ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with aspects of the intellectual development of North American archaeology, especially work in the eastern half of the continent. Americanist archaeologists in the Classic era increasingly conceived of their activities as constituting a discipline, but whether it was merely affiliated with, or perhaps wholly contained within, the academic field of anthropology was a matter of indecision. Walter W. Taylor presented the conjunctive approach as a desirable alternative to the "comparative or taxonomic approach", which, it would seem, is really the classificatory aspect of the historical-reconstruction approach. Taylor was possibly influenced by Albert Blumenthal who in the 1940s was the foremost spokesman for the ideational definition of culture. The physical sciences in a number of universities found it a source of additional research revenue, and often solicited the help of the archaeologists in the anthropology departments to obtain funds to establish a facility.
