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The Emperor's New Clothes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David B. Madsen
David B. Madsen*
Affiliation:
State Archaeologist, Antiquities Section, Division of State History, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
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Abstract

The use of systematically derived site location data in defining subsistence systems has increased markedly. However, the logical fallacy in the approach has never been discussed. Sites in a particular environmental setting may have been occupied for a variety of reasons at a variety of times (this is particularly true of "ecotone" sites). As a result, the assumption that a particular adaptive strategy may have been in force is, in the absence of any subsistence data, extremely questionable. Locational data may be useful in formulating hypotheses which can be tested through procurement of subsistence data, but in themselves they cannot be used to demonstrate the accuracy of a hypothetical subsistence system.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , July 1981 , pp. 637 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1981

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References

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