30th June 2011, 08:35 PM
I tend to think that the current archaeological theories tell you more about the societies doing the theorising than the societies being theorised about. Some things about the past are unknowable, not that that should stop you trying but in the long run it is an intellectual exercise that may have very little relation to what was really going on. Until that time machine appears the past will always be open to interpretation and even then the time traveler will view the past through his/ her own experience.