Friday, August 3, 2012

The Kents Cavern Jawbone, or, Archaeology is Hard

An angry debate has broken out among British archaeologists over a jawbone found in Kents Cavern near Torquay. The important thing about this case is that the archaeologists cannot agree on whether the jaw is human or Neanderthal, how old it is, or whether the layers it was found in were intact or disturbed.

Most magazine and television accounts do not sufficiently emphasize that archaeology is HARD. It is very hard to know how artifacts got where we find them, how they came to be buried, how much they have moved since they were buried, and, should we figure all of that out, what any of it means.

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