17th October 2011, 06:29 PM
No no - quite the contrary. incorporating 'independent' scientific techniques is our great strength. This allows us to fix an interpretation from many different types of evidence - material and biological science - in effect triangulating our way to the past.
This is precisely the same methodology used in geology/astronomy and no one doubts their scientific credentials. The complicating factor for us is culture, which we cannot assume to be uniform throughout time, unlike the process of solifluction or the orbit of objects around a fixed point.
We are not an 'art' because we do not fabricate our sites. They are the product of the past, and careful observation will detect patterning within and between different sites that is entirely beyond our control.
Everything we do has to be theorised however, and in some sense imagined, from the shape of the roof supported by the postholes to the type of society that gave rise to such a structure.
What kind of ideas do we allow? What techniques can we use to approach the evidence in a more effective manner? Meat and drink to arcaeologists everywhere - the hairy bikers of the scientific community.
All the best, diggin - (eligible bachelor of science).
This is precisely the same methodology used in geology/astronomy and no one doubts their scientific credentials. The complicating factor for us is culture, which we cannot assume to be uniform throughout time, unlike the process of solifluction or the orbit of objects around a fixed point.
We are not an 'art' because we do not fabricate our sites. They are the product of the past, and careful observation will detect patterning within and between different sites that is entirely beyond our control.
Everything we do has to be theorised however, and in some sense imagined, from the shape of the roof supported by the postholes to the type of society that gave rise to such a structure.
What kind of ideas do we allow? What techniques can we use to approach the evidence in a more effective manner? Meat and drink to arcaeologists everywhere - the hairy bikers of the scientific community.
All the best, diggin - (eligible bachelor of science).