ABSTRACT
This chapter considers various applications of the archaeological study of European Colonial culture in North America through numerous examples. The archaeological program at Plymouth has applications of a broader nature than simply aiding in restoration and reconstruction. It has frequently been said that archaeology can serve as a valuable supplement to history, since each discipline has a quite different emphasis. Archaeological investigations of seventeenth and early eighteenth century house sites in southeastern Massachusetts have been of considerable value to the reconstruction of Colonial Plymouth by Plimoth Plantation, an educational organization which is devoted to educating the public in Colonial culture through outdoor museum exhibits and research and publication. The precise relevance of the archaeology of Colonial America to anthropology is that it is an area in which a certain unification of data can be brought about to the desirable end of making more powerful our various integrative methods and inferential theories.
