________________________________ I have only just caught up with this debate thanks to Andy Edwards at CWF and Esther White at Mount Vernon, as I had taken myself off the list when I left the UK in late September for a three month sabbatical in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. My sympathies are with Robert Schuyler's version of the current situation. In the UK, I recently organized a conference to draw up a Research Framework for Industrial Archaeology in the UK, one of a series part funded by English Heritage - there have been other research frameworks produced so far for Roman Britain and for the Iron Age. In this conference, and the subsequent publication ('Understanding the Workplace; a Research Framework for Industrial Archaeology in Britain', edited by David Gwyn and Marilyn Palmer, published as 'Industrial Archaeology Review', Vol. XXVII, No. 1 May 2005 by Maney of Leeds) concentrated on the social archaeology of industrialization, which is the approach I would like to foster. The papers in Eleanor Casella's and Jim Symonds' 'New Directions in Industrial Archaeology' (Kluwer Plenum, 2005) generally follow this line too. However, certainly in Europe, I think that the duality of title will persist. It was noticeable at the Conference which led to 'Understanding the Workplace' that the English Heritage attitude was lukewarm towards the social approaches advocated and undoubtedly their view of the discipline is inclined to the industrial heritage angle - which has, of course, been very successful in gaining five new World Heritage sites in the UK designated for the value of their industrial past ( Derwent Valley of Derbyshire, Saltaire, New Lanark, Blaenavon in South Wales, Mining District of Cornwall and West Devon). The Great Western Railway from Paddington to Bristol may well follow in the next couple of years. And English Heritage has an Industrial Archaeology Advisory Group (on which I sit) but it does not have an historical archaeology advisory group, nor does The National Trust: their Archaeology Panel had first Angus Buchanan and then myself as the representatives of industrial archaeology. Historical archaeology in the UK has made great strides in academia but not yet in public archaeology, a perhaps contradictory position to that in the USA - that is what I am in Colonial Williamsburg to study! And TICCIH (The Committee for the Conservation of the Industrial Heritage) is very influential in Europe and is consulted by ICOMOS on future World heritage sites which have an industrial element to them. Like Pat Martin (our Leicester Distance Learning MA is entitled 'Archaeology and Heritage' for similar reasons to the ones he cites), I think we still have to straddle the fence, uncomfortable thought it may be. At the risk of blocking your mailboxes (please delete fast!) I have just had to think this through for a piece for an Elsevier Encyclopaedia of Archaeology edited by Deborah Pearsall and concluded the piece as follows - comments very welcome! 'Has, in fact, the term 'industrial archaeology' now outlived its usefulness? Should it instead be termed 'later historical archaeology' or 'modern historical archaeology', which defines the discipline as the study of material culture within a textual framework but also gives it a period definition? This would not be a popular solution, however: as Keith Falconer of English Heritage has said, 'just as Britain is perceived to have pioneered the industrial revolution and have bequeathed industrialization to the world two centuries ago, so, in the last half century there is a similar perception that this country has pioneered and given the subject of industrial archaeology to the world'. Rather, we may have to continue to operate on two levels: the acceptance of a term such as 'later historical archaeology' for the academic study of the archaeology of industrialization, but a continuing popular recognition of 'industrial archaeology' as the study and conservation of the monuments of past industrial activity and generally synonymous with 'industrial heritage'. In this sense, industrial archaeology has been extremely successful in achieving what its pioneers set out to do, achieve recognition for the importance of the remains of the industrial past and where possible their survival in the contemporary landscape. But in the second half of the twentieth century, industrial archaeology has developed from a purely amateur pastime, motivated by a desire to preserve the material remains of Britain's industrial past, into a more mature scholarly discipline. New studies have contributed towards the development of social approaches to the discipline, while studies of industrial landscapes have explored ways in which these manifest not just the physical remains of industrial processes but also evidence for past hierarchical power relations. In these ways, industrial archaeology has broken free of its earlier constraints to become an archaeology of industrialization' - something I previously argued in Graeme Barker's edited 'Routledge Companion Encyclopaedia of Archaeology'. I am sure the debate will continue - but then so did the controversy over the nature of historical archaeology in the USA, and it is all the better for it!! Marilyn Palmer, Professor of Industrial Archaeology, University of Leicester, UK Visiting Fellow, Rockefeller Library, CWF Office number 727 565 8864