As many are wrangling with Howard's life, what he wrote and what he meant, the words of the late (and IMO great) Jim Deetz are in order: "Past actuality can never be known in its totality, and even if it could be, as Taylor points out (citing Kroeber [1935:547-548]), 'to do so [account for all that happened] would take as long as the happenings themselves' (Taylor 1948:29). So decisions have to be made. What will be left in, what is to be omitted; what is considered important, what is not? Historiography then becomes by necessity an abstraction and the manner in which this abstraction is arrived at depends on the interests and concerns held by the historiographer. In this definition, Taylor anticipates the position taken by contemporary critical theorists in their attempts to explain past actuality (Wylie 1985). While the ideological load that critical theory applies to explanation seems rather excessive, it is true that contemporary values and interests play a role in explanation,..." Deetz also latter adds, "Objective accounting for the human condition might only occur when done by some extraterrestrial sentient beings, and even that unlikely circumstance would not resolve the problem completely, for if sentient, they too would have vested interests." Deetz (1988) History and Archaeological Theory: Walter taylor Revisited, AMERICAN ANTIQUITY, Vol. 53, 13-22. Enjoy, Mark Hall
