Until now we have been using the term archaeological traces to characterise archaeological evidence, whereas it was proposed that at the human scale information on built environments should distinguish discrete occupiable spaces. Lucas (2015) cautions against the dominant view of archaeological evidence as fragments. However, it is fair to say that there is an important discrepancy in terms of completeness between traces of a built environment and spaces of a built environment. We know that due to site formation processes, there is no perfect preservation of past situations. Yet, social interpretations in archaeology are usually concerned with understanding situations that occurred in the past. By stating 'finding remnants of an assemblage is not the same as finding an assemblage itself', Lucas (2015: 321) urges us to reflect on what survives: archaeological evidence seen as relics. In the context of going from traces to spaces, metaphorically a past lost to a past found, the resolve lies in redressing fragments as surviving traces of entities from a past situation. 4 Following the 3 It may be worth mentioning here that with new recording technologies, especially high-resolution 3D photogrammetry and laser scanning or LiDAR, a cleanly presented 2D archaeological map as end product could systematically refer back to the much fuller source of information of the original digital records. Kyriakidis E (2016, personal communication) argued the advantages of a similar workflow for digitally producing the 2D map of ancient Eleusis from 3D information. If we can ensure **data** lineages through stable links and unique identifiers, this may prove a significant advantage in the future. Providing a **data** lineage still does not exonerate us from a responsibility to produce our mapped interpretations with the most complete and usable information in flexible and readable formats. 4 It should be acknowledged that this is not an argument against the truism that interpretations of the past are a product of the present. However, it is asserted here that a different kind of knowledge is produced from a strict adherence to Lucas' (2015) alternative of seeing material evidence as relics (evidence of why things survive), which suggests a focus on the formation, meaning, and relevance of archaeological traces as entities in and of themselves.