David Rotenstein wrote: "Dr. Stuart really raises a serious point about archaeology and its practitioners. One thing (among many) that troubles me about historical archaeology is how quickly folks latch onto trendy theoretical movements (e.g., Marxian, structuralism, etc.) that may be useful towards developing an understanding of the past but have little to offer in terms of holistic explanation. Take, for example, the now time-worn archaeological studies of "capitalism." Okay, which capitalism are we discussing? Is it entrepreneurial or corporate capitalism? American, British, German, French, or Japanese capitalism?" I'll probably regret this, but I think it is important - First of all if we want to 'learn about the past', it is silly to deliberately close our eyes to any source of data about the past. It is silly to think we can understand or reconstruct various aspects of the past without examining evidence accumulated by other disciplines that have the same goal. To make a false dichotomy, neither "history" nor "archaeology" has a privileged place in this enterprise. Each offers different data sets worthy of consideration. Second, as far as the obvious observation that documentary data sets are frought with bias (and archaeological sets are not? - reread 'Hotel of the Mysteries), historians have developed, over more than a century critical methods to reduce, but not eliminate, the effects of cultural and observational bias to reach a more reliable understanding of past events and their meaning, both to the participants, and to our contemporary understanding. These are not passing fancies. Third, both structuralism and Marxism are not "trendy theoretical movements", but are highly evolved (intellectually) holistic analytical frameworks which are just as useful when applied to archaeological data as they are when used with the more "traditional" historical data sets which, when combined with archaeological data provide an even richer and more reliable interpretive picture of the past and it's meaning(s). My own preference is for Wallerstein, but it's not the only available option. The variations in the structures of various capitalisms are well-accounted for by the energetic scholars who labor in those historical vineyards. You may call these "time worn" if you like, but if you can't offer more satisfying alternatives, you haven't made your point, and probably haven't read the appropriate literature. There's a lot more that could be said, but I'll leave at that for now, and hunker down for the inevitable counter-attacks. Tim T.