Experimental Archaeology and Technological Variability: Explanatory Endpoints and the Risk of Methodological Post-Truth

Experimental archaeology plays a central role in lithic studies by exploring the technical feasibility of proposed manufacturing procedures. However, its interpretive value depends on how experimental results are integrated with archaeological variability. This paper argues that experimental archaeology does not provide proof of past technological practices, but rather identifies technological possibilities under controlled conditions. Focusing on recent experimental work on fishtail projectile points, it is shown that reliance on selective archaeological samples and the uncritical generalization of experimental outcomes may lead to a form of methodological post-truth, in which experimentally plausible technical solutions are retrospectively transformed into normative interpretive models. By distinguishing general technological principles from normative production schemes and by emphasizing variability as a constitutive feature of lithic technologies, this paper advocates a reflexive and epistemological approach to experimental archaeology that strengthens, rather than constrains, archaeological interpretation.