Ending the war on error: towards an archaeology of failure

Price, Max; Jaffe, Yitzchak

Abstract

Failure is a fundamental part of the human condition. While archaeologists readily identify large-scale failures, such as societal collapse and site abandonment, they less frequently consider the smaller failures of everyday life: the burning of a meal or planning errors during construction. Here, the authors argue that evidence for these smaller failures is abundant in the archaeological record but often ignored or omitted in interpretations. Closer examination of such evidence permits a more nuanced understanding both of the mundane and the larger-scale failures of the human past. Excluding failure from the interpretative toolbox obscures the reconstruction of past lives and is tantamount to denying the humanity of past peoples.

Citation

Price, M., & Jaffe, Y. (2023). Ending the war on error: towards an archaeology of failure. Antiquity, 97(396), 1598-1606. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.120

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 15, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Dec 1, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023-12
• Deposit Date: Feb 20, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 20, 2024
• Journal: Antiquity
• Print ISSN: 0003-598X
• Electronic ISSN: 1745-1744
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 97
• Issue: 396
• Pages: 1598-1606
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2023.120
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2270713