I agree with the point that the presentation of archaeological evidence
is difficult to present in an exciting manner. I also think that it is
important to provide the basic evidence so that other researchers can
compare results-- or even critique our interpretation. Maybe we should
try to imagine different audiences for different chapters of our
reports. I don't imagine that many non-professionals will slog through
my descriptions of different soil changes etc., so I put my most
literary efforts into the readability, narratives and themes in my
interpretive chapters.

In addition, we could go over our descriptive and technical chapters and
try to make them more readable. Ironically, it is the excitement of
discovery that draws many of us to this field, and yet we (including
myself) have a difficult time translating any of the compelling mystery
of excavation to our reports. Perhaps by thinking of our "data" as
discoveries made by specific people, our descriptions could be "thicker"
and more interesting.

Sigrid Arnott



> ----------
> From:         David Babson[SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Reply To:     HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
> Sent:         Sunday, May 02, 1999 9:16 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Just the Facts.
>
> I have followed the two recent debates on the list with interest.
> First,
> we went over the relation of archaeology to history as disciplines or
> varieties of inquiry into the past.  Second, we are again going over
> the
> problem of writing, and how we are to produce for the public (who pay
> our
> salaries, and support or research) an understanding of the results of
> our
> projects.
>
> I formerly thought that the answer to this (second) problem was
> simple.
> Historians, in general, exceed us greatly in writing, and, especially,
> in
> creating books, essays or articles that an educated, but not expert,
> member
> of the public can understand with ease, and read for pleasure as well
> as
> for information.  This may come from the literary traditions of
> history,
> and the acceptance of narrative as a legitimate form of expression in
> that
> discipline; going back to Gibbon, or Herodotus, the best historians
> have
> succeeded in telling a good story.
>
> A part of our problem is our heritage as a science, and our tradition
> of
> presenting arguments and conclusions from an evidentiary, not a
> narrative,
> base.  Historians can write histories that advocate certain ideas, and
> at
> least in part their success depends upon their use of rhetoric as well
> as
> factual evidence.  Archaeologists, as scientists, must subordinate
> narrative and rhetoric to the evidence, the facts, the data, on which
> we
> base our conclusions.  We get no points for a good argument, if we
> cannot
> back it from facts.  So, we proceed to write at great length about how
> we
> got those facts--research designs, methodology, formal presentations
> of
> analysis, in service of the scientific responsibility of presenting
> our
> data to colleagues who will test it, argue it, and reconfirm (or deny)
> it.
> This is all the more necessary due to that old truism about
> archaeology;
> our experiments in excavation are not exactly repeatable by others, in
> that
> we destroy our primary information in the process of excavation.
> Historians do not present this type of information in detail.  For the
> most
> part, beyond listing the archives they consulted and the sources they
> used
> (often in acknowledgments or footnotes), they do not describe their
> process
> of research ("I drove to the library.  I parked in the back.  I went
> into
> the building, and stored my briefcase in the locker.  I requested Col.
> Blovington's letters of 1710-1718 from the archivist, and I booted up
> Word
> on my laptop while I awaited their delivery...").  Yet, we have to
> describe
> how we chose where to dig, laid out test units, recovered artifacts,
> identified and analyzed them, and worked so slowly, painfully, yet
> surely
> toward our conclusions.  The conclusions, of course, are what interest
> the
> non-specialist audience.  Can anyone, even the most talented writer,
> make
> such description interesting?
>
> It would be entirely too simple to say that we should just emulate our
> "more skilled" colleagues in history, and write narratives.  Yet, can
> we do
> that, when the very nature of our science, and of the information that
> we
> recover, rests on this very different means of inquiry?  I also must
> admit
> that I have lost some of my enthusiasm for narrative uber alles,
> having run
> across the occasional "historian" (Dinesh DiSouza, for one) who abuses
> basic methods of research and historical argument.  Such tricks can
> make a
> better argument, and they hardly impede the readability of a
> narrative, but
> they do damage (all the more, for being skilled) to the basic purpose
> of
> inquiry into the past.  In such a case, it might be better to be
> boring.
>
> I think we're left with a basic question--can we preserve and present
> our
> tradition of careful inquiry, and fact-based research, yet present it
> in a
> manner that would be interesting to a public who do not want to read
> 2-3
> chapters/100=200 pages describing the process of research?  If we
> can't,
> simply, replicate the narratives of historians, what can we do?  Or,
> can we
> replicate these narratives?  Can we tell a good story, from "just the
> facts?"
>