ABSTRACT
In attempting to understand the evidence recovered from excavation or fieldwork, the archaeologist is concerned with two separate aspects, the ability to reconstruct, and the flair to understand. The first of these is a technical problem of interpreting information. This is theoretically a simple process, involving the archaeologist in rebuilding his site according to the impeccable records he has kept, of translating his data into an imaginable and legitimate form. The relationship of one deposit or structural feature to another, the position of a find within a sequence, the association of significant materials, are, or should be, entirely clear to the archaeologist who has observed and recorded the evidence. Through this he should be able to rebuild his site, both vertically and horizontally. On single-period sites this is a relatively simple exercise, but even the most complex stratigraphical sequence should have been disentangled by the excavator through his observation and recording on the site. If uncertainties exist about the relationship of deposits and associations of features, he must admit it, accept the lack of information, and either do better next time or give up. He might in any case accept that more evidence could be obtained by allowing posterity the opportunity to develop and experiment with new techniques.
