Short thread: “the attitude of population geneticists to any paleontologist rash enough to offer a contribution to evolutionary theory has been to tell him to go away and find another fossil, and not to bother the grownups” – John Maynard Smith 1/

the attitude of SOCIAL SCIENTISTS to any ARCHAEOLOGIST rash enough to offer a contribution to SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE has been to tell him to go away and find another SITE, and not to bother the grownups." 2/

3/ I'm in the middle of reading Charles Perreault's fantastic book. The role of paleontology within evolutionary biology is analogous to the role of archaeology with the social sciences. The answer does NOT lie in individuals, agency, and meaning.

4/ Rather, the answer lies in addressing questions that CAN be adequately answered with the data we have, questions that do have relevance to the social or historical or biological sciences. I just dragged out my old 1992 paper on Braudel and time scales in archaeology.

5/5 One of my Braudel papers: https://www.academia.edu/16485119/_Braudels_Temporal_Rhythms_and_Chronology_Theory_in_Archaeology_1992_ This is going to require some thought on my part. Charles says that this and other work at the time did not go far enough in blocking out productive avenues for archaeology, and I think he is right.