ABSTRACT
The following pages are devoted to a short historical survey of the techniques used by social anthropologists in collecting material in the field. These techniques have differed in the past, and still differ to some extent, from those used by sociologists researching in modern communities, whose theoretical objectives have often differed widely from those of the student of primitive society. The anthropologist's frequent preoccupation with the problem of reconstructing the past history and social organization of communities that have left no written records is a case in point. The particular conditions of anthropological field work, again, account for some of the differences in technique. Certain difficulties, such as those due to the remoteness of the field, and the size and illiteracy of the groups studied, have limited the types of observation possible to the anthropologist; other conditions have actually suggested fruitful problems for investigation, and have led to the development of observational techniques which have seldom been attempted in the study of modern societies.
