The trouble is we are all fallible. Lets not pretend we get it all right 
especially if we have any pretence at pushing the subject forward. 
However, we are all reliant on other people's work. We don't go and 
check every archaeology monograph with the site archive and if you do 
complex historical research using scores of different sources, possibly 
scattered across different countries and in multiple languages, the 
chances are you don't go and look at every original document just the 
key ones. But a deceased and very eminent professor of Historical 
geography once told me that its only idiots who think they get it 100% 
right. thus plenty of reinterpretation to be done by us and those who 
come after us. And one of the commonest mistakes made in analysing 
documents especially by archaeologists (But also historians) is not to 
read the whole document (Lyle's context) - so tempting I know as life is 
indeed short and time is money for most of us.

paul