That time a pottery sherd changed my whole timeline

Professor Hartley told me I was dating a midden layer wrong. Said my charcoal samples were contaminated by root intrusions. I fought him on it for weeks. Turns out he was right - the site was 200 years older than I thought. Has anyone else had a senior researcher completely flip their interpretation?

3 comments

3 Comments

spencer_coleman1mo ago

Disagree here honestly. Had the opposite thing happen on my last dig where a senior guy kept insisting our carbon dates were off by a century. I checked the roots in my sample bags and they were pretty clear, no recent stuff mixed in. Sent them to a second lab and they came back matching my original dates. Sometimes the older researchers just get stuck on what they think the site should be based on old typologies and wont budge even when the science says different. Trust your own eyes on the stratigraphy and the lab results, not just authority.

amy_anderson1mo ago

Huh, not sure this needs to be a whole thing though.

wade8711mo ago

Spencer, when you say "the older researchers just get stuck on what they think the site should be," do you think that's a pure ego thing or more about them having built their whole career around a certain interpretation? I've seen it happen where a professor has published a bunch of papers on a site's chronology and then can't handle new data that makes half those conclusions shaky. It's like their reputation's on the line so they dig in harder. What kind of stuff were they arguing from the old typologies that contradicted your carbon dates?