between material evidence and interpretation (see Hodder 1999, especially chapters 2-9).
