How Many Hands Has a Clock? Integrating chronological records: A semiotic approach
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2019-02-25

Some of the main chronological problems that archaeology is facing in the 21st century date back to the very birth of this discipline. Many have argued that such issues will be resolved through the acquisition of new data and the progressive improvement of dating methods. I present the hypothesis that such controversies might instead originate from theoretical and historical issues. Borrowing some tools from semiotics (C.S. Peirce) and from the logicistic approach to archaeological theory (J.C. Gardin), dating methods can be dissected in their epistemological components. Different dating methods are built on peculiar – and sometimes conflicting – models, which rely on theories and are based on units of analysis whose integration can lead to some inconsistencies in results. Moreover, both dating methods and chronological controversies are historical entities. Some of the main chronological controversies have been objects of research for more than a century. When data are understood to be (at least in part) dependent on the intellectual context that generated them (Kuhn), long-lasting chronological controversies appear to be a crucible of different approaches about historical change, time and the very nature of the discipline. Expecting a flawless consistency to come from an addition of new dates would be unrealistic. While this does not undermine the validity of the methods, it does corroborate the view of perspectival realism on scientific ‘truth’ (M. Massimini). 

Maria Emanuela Oddo (IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca)