Abstract
This short paper will address some thoughts about scientific archaeology. What kind of archaeology is scientific, what is the role of the researcher and what are the responsibilities that, come with it? There is not enough dialogue in archaeology that discusses the means and the goals of the so called scientific archaeology, which causes that archaeology is not considered to be a 'hard' science like many others. Can archaeology and does it want to be a hard science?

I would like to divide the aspects of this paper in three categories: the scientist, the data and the interpretation. Even though these categories are not separate at all, I will treat them as separately as possible to clarify some points. I will try to point out some brief notions of critical fieldwork as well.

The scientist is not a word you hear too often associated with archaeology. These romantic pictures of treasure hunters are still a major viewpoint when archaeologists are depicted. I would prefer calling us archaeological scientists and I hope that will be soon found out why. Basically archaeological scientist does not differ in any radical way from other scientists in other fields and we are limited in the same ways as other scientists are (See Kelley & Hanen 1988: passim; Bell 1994: passim. Archaeology is increasingly being emphasized as a science as it ought to be). Like Lewis Binford put it: '... all you can do is assess the knowledge tools that you have available at any one point in time and then figure how to use them to address ignorance' (Sabloff 1998: 47). The same basic principle applies to every science and scientist and when we see our own limits it clarifies our agenda to face a new tomorrow. In my opinion it is not how much we should know, but how we should use what we know. Knowledge management is the keyword to guide the archaeological process to a more scientific era. Colleges, universities, research facilities and administrative instances as well as every other archaeological entity should draw some basic guidelines to proceed to make archaeological knowledge more worthwhile. I do not worry about the methodologies applied by the researcher, or the amount of data extracted, but rather the manner in which both are used to make further archaeology possible.

Archaeological data differs quite drastically from data being used in other sciences. It is fragmented, incomplete and sometimes almost invisible in terms of data managing. It is described as a puzzle that needs to be redone, but usually there are too many missing pieces, which make the archaeological scientist a fortuneteller or a mind reader. It shouldn't be the case and there's a solution to this problem. Archaeological scientists sometimes try to penetrate the scattered surface of their data in means that are hardly justifiable. Visionary observing the landscape for ancient minds or extracting religious and symbolical meanings from objects as well as arbitrarily designating the significance for some pieces of data that the past people might have had at all (For 'visionary' seeing or subjective interpretations see Tilley & Bennett 2001: passim; for cognitive meanings and significance see Bell 1994: 312-323).

Trying to extract some cognitive (or any other, in my opinion) meanings from archaeological data requires testable interpretations, interpretations should be as close as possible to the data, statements must be consistent, the interpretations should be generalized if they can become more testable and avoided if vice versa. Statements should be either directly linked to the artifactual data or should entail statements directly linked to the artifactual data (Bell 1994: 322, 323). This kind of a linking between body of science and cognitive meanings is not what you see in most of the archaeological publications done in that sector. The same rules apply to all interpretations about archaeological data, should the approach be typological, environmental or any other taken. There can be no separation of cognitive and non-cognitive interpretations because our process of making interpretations itself is purely cognitive in nature.

Archaeological fieldwork and its methods are considered as being the scientific part of archaeology. Almost anyone outside the field of archaeology will see the data retrieving the only scientific endeavor archaeological scientists do. While with modern technology we still can't excavate the same site twice or more it may be possible to do that in future. Non-destructive methods are being developed and it is only a matter of time when we actually can benefit from them. It is well a documented need for archaeological scientists to be able to repeat their methodological work in order to verify and test their statements about the data and the site itself (About repeating the fieldwork process see Lucas 2001: 201-204). In order for the fieldwork in archaeology to be more scientific there is a clear need for those non-destructive methods that allow us to repeat our now so finite procedures.

There are lots of good books that lead an archaeological scientist to do the work in a more scientific manner. Gibbons book is one of those and it introduces the schematic diagram of the cycle of science from theories, deduction, predictions, and empirical interpretations to observation, sampling, and empirical generalizations. Of course there is lots of stages more, but it gives you a holistic idea of scientific process (Gibbon 1984: 36).

In addition to what we have discussed and to give you a head start for further thinking, I would like to add some wise words from a well known archaeological scientist: 'If archaeologists are to progress in understanding the past, they must be willing to make use of all possible data sources and to expand and develop middle-range theory to provide methodological rigor to a broader range of techniques for attributing human behavior and ideas to archaeological data' (Trigger 1995: 12). Even though I don't think that the middle-range theory will be the only answer to anything, it is a good tool to use and develop.

The notions made earlier give the archaeological scientists a chance to not only gather data, but also expose their data and the interpretations made of it to the wider range of researchers. That will greatly benefit archaeological knowledge in terms of testable interpretations and new statements made by new approach from the same data. Some people even suggest that with re-orientating the methodology of archaeology we will gain a more scientific archaeology (Gibbon 1984: 412). As noted earlier it is not only methodologies, but also the whole scientific process that has to be re-orientated in order to make it all more worthwhile. Archaeology doesn't need unjustified statements, or non-testable interpretations. It needs a whole body of science, of which we have only discussed a very small part. The body of science allows archaeological scientists to make testable, reliable and objective statements about the past and therefore I believe archaeology can be considered a hard science and certainly there is a need for that.

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