Latest Blog Posts for Publishing Archaeology

• Why I Find Foucault Useless
  on Dec 16, 2016 in Explanation Foucault Theory
  People periodically try to convince me that I should pay attention to the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, because it will enrich archaeological interpretations of the past. Maybe. But here is why I remain dubious, after reading various bo...
• Activist ethnoarchaeology?
  on Sep 4, 2016 in Activist archaeology Settlements
  I just read a bizarre paper, "Occupy Archaeology! Towards an Activist Ethnoarchaeology of Occupy Denver" by Crystal Simms and Julien Riel-Slavatore in the SAA Archaeological Record (May 2016, pp. 33-39). I am interested in the campsites of the occupy...
• In praise of reductionism
  on Aug 16, 2016 in Comparisons Science Urban scaling
  Suppose I have a business making clothing. I want to know how many items of what size to manufacture. If I can know the distribution of men's and women's adult heights in the U.S., I can plan how many shirts or pants to make of each size. Assume that...
• Why would a journal called "Scientific Data" publish bad data? The Chandler/Modelski city-size problem
  on Jun 9, 2016 in Archaeology and other disciplines Journals Quality control
  Scholars interested in changes in city size over long periods of time often turn to one or both of two encyclopedia compilations of data: Tertius Chandler’s, Four Thousand Year of Urban Browth (Chandler 1987), and George Modelski’s World Cities:...
• Anarchism in archaeology: Trivial or insightful?
  on Apr 22, 2016 in Anarchism Generative processes
  There has been a surge in interest in anarchist theory among archaeologists in the past few years (e.g., Angelbeck & Grier 2012). I alternative between thinking that this approach is pointless and unnecessary, and thinking that it has something u...
• Why has Academia.edu gotten so boring?
  on Mar 24, 2016 in Academia.edu ada
  I find myself rarely scrolling through the news feed on Academia.edu any more. I used to like to review the articles listed, often finding things of interest. But there are two new developments in their algorithms that make my news feed almost painfu...
• Empty citations
  on Mar 21, 2016 in Citation data Quality control
  In my paper on arguments in archaeology (Smith, Michael E.,  2015,  How can Archaeologists Make Better Arguments? The SAA Archaeological Record 15(4):18-23) I mention the problem of empty citations. A comment this weekend on Twitter got me...
• Why is a scientific archaeology so hard to achieve?
  on Feb 21, 2016 in Epistemology Science Social science Theory
  This is the third of three posts on my view of a “scientific archaeology.” The first two were, “Science, social science, and archaeology: Where do we stand?”, and “Why is itimportant to strive for a more scientific archaeology?”I will giv...
• Why is it important to strive for a more scientific archaeology?
  on Feb 16, 2016 in Contemporary relevance of archaeology Science Social science Transdisciplinary
  This is the second of three posts on my view of a “scientific archaeology.” It follows the post, “Science, social science, and archaeology: Where do westand?” The intervening post, on Pascal Boyer, is a kind of appendix to that earlier post.
• Pascal Boyer's views of science, social science, and the humanities
  on Feb 14, 2016 in Epistemology Humanities Social science
  This is an addition or appendix to my prior post. Looking at that post again, it is pretty weak in its discussion of the humanities. As I was preparing that post I had a nagging feeling that I was forgetting a crucial paper on the topic. Well, I was.

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