It seems to have become the custom for the author of a paper on archaeological methodology to provide his readers with a review of the theoretical trends of the discipline. The general outline of these trends must by now be the common property of all literate anthropologists. do not consider it improper, therefore, to refrain from repeating a summary of them here. Much more important to this study of the nature of archaeological inference is a statement of the present aims of the discipline and the role which inference is expected to play in achieving these aims.

Phillips and Willey (1953: 616) succinctly describe the proper ends of archaeological research:

The ultimate objective of archeology is the creation of an image of life within the limits of the residue that is available from the past. The procedural objectives toward such a goal may be dichotomized into reconstructions of space-time relationships, on the one hand, and contextual relationships on the other.