ABSTRACT
The application of archaeology as a recognized method of adding to historical knowledge is very largely in its infancy in North America, and even more so in Great Britain. Historians in North America, if they think of American archaeologists at all, probably equate their work through anthropology to the sub-Freudian overtones of Margaret Mead’s columns in Redbook and to the “Topless fad a healthy sign, says US anthropologist” headline that reached newspapers. Thus people trained in other fields, or in other aspects of archaeology, have moved into the new and expanding field of historic archaeology, both in North America and Great Britain. The major difference between the Old and the New World approaches to archaeology seems to the writer to be that while the latter is more concerned with classification and abstract concepts, the former is more concerned with “historical” interpretation of prehistoric material.
