3 ms·

> Instead of saying "We don't know" they feel compelled to make up a _plausible_ story which sometimes the field puts forth a likely sequence of events and the

> Instead of saying "We don't know" they feel compelled to make up a _plausible_ story which sometimes the field puts forth a likely sequence of events and the public then take it to mean fact. Happens all the time in science. Science is about making our best current generalized explanation that fits the observed data. That's what gets us luminiferous ether, phlogiston, the plum pudding model of the atom, or the miasma theory of disease. Future generations will certainly look at us in horror for what our best current generalized explanations are, just as we look at previous generations. That doesn't mean science is wrong or not worth pursuing. It just means we have to have healthy skepticism, which should be a virtue of science.

mc32 4y ago
To me there is a difference when you have fresh data vs very old data which may or may not be a result of the thing that you're proposing was a plausible cause of something. With hundreds and thousands of years, things move, they weather, other things interact, floods, fire, get exposed buried, re-exposed buried...
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  There is an vast amount of literature on exactly these sorts of things, which we call 'formation processes'. I don't recommend you read any of it because most is stupifyingly boring, but please consider that academics have spent at least a few hours over the past couple centuries thinking about archaeological epistemology.
hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
There is an enormous difference between a fact - that has been observed and confirmed by various observers - and a plausible theory. There are many theories in physics, for example, some with many elements confirmed in numerous experiments, but still called theories. When I read history books, authors often mix these two. As a reader, I don't know whether a given statement is a fact (an artifact was found, several contemporary authors described an event in a uniform way), or just an interpretation that seemed plausible in a given situation

mc32 4y ago

To me there is a difference when you have fresh data vs very old data which may or may not be a result of the thing that you're proposing was a plausible cause of something. With hundreds and thousands of years, things move, they weather, other things interact, floods, fire, get exposed buried, re-exposed buried...

AlotOfReading 4y ago
There is an vast amount of literature on exactly these sorts of things, which we call 'formation processes'. I don't recommend you read any of it because most is stupifyingly boring, but please consider that academics have spent at least a few hours over the past couple centuries thinking about archaeological epistemology.

hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago

There is an enormous difference between a fact - that has been observed and confirmed by various observers - and a plausible theory. There are many theories in physics, for example, some with many elements confirmed in numerous experiments, but still called theories. When I read history books, authors often mix these two. As a reader, I don't know whether a given statement is a fact (an artifact was found, several contemporary authors described an event in a uniform way), or just an interpretation that seemed plausible in a given situation