Archaeological theory is itself something of a new concept. Until the 1960s it was widely assumed that archaeology was essentially a practical undertaking. The digger had of course to be experienced in the relevant craft skills, and to have a sense of problem. Sir Mortimer Wheeler set out the position well, with typically military metaphor, in his Archaeology from the Earth (Wheeler 1954), when he distinguished between the strategy and the tactics of a good archaeological field campaign. It is no coincidence that he was an admirer of the field techniques of that much earlier military field worker General PittRivers.