Sure, paleontologist and historians can make a virtue out of necessity (see, e.g.,Muir,1991; Zemon Davis,2010:5–6; Peltonen,2012; Bassi,2016), but the com-monsensical assumption is that immediate observation and interrogation of phenom-ena in their entirety are preferable—time travel would be more effective.1However,the recourse to traces is getting more frequent not only for studying the h…