Bret Devereaux

But problems! First, what if the object you want is perishable, like textile cloth? Evidence pool collapses to nearly nothing fast; those objects only survive in weird circumstances (and see above for problems with weird circumstances). 34/52

Suddenly hitting 'representative' in the data set is really hard. What if the thing you are studying won't leave any archaeological evidence? Well then it...doesn't leave any evidence. 35/52

That can be *really big.* Most wars, plagues, famines - not archaeologically visible. But also social values, opinions, beliefs - do not generally leave archaeological evidence. 36/52

For example: Cult of Mithras - leaves evidence in the form of ritual sanctuaries. But it can't tell us (except for disjointed, hard to use snippets) what they believed, or what rituals they did, or sometimes who they were. 37/52

Archaeology works best as a companion to the sources, but that brings us back to the lack of sources - if there's no lit. text, evidence level plummets. Easy example of this: pre-Roman Gaul. The Gauls are *really* archaeologically visible. 38/52

They leave lots of prestige objects in shrines, lakes, rivers. Rich burial assemblages, identifiable hill-fort-town-centers. Lots of good archaeological evidence. But zero textual sources until the Romans show up. 39/52

Consequence: almost everything about their values, culture, social organization before the Romans and Greeks start describing it is speculative. Lots of ????s - tons. What archy can tell us, we know well - we can chart the changes in their objects really well! 40/52

Like 'when did they shift from shorter, pointier swords to longer, slashier swords' - can do a detailed map! But 'what was Gallic kingship like in 350 BCE? LOL best guess is to reason from Gallic kingship in 50 BCE, when we have Roman/Greek lit. texts. 41/52