ABSTRACT
Fact, fiction: a dialectical debate that both crosses and divides disciplines from archaeology to philosophy. Questions of truth value via authenticity, authority and provenance abound alongside those of definition in theory and practice. This chapter asks whether, on occasion, it really matters if we cannot tell fact from fiction, assuming that such telling is even possible. Instead, the deliberate interweaving of both sides of this normative line may open an intersection in which our minds can engage in alternative ways of thinking to those usually dictated by our academic and professional training. Poetry sits at this intersection. It affords both the writer and the reader room to explore a variety of perspectives in a succinct form. As archaeologists, we not only have a responsibility to the cultures we are exploring, but also to the process by which we achieve this with one another—and ourselves. The diktat of site reporting can be at odds with the demotic position we inhabit as living beings, which can strip away the emotional meaning we glean from the wonders we are uncovering and, in so doing, the whole reason we began archaeology in the first place.
