Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 June 2018
The authors of this paper met at Harvard University in July, 1955, to discuss the theoretical problems which arise in the study of culture contact situations in archaeology. The subject of contacts between cultures is one in which ethnologists have long been interested, and there is a substantial body of literature, both descriptive and theoretical, on contemporary and recent historic situations of this kind. Archaeological interest in the subject is somewhat more recent, but a few excellent reports on specific examples have appeared which we could use as a basis for our discussions. We believe that this paper is only the second attempt to contribute something to this field by generalization from archaeological data (Willeyl953).