This methodology involves taking an archaeological site that has historical accounts relating to recent periods of occupation and then excavating it to establish continuity back into prehistoric times.
The main issue with the approach is that in many parts of the world there is no direct continuity between historically documented communities and the prehistoric occupants of the region.
In his presidential address to the American Anthropological Association he stated: “one would logically proceed to investigate a [number of sites of known ethnic affiliation], and work back from these,” because it “is only through the known that we can comprehend the unknown, only from a study of the present that we can understand the past.” Strong, who later became attributed to this particular methodology, argued that Dixon set forth the procedure of the direct historical approach.
After the peak of the direct historical approach, Willey wrote about its use as a means of assigning ethnic identity to archaeological phenomena.
In much the same way that the direct historical approach was used to demonstrate ancestor-descendant relationships, it was also used to measure the passage of time (also called chronology).