Archaeologists can never be sure that a particular interpretation is correct, still less that it can never be improved. Yet today they are asking more questions than ever before, have more techniques to analyze data than ever before, and are increasingly aware of their biases and try to compensate for them. A growing awareness of the role that such biases play in the interpretation of archaeological data, and in the practice of archaeology, is a development that all archaeologists should welcome.
But multiple standpoints do not simply create multiple, incompatible archaeologies. They challenge all archaeologists, wherever possible, to use this multiplicity to create more holistic and objective syntheses.
Their goal should be an archaeology that is more complete and less biased because it is informed by an ever-increasing number of viewpoints and constrained by more data.
Source
Bruce Trigger. 1998. Archaeology and Epistemology: Dialoguing across the Darwinian chasm. American Journal of Archaeology 102:23.
Another quote from Bruce Trigger stored here is on Indirect Contacts. A little biographical sketch is also available.
