When was fieldwork added to cultural anthropology as a method?

Question

When was fieldwork added to cultural anthropology as a method?

Answer 1

Before cultural anthropology was labeled as "cultural anthropology."

I think one of the earlier anthropologists recognized as such was Bronislaw Malinowski working in the Trobriand Islanders around the '50's or so....giver or take a decade.

Answer 2

Malinowski was one of the first people to demonstrate the importance of carefully designed field work (i.e. ethnogpraphy) in Social Anthropology.  He did most of his work in the early 20th century (ca. 1915-1930).  Followers of American anthropologist Franz Boas (i.e. Margaret Mead, Alfred Kroeber, many others) popularized ethnography as a method of experimental induction.

Other branches of anthropology, such as archaeology, paleoanthropology, have emphasized field work for a much longer time.