Thanks Sarah, I'll take up a small gauntlet,
Britarch has just had a discussion about statistics and archaeology
(part of the re:ifa and cynical musings thread at
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/britarch.html).
In the UK there are increased movements towards the application of
reflexivity in archaeology (John Barrett, Adrian Chadwick and Ian Hodder
are the most vocal). My interest in this topic converns the recording
systems applied. I am firmly of the belief that we currently do not make
the best use of the information we collect during fieldwork. An approach
of this sort requires rapid feedback and synthesis mechanisms. It is
this area of producing rapid (computer generated?) synthesis of
archaeological data that requires the attention of archaeological
theory. In order to test theoretical models what do theoreticians
require from 'raw' fieldwork data.
This is an important issue for a variety of reasons. I can't comment
outside my own sphere but there seems to be a schism between theory and
practice. This gap needs to be bridged to improve theoretical frameworks
and data collection methodologies.
What do you think?
Ant
P.S. for anyone who's interested in the recording thing check out Adams,
M, 2000, The opticians trick, in Roskams, S, Interpretting stratigraphy,
BAR
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