Dear Brian,
This risks to become a debate between two people, which is not what we
want, but you raise some questions and I need to reply.
First let's have a clarification about what we mean for "fixed rules".
I think that it's quite obvious that there are some general rules in
the scientific community, which are quite essential in order to
understand each other, I am mainly thinking of questions such as
anatomical and taxonomic nomenclature. However, I suppose that it is
clear that we are talking about 'methods'. I am not suggesting that it
is right for somebody to come up and call a sheep "Ovis caballus".
To my plea for unfixed rules you raise two rather curious objections.
One is that with no fixed rules "nobody will have a chance at knowing
what is valid or not" and the other is that it is not possible to be
rigorous with "no fixed rules". Why?
For me accuracy and rigour depend on the clarity of the adopted
methods, the care and reliability of identifications, the honesty and
professionalism in the analysis and presentation of the data, the
internal coherence of a report, the economical presentation of data
that support the conclusions etc etc. All these things have nothing to
do with fixed rules, and I certainly do not think that presentation of
data in as a detailed way as possible has anything to do with
accuracy. I insist, nobody will ever be able to claim to have studied
a bone assemblage totally comprehensively. We need to select, whether
we like it or not, and, consciously or unconsciously, we do it also on
the basis of our personal research interests.
But don't you think that our disagreement is the best possible proof
that fixed rules cannot exist? If we want fixed rules somebody will
have to 'fix' them. And who is going to do that? I would not like to
have your view imposed on me, and equally I would hate to impose mine
on you. So I just say "vive la difference"! The best reports are those
that, convincingly, say something interesting about our past. As long
as this result is achieved I don't care about what methods were used.
Cheers,
Umberto
-------------------
> Umberto!
>
> No rules? Cool! Nobody will have a chance at knowing what is valid
or not.
> That sort strangely like some form of post-processual quantification
where
> the results tell more about the analyst than the sample.
>
> As far as whether publications loaded with information are boring or
not, we
> all prefer that they not be boring. Sure. There are some very good
works,
> very detailed, that are interesting to read, but not so much for the
data,
> but for how the scholar chose to present the information. Some
people have
> a knack for this, some don't.
>
> You are correct that part of the reason for curating the actual
studied
> remains (from all aspects of archaeology) is for future scholars who
might
> have new problems to solve, questions to answer where those curated
> assemblages will be helpful. In the last 15 years, I have only seen
reports
> on a couple of faunal assemblages that have been completely
reanalyzed.
> Often, future scholars only refer back to the original data set, but
not the
> faunal remains themselves. Somebody may take a look at the samples
I
> analyzed, but I may not be alive by then. This is an unfortunate
aspect of
> our field where people really don't look that closely at our work
unless it
> is really controversial. It makes it difficult for a field to
advance
> properly when problems, oversights, etc. are not found until decades
after
> the fact.
>
> Okay, I have to ask. How can you be rigorous with no fixed rules
when
> rigorous means being very accurate or inflexible? Maybe I missed
something?
>
> Brian
>
Umberto Albarella
Dept of Archaeology
University of Durham
Durham DH1 3LE, UK
tel. +44-191-3741139
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