
Archeology Gives History a Makeover - diodorus
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/30/how-archeology-gives-history-a-makeover.html
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mncharity
Note the juxtaposition of this self congratulation

> Yes, the stories about excavating with tiny brushes and grapefruit knives
> are true, even though shovels and backhoes would get the job done quicker.
> The stories about obsessive photography, data recording, sampling, artifact
> recovery, and general record keeping are also true. The underlying reason
> for these quirks is that archaeological search and recovery can often
> simultaneously acquire evidence _and destroy_ its context. That being the
> case, we are honor bound to document the process well enough to allow some
> future researcher to use discoveries not just to test our conclusions but
> also to help answer new questions that have not yet occurred to us.
> _[emphasis mine]_

with this observation

> Technological advances have dramatically improved our abilities to detect
> and recover archaeological information

I fuzzily recall going to an archeology talk soon after PCR came out, and
hearing how carefully they _washed_ their recovered pottery shards. It
reminded me of early paleontology using dynamite.

We can now do single cell PCR, and single molecule sequencing exists. We can
do near-field spectroscopy of nanometer-scale samples. And the microrobots are
coming.

Imagine a conversation a half a century from now. "We found a site untouched!"
"Untouched? By looters, or by early 21st-century archaeologists?" "Given how
much our technology has changed, and how rapidly it's changing now, there's
little difference".

