ABSTRACT
How do archaeologists know that a burial dates to a particular period or that a certain group of people built a pyramid? This chapter looks at how archaeologists produce truths by working with multiple incomplete data sets and by weighing different possibilities against one another. The authors argue that these forms of archaeological reasoning have relevance in present-day concerns involving “post-truth” and “fake news” situations where there are multiple different sources and narratives on a given topic or where the authority of experts is called into question. Beginning with discussions and debates over the sex of a burial on the Isle of Man, the authors draw on studies of power, science and technology studies, and feminist and Indigenous approaches to truth, to argue that objectivity is never a straightforward concept. They show that archaeologists build their truths through multiple lines of evidence to create more secure ideas about the past than is possible through simple calls to authority and objectivity. For the authors, truth is always relational—emerging with the power-riven relations between people, concepts, events, and non-humans. They explore relational truth further through two case studies: one considers how forensic scientists use fingerprints, and the other considers debates about the age of the Sphinx. They conclude that the emergent relational truths that archaeologists build have under-explored value in the worlds of today and tomorrow.
