Introduction: Why every archaeologist should tell stories once in a while

"The excavator placed her units intuitively" used to be, and perhaps still is, another way of saying that she made a stab in the dark. Many years in the field and an intimate understanding of her research area might be dismissed at a stroke, because our archaeologist did not use a table of random numbers to decide where to dig her holes. Guesswork is not what we scientists would like to be known for, and that is all well and good. After all, if archaeological interpreta tion is no more than opinion, then the specula tions of supermarket tabloid writers would be as valid as those of the trained professional in mat