Yes, maybe on that side of the Atlantic; in the UK that's sometimes called
"post-medieval" archaeology. On the other hand, I was recently working on
the site of what is claimed to be the oldest synagogue north of the Alps,
with continuous occupation & fairly continuous documentation back to the
Romans (the Franks did burn part of the archives); in that case, it doesn't
seem to make much sense to take some arbitrary division of 1492 (beginning
of "European hegemony around the world"? or should that date to Marco Polo?
The Romans? Alexander the Great?) & say "this part is historical" & the
other part is "Classical" when the normal understanding of the word
"history" usually refers to the presence/absence of written documentation...
which we have, so...
Anyway: I apologise again for not having translated my present conceptual
paradigms/worldviews back into American, but still stand by the basic idea
of the original article that attempts to preserve Pompeii as an excavation
constitutes historical archaeology in its own right 

-----Original Message-----

Historical Archaeology or what I presume to be synonymous with Historic
Sites Archaeology deals with material remains related to the expansion of
European hegemony around the world and it's aftermath. While Classical
Archaeology shares some aspects with regard to method, theory, and research
issues, it's definately a different discipline. There is a nice body of
literature on the definition of the field.  See writings and edited volumes
by Robert Schuyler