The Place of Archaeology in Science

Abstract

Archaeology is an eclectic science grounded on physics, geology, biology, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and history. Archaeologists assume that there was a past about which we can know. Archaeologists should not ask whether there truly was a past or whether reality is entirely a social construction because answers to these metaphysical questions make no practical or empirical difference. As scientists, archaeologists do not seek certain, perfect, or total descriptions and explanations. All descriptions and models are inadequate and incomplete, and archaeologists in particular should not make the mistake of thinking that formal problems of such representations as the covering-law model necessarily mean that the past cannot be described or explained at all.