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We are pleased to invite you all to our session *#545: Challenging the models: Reflections of reality?* at the EAA meeting in September 2018 in Barcelona! Currently modelling is a central part of archaeological behavioural research. Many papers focus on the ability to extract the reflections of past social interactions and structures from a variety of archaeological and environmental sources. Especially in the light of highly theoretic archaeological modelling in pre- and proto history this often leads to environmentally driven, Darwinian like models, devoid of cognitive human factors, fuzzy decision making, and the possibility of non-rational choice. Considering all implemented assumptions required for social interaction models we have to question whether a model might be too complex to operate on the basis of our data. Has it entered the vicious circle of self-affirmation? Are our models questioning our own lack of knowledge? Where are we on an epistemic-ontic scale? In our session we wish to address and discuss current problems in archaeological behavioural modelling. Questions tackled might include: • whether we are creating Processualism 2.0? • how narratives are encoded in models, as discussed from a theoretical, methodological or practical viewpoint? • how the inclusion of social theory and the fuzziness of human decision making alters the results from a model? • what is the impact of assumptions on modelling results? • what is the impact of archaeological data on a model’s outcome? • how we can use inherent capabilities and inabilities of models to better interpret and narrate our approximations of reality? To submit an abstract for our session (# 545) please visit: https://eaa.klinkhamergroup.com/eaa2018/ Deadline for submissions: 15th February 2018 For any questions regarding our session please contact: [log in to unmask] We look forward to your contributions, Chiara Girotto (Goethe University Frankfurt) Tim Evans (Imperial College London) Ray Rivers (Imperial College London)