Student Question
Why should historians be cautious using archaeological evidence?
Quick answer:
Historians must be cautious when using archaeological evidence as it is often incomplete or open to different interpretations. Like any source of information, archaeological evidence needs to be examined carefully before it can be used to support historical arguments.
Archaeological evidence can be of enormous benefit to the historian. It can provide useful information that allows them to gain a better understanding of the past, especially those dim and distant periods of history where the available evidence is somewhat scarce. To a large extent, archaeology is the handmaiden of ancient history and prehistory, providing the raw materials necessary to make sense out of a long-vanished past.
At the same time, historians need to exercise considerable caution in utilizing archaeological evidence. Much of this evidence is fragmentary or incomplete. It cannot therefore form the basis of a reliable historical account. Even when archaeological evidence is more extensive, its overriding significance can still be open to radically different interpretations.
The temptation for historians to make rash judgments on the basis of limited archaeological evidence is always there. Most historians will be keen to make groundbreaking discoveries that could change the face...
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of a particular field of historical inquiry. And they may see archaeological evidence, no matter how incomplete or contentious, as a means of giving their historical theories a firm basis in fact. But if history is to maintain its status as a credible academic discipline, such temptation must always be resisted.
With archeology, there is always more to learn and discover, so it would be inadvisable in the extreme to use it as a foundation for the making of sweeping historical statements.
Why should historians be cautious when using archaeological evidence?
Archaeological evidence can be extremely valuable to historians, but it rarely ever tells the full story. This is because archaeological evidence is almost always based on the perspectives of one person or group of people at one moment in time.
For example, imagine if tomorrow archaeologists unearthed an ancient calendar that contained a record of a major flood that destroyed a city. This discovery would be of great interest to historians, who would likely want to know more about when this flood occurred and what it was like. However, this one discovery would not be enough for the historians to completely understand what happened. Other evidence would have to be found in order to separate myth from historical fact, to separate exaggeration from real records, and just to provide more support that this event actually occurred.
If a historian developed a comprehensive story of the flood based on that one record, that historian would be stretching the truth a bit. In order to claim that an event is true, historical fact, a historian should have multiple pieces of evidence or multiple perspectives on the event. There are, of course, some cases in which a major archaeological discovery is enough to make a historical claim. But in general, in order to maintain credibility and be confident in one’s work, historians should make sure they have different types of evidence, not just archaeological, to inform their claims.