ABSTRACT
How do we come to identify and then interpret what can never be observed directly, namely the actions and associated material culture of past peoples? This question frames the archaeological endeavor, and it is a challenge of considerable magnitude, especially when those societies are often many thousands of years distant and likely representing behaviors and values that have no modern analog. As a profession, archaeologists are committed to the premise that the past is knowable, and indeed have had remarkable success in teasing apart the history of human achievement, evolution, and lifeways. But two unavoidable questions are: how do we know what we know about the archaeological record; and what types of evidence suffice for providing adequate “proof ” for our interpretations?
