ABSTRACT
The recognition, recovery and recording of primary archaeological material involves the application of more or less specialized techniques. Reports on excavations and descriptions of object divorced from their archaeological contextsthese include descriptions of objects appended to excavation reports as well as descriptions of objects in museums and other collectionsare sometimes called secondary archaeological evidence. Any attempt to interpret archaeological evidence is at once controlled by the limitations of the techniques and conditions under which it was collected. Historians who know nothing about excavation will find themselves on dangerous ground if they venture into this field of interpretation in the hope of incorporating archaeological evidence into some broader non-archaeological synthesis. It is true that, in this field as in others, archaeological evidence can often illustrate or clarify evidence from non-archaeological sources and so make its own definite contribution to a fuller understanding of these most elusive aspects of human endeavour.
