I wrote:

>> Moreover, no historical or artifactual source is totally reliable.

Geoff Carver responded:

>no, but much of historical/archaeological research deals with evaluating the
>reliability of various sources of evidence

My point is that "truth" is a very narrow path, out of which too often we
are seduced by our theoretical position to stray.

A document, or other source, is a witness only to itself.

If I find a tax receipt, it is objective evidence only that a person wrote
certain words on paper. Using objective methods, I can authenticate the
ink, the paper and possibly the signature, but I cannot independently
verify the truth of the statements written on the receipt; that requires a
leap of faith.

I probably will assume that the receipt was written by a tax collector, to
acknowledge payment by the named individual, at the time and place written
there.

When I make these assumptions, I endow the writing with attributes that are
not strictly demonstrated by the evidence at hand:

1. I assume that the signer is actually the tax collector.
2. I assume that the signature is genuine.
3. I assume that the document reflects an actual payment, and not a fraud.
4. I assume that the person named actually was the one who was liable for
the taxes.
5. I assume that the tax collector actually submitted the payment to the
tax office.
6. I assume that the payment was correctly credited on the books at the tax
office.
7. I assume that the receipt was actually given to the taxpayer.

That's seven assumptions attached to the evidence when I write this sentence:

"John Doe paid taxes in Nunsuch County for 1888 in the amount of $6.50."

Of course, we accept such "reliable" evidence at face value all the time,
and fabricate our version of "truth" on the basis of it. We must presume
that our sources are not totally false, or we'd never write anything.

But we must always remember that a tax receipt does not "prove" that the
person paid taxes, only that someone had obtained evidence of a tax
payment.

But what if I wrote:

"John Doe was secure; his county taxes were paid for 1888."

"Doe must have been in Nunsuch County in 1888, for he paid taxes there."

"Doe was a taxpaying citizen of Nunsuch County in 1888."

Now we have strayed farther from the "truth" inherent in the putative tax
receipt. Each of these three sentences contains a statement of "fact" that
we can't directly attribute to the evidence at hand. Yet we are still
within the limits of assumption allowed by the ordinary practice of
history, if only just barely.

I'm sure that most of us will agree that "objective truth" is a boring
subject, if it is limited to a mere cataloguing of the most humdrum and
verifiable observations.

So truth, as we employ it in our everyday lives, is of necessity flexible
and subjective.

If nothing is found in this test unit, I assume that nothing would be found
in the adjacent unit I didn't dig. I don't know (as a certainty) that the
adjacent unit is also going to be innocent of artifacts, but many years of
experience has conditioned me to make certain leaps of faith.

Theory is a tool that stretches our leaps of faith, sometimes beyond
acceptable limits, and beyond the ready assumptions.

On the other hand, if we rely too heavily on theory, we run the risk of
losing track of simple truth and the relatively elegant assumptions that
can be derived directly (or almost directly) from  empirical evidence.

A robust theory, well-founded on evidence and well tested, can be a useful
tool. It can also be a terrible burden. Theories have life spans.
Historians have embraced, in turn, the frontier, the economic
interpretation, and cliometrics, as theoretical frameworks, only to discard
them when new buzzwords came along.

Some of our archaeological brethren tend to over-interpet according to
their particular theoretical bias. A bag of potsherds may or may not say
something about class struggle, gender roles, or ethnic origins. A hundred
bags of potsherds might give us a few clues, but will never make a
definitive statement.

But generally speaking, our first job is to accurately describe the
potsherds, and hope that they will talk to us. Familiarity with theory and
current buzzwords may help us organize our thoughts, but all the theory in
the world must not be allowed to displace the authoritative voice of the
raw data.

Infatuation with theory too frequently tends to displace the skepticism and
caution that should rule our interpretive work.  I have even heard
theorists proclaim that theory should be preferred over fact when the two
appear to be in conflict. What arrogance!

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