Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
May 1997
Abstract
While reading this book, I found myself visited repeatedly by a phrase encapsulating its essence: archaeological science. Regardless of whether the site function hypothesis presented in the conclusion is ultimately confirmed or falsified through further testing, the book will remain a model of the application of science to archaeology. How is this so? Reduction, synthesis, hypothesis formulation, falsification of alternative hypotheses, explanation- all of these methods and goals are there, although not always defined or in sequence.
As site reports go, this is one of the most thoroughly researched to appear anywhere in Canada. The detail presented is almost numbing, but obviously only a summary of more detail resting in files and museum collections. Yet the book is much more than a site report; it is this fact that enhances its value immensely, propelling it into the company of major archaeological works in this country, not just the prairies.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Research 7:1 (Spring 1997). Copyright © 1997 The Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Used by permission. http://www.unl.edu/plains/publications/GPR/gpr.shtml