In his dissertation pertaining to industrial and historical archaeology,
George Teague stated that the two kinds of archaeology are "good and bad. "
This might be a practical division when discussing  the various approaches
to different types of sites, rather than pitting historical archaeologists
versus prehistorians versus art historians versus classical archaeologists
in a finger pointing contest.  If an "archaeologist" is excavating a
stratified site and cannot recognize the stratigraphy, or recognizes the
stratigraphy but fails to adequately record it, then that person should find
a new profession for the sake of the resources.  Excavation by arbitrary
levels is useful in many cases, but should not be practiced thoughtlessly
out of habit.   At some point when students are being taught theory and all
of the keywords for the latest paradigm, they should also be taught that the
theories are meaningless if the data is flawed.  I believe that all
archaeologists  would prefer to have well excavated sites recorded in such a
way so that we could compare other's data to our own with some degree of
confidence.  The Harris Matrix is a useful tool for organizing information,
especially on complex sites.  It is a shame that some archaeologists
would dismiss it for the sake of their "traditional" methods.  If ignorance
is
bliss, there must be a lot of happy archaeologists in Alabama, except for
Linda and her stratigraphically-excavating peers.
 
Mike Meyer
Sonoma State University Anthropological Studies Center