Imagine that you want to know whether green is more likely to be the favorite color amongst men or women. You go out and ask a bunch of men and women what their favorite color is. You studiously write down the name and contact information for each person who answers…

I’ve gotten a lot of correspondence about my criticisms of the Pennsylvania Pre-Contact Predictive Model and discussion of predictive models in archaeology more generally. Most of the ink I’ve spilled so far has had to straddle the need for technical specifics to justify my complaints and minimize jargon for both…

Lately there’s been some renewed discussion in the archaeological community about the value of predictive models. …

The last week has seen a flurry of emails exchanged with the SHPO and DOT of a state on the East Coast that were a mix of sad, bewildering, and frustration inducing. The scandal is still unfolding in real time, so I won’t out the specific state until I hear…

Whether you use a “100 meters from water” type of model or a prohibitively expensive GIS-based model, archaeologists don’t have a lot of great options when it comes to predicting archaeological sites. The first issue (don’t worry, there’s more!) is that project areas aren’t a random sampling of the landscape…

As archaeologists, the main way we determine the age of a site is from the artifacts. Luckily, we live in a time where we have quite a bit of knowledge of when historic and prehistoric artifacts date from. Look below to find some metal TPQs that are helpful, arranged by…

Many of you are aware that I took on a Sisyphean task to sort out the hot mess that is projectile point/stone knife classification. …

Yesterday, I was treated to the pretty funny sight of a badly translated Latin motto. It was for the band program of a university in West Virginia, and can be seen below. For those that don’t know, plumbum is indeed Latin for lead — as in the poisonous metal. To…

Fans of Netflix’s Dracula mini-series (only three episodes) might recognize that quote. It comes from a conversation Dracula has with a modern-day woman as he admires her house. She terms it “a dump” but he is amazed at its marvels: “Kathleen, I’ve been a nobleman for 400 years. I’ve lived…