Keeping archaeology safre from vampires, dung, and twisted animal bladders

Vampires:  I just had a journal insist that my co-authors and I tone down some of our wording in a paper. Jason Ur, Gary Feinman and I will publish a paper in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research taking contemporary geographers and others to task for promoting the VERY incorrect opinion of Jane Jacobs that cities preceded agriculture in prehistory. I blogged about this some time ago, and I thought it was a settled issue (duh!). But then Peter Taylor published a paper in that journal touting Jacobs's ideas again. So we fired off a critique, which we are now revising for publication. But we were told to remove the vampire metaphor. Here is what we said:

We view the historical part of Jacobs’ “cities first” model as a vampire. It normally sleeps, out of public view, only to emerge periodically and wreak havoc among the unsuspecting. Then it quietly returns to obscurity, leaving people to wonder whether something so contrary to normal experience can really live on. We intend to put a stake through this vampire of a model and end its tortured life once and for all.

In fact, we had discussed this passage and decided to include it, even though the reviewers and editors would probably not like it. We even considered using a zombie metaphor, but vampires seemed more apt. Oh well, I guess the world of publishing on archaeology is now safe from vampires (and maybe zombies), at least for a while.
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Dung: The "manuring hypothesis" in Mediterranean archaeology explains the presence of sherds and other small artifacts in non-site locations as deriving from the use of animal dung as agricultural fertlizer. When farmers scooped up the dung, they would have also scooped up some sherds and such from domestic trash, which then ended up spread on fields, far from settlements. One of the major papers on this topic is Alcock et al (1994). One of the authors gave me a copy of the manuscript prior to publication, and I was very pleased to see that it began with a quote from a Monty Python skit: "Q: What's brown and sounds like a bell?  A: Dung!". (Note, this joke is from "The Visitors", NOT from the skit where John Cleese shows up with a bin full of dung.

"Dung, sir."

When the book came out, this quote had been removed from the chapter. I've always meant to ask the authors who was responsible for this, but never got around to it. One certainly wouldn't want to include scatological humor in a serious archaeological book! Standards must be maintained. Dung and vampires need not apply.
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To continue this serious scholarly discussion, I want to share two recent emails. It seems that as an Aztec specialist, all the odd-balls out there want Aztec information from me.

(1). I glanced at the subject line, and thought it said "Aztec demography." Great, we need more research on this topic. But when I opened the email, I realized that the subject line in fact read, "Aztec demonology."

Hello,

I found your email when I was researching professors who specialize in Aztec studies. I'm a screenwriter working on a horror script. If you're not too busy, I was wondering if there's anything you can tell me about Aztec demonology, or Aztec goddesses who protected women?

I don't know what "demonology" means, and I really don't want to know, so I replied in the negative.

(2) This week I got this email:

My name is XXXXXX; I am a researcher for XXXXXXXXX looking at alternative subcultures. I'm currently researching an interesting story on balloon fetishism, and I was hoping you could confirm the following tidbit of internet information regarding balloon animal origins: is it true that the Aztecs used to inflate animal bowels and then twist them into animal shapes for sacrificial offerings?

Give me a break! I don't claim to know every single primary source on the Aztecs in detail, so it is possible that I have missed this important feature of Aztec ritual behavior. But I think I would have heard something about this weird practice if it were indeed described in a reputable source. It would be an excellent example of weird ancient practices that gross-out undergraduates, always something to be noted.

Alcock, Susan E., John F. Cherry, and Jack L. Davis
    1994    Intensive Survey, Agricultural Practice, and the Classical Landscape of Greece. In Classical Greece: Ancient Histories and Modern Archaeologies, edited by Ian Morris, pp. 137-190. Cambridge University Press, New York.

PS - the IMDB has a nice list of quotes from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Quality control in archaeological publishing

I've been digging out some buried reading matter, and only now got around to reading the September, 2012 issue of the SAA Archaeological Record. I found the very interesting paper, "What I Learned from my Experience as Editor of American Antiquity (2009-2012)" by Alison Rautman. Alison makes a number of useful points, and her paper is well worth reading (if you haven't already). Here I want to focus on the question of quality control

The paper is divided into sections,with each subheader starting out, "What I learned about....." (writing, publication, reviewing, etc.). The first section is called "What I learned about academic writing and re-writing," and the first sentence is "I found that the single most common problem that authors have involves connecting theory and data." Alison notes that while there are a variety of theoretical perspectives and approaches, "one does have to provide clear, logical connections between theory, method, and data" (p.11). This was pointed out repeatedly by reviewers, and evidently insisted upon by Alison.

The clear linking of theory, methods and data is essential for making a rigorous argument. It is great to see the premier journal in New World archaeology insisting on this level of quality control. Now in an ideal world, it should not be necessary to remark upon the fact that a top journal insists on high quality. Duh. But given the large number of low-quality papers published in archaeology journals today, it is worth praising American Antiquity (and Alison Rautman!) for maintaining standards. When I wrote recently about difficulties that many archaeologists have in making arguments, I was referring to papers published in what many would consider top archaeology and anthropology journals (not American Antiquity). These were really deficient works, in high-profile places.

Why do so many stinkers make their way through the review process and past editorial gatekeepers to be published? I don't have a simple answer here. Reviewers and editors are not doing their jobs. Authors are not making the effort (or don't know how) to produce high-quality works. Standards are too low all around. I get really steamed when I review a bad manuscript for a journal, say why it is bad in my review, and then it gets published, often without addressing the deficiencies I have pointed out. I'm not talking about theoretical differences here, but about basic issues of quality in scholarship, citations, and argumentation.

*** PARAGRAPH ADDED APRIL 2, 2013: I forget to mention one very relevant factor here. For a variety of reasons the archaeological study of small-scale and intermediate societies is more rigorous than archaeological research on states and complex societies. All of the examples of shoddy work that I alluded to above (that is, shoddy work that I have read recently) concern the archaeology of states and empires, not the archaeology of hunter-gatherers or middle-range societies. American Antiquity focuses heavily (but not exclusively) on the latter domain. *****

In an academic discipline, quality control is everyone's job. There is no board of directors, no Académie Française, with ultimate control over the quality and value of our work as archaeologists. There is no one to give the stamp of guaranteed quality (as in the above illustration). We are all implicated in our writing, reading, reviewing, teaching, and other professional activities. But reviewers, editors, and editorial boards have particularly important roles in maintaining the quality of research and writing in our discipline. So a big salute and thanks to Alison Rautman and American Antiquity, both for doing a great job with the journal, and for sharing her insights with the rest of us. So, Alison, if I see you in Honolulu this week, I'll buy you a beer!
 
Rautman, Allison E.
2012    What I Learned from my Experience as Editor of American Antiquity (2009-2012). SAA Archaeological Record 12 (4, September): 11-13.