Thanks, Mr. Thompson, for the elaborate comments.

See, the thing is I do read the literature. But since I left archaeology and
began working as a historian focusing on business and industrial history,
the theoretical approaches I've embraced (and read pretty deeply) are -- to
borrow a concept from those very sources -- more redeployable assets than
the archaeological literature. I don't know about you, but after I read
hundreds/thousands of articles and books on the economics, institutions,
technology, etc. of business and industry and find no -- that's right, no --
use of the mounds of archaeological data or "interpretation" mined over the
past four decades or so, I've gotta think to myself it must be one of these
reasons: 1) These talented (and in some cases Nobel-prize-winning) folks
just don't know how to find the archaeological literature (but they have
found anthropology, sociology, organizational psychology, the law, etc.); 2)
Archaeologists just aren't selling themselves correctly; or, 3) There are
some fundamental problems with the ways archaeologists are copping
theoretical approaches from other fields and the data/interpretations only
hold up in the archaeological disciplinary tautology. Historical
archaeology, despite the fact that it is arguably a mature field, has very
little relevance beyond functioning as a colorful sidebar in a more
"mainstream" historical study. Now you as a historical archaeologist are
likely to take issue with that as will most folks on this list and that's
okay because we're all collegial here. So here's a challenge: Surf on over
to the various citation indices and see how many archaeological sources are
cited by folks publishing in history, economics, etc. The proof isn't in our
opinions, it's in who is consuming archaeological products (didn't the
"literature" have a lot about consumer choice starting in the '80s?) and
how. What are the market mechanisms barring the entry of historical
archaeological data/interpretations? As I wrote above, historical
archaeology products are not redeployable assets and are therefore weighted
down by something. Figure out what that something is and you might find some
new answers about the field and possible new directions.

But hey, I'm no longer an archaeologist so what do I know.