I have been a keen student of history all my life, and worked hard to pursue my dream of studying the subject at university as a mature student. I began with a particular interest in the early historic and medieval periods, but it soon became clear to me that historians had been playing around with the same primary (written) sources for far too long. Modern debate has become bogged down by the reliance upon an exceedingly slender base of surviving texts, the difficulties compounded by questions concerning the reliability of these. It often appeared to me that indulgent, over-elaborate constructs were being erected by modern interpreters. I lost a lot of interest in the historiography of these periods at about that time, but simultaneously formed a abiding hope that the science of archaeology might add much more to the fund of knowledge. The word ‘science’ is important here, and is the reason I want to post here about the potential of this discipline to transform our understanding of the past.
To begin with, it is extremely unlikely that some vast fund of previously lost texts will appear to add to the current fund of knowledge on early history. Even if by some miracle ( a word I have dismissed in my previous posts here) the store of ancient writings held in the library at Alexandria were ever retrieved intact for example, historians would spend the succeeding decades debating the full import of these. No doubt there would be a degree of consensus, if only where doubt could not be entertained, but it is a certainty that as many questions as answers would arise from this mega-torrent of scholarly wrestling. As always, interpretation is to an important extent a matter of personal whimsy or (even worse) modern political considerations.
Archaeology is a science. What lies in the earth can be recorded and verified as evidence of human history. Of course, there is still room for human error; it is the interpretation of the findings that produces disagreement at times, but it has always been clear to me that the level of debate is grounded somewhat by the nature of the data and also by the nature of the human. Archaeologists, it has always seemed to me, are a quite different species from historians. What they write are not self-indulgent treatises but sets of facts and figures. If you doubt this, read a random monograph or two from any of the learned archaeological reports. A bit dry for some perhaps, but that is the nature of science; most of the paper will record in neutral, unemotional tones exactly what the excavation uncovered, and in great detail. Yes, there will often (not always) appear a tentative interpretation of the foregoing data, but it will not be couched in the florid language of the historian. Almost inevitably, the archaeologist resists making profound and far-sighted claims about the import of what has been discovered. He or she will often suggest something of the sort that may have crossed their mind, and coming from someone who has spent weeks, months or years thinking about the subject this is not only forgivable but desirable. Room is invariably left by the author for doubt. Historians may find this reluctance to pronounce frustrating; I find it refreshing. Where the old texts have left off, archaeology offers an increased store of knowledge carefully and impartially presented for the interpretation of others.
Another aspect of the science that I prize is that it discovers the truth about the ‘ordinary’ people of the past. The poets and historians of antiquity who were employed by their wealthy masters to exaggerate, distort and lie should rightly be distrusted, and it is an irony that now, through the work of archaeologists, we know more for certain about how the minions and subjects of the elite lived. Archaeology is history from the ground up, and there is already more evidence available on everyday life in these periods than the written sources could have ever have provided. In the end, I submit, this is of more interest to us all in the modern age. Nothing says more about a ruler than how his subjects lived.
In closing, I would like to say a word about archaeologists. To my mind, they are the most important explorers of the past working today, and yet the most unappreciated. They study and train for years, often incurring debts in the process, and then enter one of the most unappreciated and lowly-paid professions available. Almost invariably they are the most singularly dedicated, highly professional and downright decent people you will ever meet, and I try to remember them whenever I can. If you love the past and want to know more about it, you should too.