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Originally Posted by tsubame1
I'm under the impression that archival resources were made with field researches too, so they may be subject to the same limitations of the modern ones. Depends on the way they were/are made.
But the modern ones benefits of the previous knowledge, the highlighting of previous mistakes and of the modern technology.
I completely agree about the capability to analyze them.
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I think both are important.
No question that archival resources can be subject to imprecision and innacuracies. Many older sources are colored by prejudice and colonial perspectives, while still others simply reflect poor data collection and analysis. In the end, an archival source is only one thing and we should recognize potential pitfalls and try to utilize as many available sources of data as are available. To me, this includes looking at past writings (when available)
and interacting with contemporary sources.
I agree with Kiril that contemporary sources have potential for innacuracy, but I'm no more willing to ignore their existence than I am potentially innacurate archival resources and prior reasearch.
I'm always pleased by how edifying a few comments by someone actually living within a particular culture can be to my research. I wouldn't base anything solely on those comments, but they often add to my understanding exponentially.