of archaeological research (Champion [1991] and Pinsky and Wylie [1990] being among the exceptions). An ignorance of the history of British prehistoric archaeology has been used to explain why so much of the processual as well as the postprocessual archaeological program in Britain (as elsewhere) has the flavor of “old wine in new skins.”

The lack of fundamental research (and the fact that British prehistoric archaeologists still seem to need persuading about the value of an understanding of disciplinary history to their own work) has had some straightforward consequences. One of the most obvious of these is the perpetuation of ideas about that history that have largely gone unexamined—ideas that underwrote preceding theoretical frameworks, many of which are no longer fashionable. In the rare cases in which conventional historical accounts have been scrutinized (such as in the work of the antiquarians or in the discovery of high human antiquity), clear shortcomings in them have been identified. There is every reason to expect that if detailed explorations were to be undertaken—of, for instance, the application of the three-age system to British archaeology, the development of the culture concept in the late nineteenth century, the funding of British archaeological research in the twentieth century, or the rapid and successful development of popular archaeology programs on television—new insights could be gained into the nature and significance of British prehistoric archaeology.

However, there can be no doubt about the daunting scale of the task. To produce a worthwhile historical synthesis, one has to take into account the fact that British prehistoric archaeology is a large and complex entity, made up of many producers and consumers of archaeological knowledge who intersect with the discipline through a wide range of institutional, social, political, and cultural contexts. The difficulty of the task is increased by two related factors. First, the practice of British prehistoric archaeology has had global implications ever since Lubbock published Prehistoric Times in 1865. Much of the methodological and theoretical contour of prehistoric archaeology has been shaped by people based in Britain or working on British materials. By the same token the interpretation of British prehistory has relied on inferences drawn from all over the world. Second, each temporal division of British prehistoric archaeology (Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age) has its own traditions and rhythms, and it is uncommon for archaeologists to understand and appreciate these matters in all prehistoric periods.

The history of British archaeology can be found in a large number of entries in this encyclopedia dealing with specific sites, people, periods, and types of archaeology. The entry on the archaeology of Roman Britain links with other entries on archaeology in medieval Europe, industrial archaeology, and the contribution of British archaeology to the archaeology of the classical world, as well as entries on major museums (such as the british museum and the ashmolean) and major societies (the society of antiquaries of london, the society of antiquaries of scotland, the royal archaeological institute, the egypt exploration society, and so forth). Although this list is by no means complete (for example, there is no entry on the Prehistoric Society, though this is well discussed in the literature—see Smith [1999]), these entries, in conjunction with those on major journals such as Antiquity and World Archaeology, can give readers a stronger sense of the institutional fabric of British archaeology. This sense can also be enhanced by the biographies of significant archaeologists that are included throughout the five volumes of the encyclopedia.

The fact that no single entry can encompass all the richness and complexity of British prehistoric archaeology (let alone British archaeology in general) heightens our awareness of the gaps that exist in our understanding of that history. As is the case in most western countries, British archaeology is also a complex social institution that does not necessarily always display a high degree of institutional coherence. Some of the most important elements of that institution include: heritage legislation passed by the British Parliament (and the agencies that have been created to administer it, such as English Heritage); the policies and practices of local government and the heritage-management industry;