Marshall Sahlins used the participant observation method and developed the theory of the original affluent society. He said that foragers are the original affluent society, because members of these societies spend less time working than members of so called civilized societies, and thus have more time for leisure. Napoleon Chagnon has recently studied the Yanomamo using the participant observation method. The study of linguistics is the study of language. Two important ideas in the study of linguistics are the tabula rasa which was developed by Noam Chomsky and the Sapir - Whorf hypothesis .
Archaeologists typically study prehistory by reconstructing a society based on remains.
A new subfield of archaeology, historical archaeology, however, deals with history. Lewis Binford and Gordon Willey are important American Archaeologists today.