And archeologists limit their picture of the past to the evidences they have at a given point in time, although they know what they have is a very limited and degraded record of what actually happened.

See for instance the argument put forth by Hancock about network of ancient "highways" connecting cities in the amazon. Nonsense until lidar expose them:

https://thedebrief.org/2500-year-old-network-of-elusive-anci...