[Keirmot]

'Absence of evidence is not evidence os absence' is a mantra that was instilled in me when I was trying to figure out my uni undergraduate and went with history for a year.

This was also a center point in Historiography, and how, when analysing old documents by historians, one needs to be aware of possible bias, not only of the writers, but also of one self.

[nathan_compton]

In the presence of a model the absence of evidence _can be_ evidence for absence if you have good reason to believe your model is complete. If your model is the oft cited celestial teapot then the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence. But if your model is 1 trillion celestial teapots in orbit around the sun than absence of evidence _is_ evidence of absence.

People would do well not to rely too heavily on this asinine little phrases. They make us feel smart, sure, but they are very simple minded.

[Retric]

The specific issue with archeology is destruction can be selective. You can’t tell which towns failed to keep marriage records based on the lack of surviving records when the place those records ended up could get destroyed in a fire.

Is a structure missing because it didn’t exist, or is it missing because it was made out of useful materials repurposed for something else.

Similarly people dig up the remains of ancient towns because they got buried, if the location had erosion instead there would be nothing obvious left to investigate.

[notahacker]

Not to mention that there's only so much the layout of ground floors can tell you about social organization of a civilization which isn't described in written records, even if relatively evenly preserved. As in the famous "Motel of the Mysteries" parody, in which an archaeologist of the future discovers the underground remains of a 20th century motel and ascribes probable religious significance to everything from the television to the toilet.

I mean, "lots of houses, all of them quite small and all nearby burials without ceremony" could describe a hierarchy free anarcho-syndicalist utopia. But it could also describe a monastery, a barracks, a ghetto, a town built for subjects of the undiscovered nearby imperial palace or a slave colony, all of which are usually associated with particularly rigid hierarchies. If apartheid era Soweto was buried under a volcano, it would probably look like a settlement organised on relatively egalitarian lines by late twentieth century standards...

[bluGill]

Archeology is also limited by the things that will survive and what access to them the people had. If the people didn't have access to metal you will find very little metal tools (what you do find will also be used until worn out and then remade into something else; or restricted to the very rich. Either way limiting the usefulness of what evidence we find.)

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> if you have good reason to believe your model is complete.

When in archeology is that ever true? Frankly, outside of archeology when is that ever true?