Sender: |
|
X-To: |
|
Date: |
Thu, 11 Nov 1999 09:31:05 -0500 |
MIME-version: |
1.0 |
Reply-To: |
|
Content-type: |
text/plain; charset=US-ASCII |
Subject: |
|
From: |
|
Content-transfer-encoding: |
7bit |
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
Morgan and all:
Yes, the "why" is an implicit question you ask of the records, but we
were talking about a hierarchy of "fact." Structures found in the
ground are facts (if you're sure you have a structure, that is) -- and
if a document described them and allowed you to find them, you can say
that the document told you the truth. The next level up, material
culture information in the records, creeps into the area that Ned was
talking about: you don't know who actually wrote the records or what
their agenda was. You assume that a group of internally consistent
records is telling you something like a truth, if you can work out a
hypothetical reality that ties them together, but you always keep in
mind that you could wake up tomorrow with a completely different
hypothetical construct that fits those records. Or the discovery that
the whole set is a forgery -- although this isn't likely.
Making that hypothetical construct from the array of data is where
your personal theoretical basis for historical research will be most
obvious. Whereas your archaeological theoretical basis will show up
in other areas, such as your pattern for deciding where to open the
next unit when you're in the field, or which way to go with the
statistical analysis when you're in the lab.
"Why" is way on down the road of hypothesis, and depends on so many
other assumptions about the records that in many cases it would be the
first to change with the discovery of a new document that pertains to
your site, or the recognition that one you had and dismissed actually
refers to your place. Still, we all have to offer our best
interpretation of why a site was there, why it changed, why it was
abandoned.
Jake
|
|
|