Where the rubber hits the road: A critical analysis of archaeological decision making on highways projects in Ireland

Abstract

There was once a time when archaeologists could rebut all criticism of their professional judgement with the simple retort: ‘the spade never lies.’ Whilst history is written by winners, archaeological excavation reveals the past as it was, unsullied by the duplicitous meaning of words. At least that was the holding line, until Philip Greigson pointed out that even if ‘the spade cannot lie, it owes this merit in part to the fact that it cannot speak.’ The essential materiality of the archaeological record (and its resistance to subjectivity) belies the fact that everything we find requires interpretation (Taylor 2001:491). This is problematic; when even the most basic of archaeological observations are heavily theorized, our methods of inference are particularly susceptible to contemporary bias. So what kinds of methods do we allow, and what is the social context of our decisions?