16th September 2013, 05:46 PM
hi doug - the intro in the phd paper sez it all really. the models you build are only as good as the data used to create them and this is all flawed or just wrong. there are too many variables and inconsistent ways of interpretting archaeology. i cant think of any model for predicting archaeological sites even using broad categories that has stood the test of even a small amount of time (in the uk and the dutch have probably lost more than they will ever admit by using crap pm). there is no basis for building an accurate model, there is not an smr or her that contains accurate information and certainly not one that you can easily quizz for accurate information, the speed of investigation and chance recovery over the past 40 years has meant that nobody has a clue as to what was lost without record and how that skews your models and there has never been a publication in any journal ever that has been able to show that the data used was accurate or nowadays, meaningful. the prospect of governments latching onto the pm heresy and thereby having statistisions evaluating development sites i find amusing indeed
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers