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Authenticity in Archaeological Writing and Representation

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

State of Knowledge and Current Debates

Authenticity as a concept is integral to the discipline of archaeology. Discriminating between real artifacts and forgeries, determining secure provenance, and investigating how past actually happened are all activities at the core of producing archaeological knowledge and can be seen essentially as quests for authenticity. The idea of authenticity, moreover, takes on especial importance with regard to the writing and representation of archaeological knowledge. Since the beginnings of archaeological research, archaeologists have expressed concern regarding their ability to present the past as realistically as possible and to communicate the nature of archaeological work in an accurate way that a variety of diverse audiences will be able to understand.

However, the definitions of “accuracy,” “realism,” and “authenticity” as they pertain to archaeology have been in a state of near-constant change for nearly two centuries. The concept of authenticity...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA, USA

    Allison Mickel

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  1. Allison Mickel
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Correspondence to Allison Mickel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

    Claire Smith

Section Editor information

  1. Brooklyn Campus, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Uzma Z. Rizvi

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Mickel, A. (2020). Authenticity in Archaeological Writing and Representation. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_1564

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