13th August 2009, 02:31 PM
The fudging of the gaps is indeed a problem and has manifested itself well into the realms of commercial reports where, sometimes, poor field work, poor post-ex and poor management seem to be countered by authentised story telling bearing little relevance to the archaeological facts. I'm not discounting theory but rather the common assumption that everybody's story is valid. I believe this is the result of various over-eager university teachings, or perhaps wrongly taught or percieved teachings. I don't believe that over-zealous flowery stories have a place in commercial archaeology where a someone is paying for a report on the findings of archaelogical works. However, we are ultimate story tellers but there is a limited defined by the parameters of the evidence.
I've lost count of the number of reports I have had to endure which claim great things on gant remains and supporting evidence. However, the Mike Parker-Pearsons of the world nearly make a living out of it and the radio listeners and television viewers apparently like the nice stories. Afterall, we as archaeologists are the experts and could convince most people on that basis. Thus, I feel we should be less dishonest and more respectful to our clients and the public.
I remember an archaeologist finding a piece of unworked, river rolled gravel which look to her as a piece of worked flint; to the rest of us it was spoil fodder. She was adamant it was worked flint and it would remain so because it was her opinion. Post-structuralism eating itself, in my opinion.
I also recall a few landscape archaeology papers where the authors pontificate on the wonders of the changing landscape in the late Neolithic / early Bronze Age based on landscape features, cultural features, fashionable thinking etc, but not once was environmental evidence (or C14) taken into condsideration which might have shown a largely different picture. Funnily enough, when challenged at a conference, one of these authors was quite embarrassed that some of his field work has missed several tricks. The sad part was that a lot of the audience (largely students) didn't seem to think it mattered and it was quite rude to attempt to ruin a good yarn.
Doesn't sound too optimistic for the pragmatic camp...
I've lost count of the number of reports I have had to endure which claim great things on gant remains and supporting evidence. However, the Mike Parker-Pearsons of the world nearly make a living out of it and the radio listeners and television viewers apparently like the nice stories. Afterall, we as archaeologists are the experts and could convince most people on that basis. Thus, I feel we should be less dishonest and more respectful to our clients and the public.
I remember an archaeologist finding a piece of unworked, river rolled gravel which look to her as a piece of worked flint; to the rest of us it was spoil fodder. She was adamant it was worked flint and it would remain so because it was her opinion. Post-structuralism eating itself, in my opinion.
I also recall a few landscape archaeology papers where the authors pontificate on the wonders of the changing landscape in the late Neolithic / early Bronze Age based on landscape features, cultural features, fashionable thinking etc, but not once was environmental evidence (or C14) taken into condsideration which might have shown a largely different picture. Funnily enough, when challenged at a conference, one of these authors was quite embarrassed that some of his field work has missed several tricks. The sad part was that a lot of the audience (largely students) didn't seem to think it mattered and it was quite rude to attempt to ruin a good yarn.
Doesn't sound too optimistic for the pragmatic camp...