The use of ethnographic analogies in archaeological reasoning

Abstract

As a met­ho­do­lo­gi­cal prin­ci­ple ana­logy is pre­sent in all sci­en­ti­fic di­sci­pli­nes even tho­ugh, from a lo­gi­cal stand­po­int, strictly ob­ser­ved, it do­es not sa­tisfy the cri­te­ria which wo­uld qu­a­lify it as a re­li­a­ble me­ans of de­duc­tion. The qu­e­a­sti­on of re­le­vacy of the ana­lo­gic de­duc­tion was par­ti­cu­larly im­por­tant for ar­chae­o­logy which, stri­ving to­wards sci­en­ti­fic ob­jec­ti­vity, tried to find out what was the past li­ke. Ho­we­ver, the hi­story of that aca­de­mic ten­dency to a sci­en­ti­fic ideal has un­co­ve­red an es­sen­tial un­re­li­a­bi­lity (du­bi­o­u­sness), lo­gi­cal in­con­si­stency and fi­nally the bi­as of all ar­chae­o­lo­gi­cal con­clu­si­ons abo­ut the past, po­in­ting to the fact that everything we le­arn abo­ut the past, we le­arn, or bet­ter said, we in­ter­pret by ana­logy of (on) the pre­sent.