On One of Archaeology's 'Failures'
There's an argument that constantly goes on in archaeology. 'Should we dig it now (and essentially destroy any information that we don't have the capability to discern) or save it for later?' Many times there's no choice. That G&d-d@mn carpark MUST go in NOW, so charge the builder what it takes to rescue whatever needs to be destroyed so that SUV can fit close enough to the new supermallmarketcenter. Then archive what was found, treat it as gently as possible, and pray you didn't destroy anything in the doing. If you are lucky, the archive will be reasonably accessible, you will have money to publish the findings you worked so hard to preserve, other scholars will be able to learn from it, and you won't destroy too much. WIll you?
But you did - destroy something. You destroyed all the information about how the item was moved from the human record to the archaeological record and how it remained there, and the context in which it was found and what the worms and rodents and plant roots and rains and freezes and thaws did to it. You do your best to record that, but often times that fails.
Archaeologists get that all the time from well-meaning people. "You didn't do this, you didn't understand that, if you'd just seen my little reconstruction that I did in my backyard you'd know..." We do our best, but frankly there's only so much one person can know. Most of us acknowledge that and are more than willing to learn new things. For example, complain that archaeologists in the early 1920s didn't treat textiles correctly is unfair. They COULDN'T treat textiles correctly. The technology didn't exist.
But I digress. Science sometimes moves fast for archaeology. Another example, one can now tell where a person was raised by the elements in their teeth. Amazing. And so I present this: Burnt up 'logs' from Herculaneum which are the remains of the only ancient library ever found. And they are reading the 'logs!'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25106956
But you did - destroy something. You destroyed all the information about how the item was moved from the human record to the archaeological record and how it remained there, and the context in which it was found and what the worms and rodents and plant roots and rains and freezes and thaws did to it. You do your best to record that, but often times that fails.
Archaeologists get that all the time from well-meaning people. "You didn't do this, you didn't understand that, if you'd just seen my little reconstruction that I did in my backyard you'd know..." We do our best, but frankly there's only so much one person can know. Most of us acknowledge that and are more than willing to learn new things. For example, complain that archaeologists in the early 1920s didn't treat textiles correctly is unfair. They COULDN'T treat textiles correctly. The technology didn't exist.
But I digress. Science sometimes moves fast for archaeology. Another example, one can now tell where a person was raised by the elements in their teeth. Amazing. And so I present this: Burnt up 'logs' from Herculaneum which are the remains of the only ancient library ever found. And they are reading the 'logs!'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25106956