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Re: Ad Yurii Gloriam (Was Re: maize in ancient india: strong transpacific links are indicated)



In article <5bljh4$npo@news1.io.org> yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
>Douglas Weller (dweller@ramtops.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>: On 13 Jan 1997 13:37:41 GMT, yuku@io.org (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:
>: >a) As Johannessen's research indicates that maize was a staple crop in
>: >that area, these cob fossils shouldn't really be that difficult to turn
>up : >in excavations. Is anyone looking for them? 
>
>: Yuri, no one has to look for them, if they are there they will be
>obvious! We : had this discussion before about chicken bones. Whenever
>archaeologists dig : they examine everything they find, and they'd be
>noticed. 
>
>Doug, with all due respect, I find your reasoning hopelessly flawed.
>Yuri.

The only reason you could possibly find Doug's response flawed is:
1. you don't understand anything about how archaeologists do their
work and/or 2. you don't want to understand anything about how 
archaeologists do their work.

Let me give you a simple real world personal example.  In 1995 I was
digging at a site in Georgia, we were mainly interested in documenting
the Late pre-contact period of the site.  We found lots of data that
did not pertain to this period yet we collected it anyway - actually
now our interest is more with some of these earlier periods.  In a
trench we uncovered some features which were chock full of carbonized
remains.  We quickly examined these remains and found that many of 
them were carbonized corn cobs.  What did we do - remember no where
in the project proposal did we say we were looking for corn cobs?
Did we throw the remains out? Did we ignore it? Will it not be
written out in the final project report?

Answers: No, no, no.  We stabilized and recovered the remains,
we brought them back to the lab for further analysis, we may use
some of these remains for C-14 dating and we sure as hell will write
up the findings in the final report.

So guess what Yuri, even when archaeologists aren't specifically looking
for something they record it anyway.  Much archaeological information
is the result of serendipity.

Whether you like it or not, the fact that no one has reported finding
corn cobs in an Indian excavation or chicken bones in South America
are major problems for the acceptance of those theories.  But I'm sure
you'll just resort to you childish "argumentum ex silentio" crap in
response to this because you really have no valid point to make on
this subject.

Peter van Rossum
PMV100@PSU.EDU