Dear Brian and Umberto,

Kim Dammers is right - the rest of us are enjoying the debate.  To add a
little fuel, here are three fixed rules:

Rule 1.  There are no  rules.

Rule 2.  Anyone who records a bone assemblage shall publish their
methods in sufficient detail to enable subsequent research to replicate
those methods (no, I haven't always done that, either).

Rule 3.  Anyone who says "No, this is the right way to do it..." shall
be repeatedly asked "Why?".

I got that last one from my children, who are experts at interrogation
of authority.

Happy Christmas, year-end, or whatever,

Terry


Umberto Albarella wrote:
>
> 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