Journal · A guide to the archive
Ask what archaeology, a portrait, a date or a remembered account can establish before drawing a wider conclusion.
Begin with a claim that seems straightforward, then identify the source behind it. These essays distinguish a language hypothesis from a decipherment, ancient ancestry from a modern identity label, and an image’s production date from the lifetime of its subject. The dating and memory essays extend that habit: record a discrepancy or a speaker’s perspective before trying to resolve it.
An intentional selection
Archaeological objects preserve signs and their contexts, but they have not yielded an agreed reading of Harappan language. Statistical pattern and a decipherment are different kinds of evidence.
Ancient DNA can investigate relationships between sampled people. It cannot turn an archaeological civilisation into a modern ethnic label or assign cultural identity from a genome.
A source is contemporary in relation to the particular event or period being studied. A portrait of Ranjit Singh made after his death shows why the source’s date and the question both matter.
Conflicting dates need a comparison of events, source histories and calendar conventions. An unresolved Bhagat Singh example shows why an official publisher’s name does not settle the question.
A remembered event, a recorded interview and its written transcript are separate records. Later concerns, the interviewer’s questions and editorial choices all affect how an experience is presented.
How we use sources, explain uncertainty and correct mistakes.
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