I spent 2 days last week at the Austin PaleoCore Workshop (http://paleocore.org/symposia/austin_2013/) debating ontology with an intimidatingly brilliant group of archaeologists, paleontologists, and paleoanthropologists. It was both fun and a little exhausting. Kudos to Denné for having the vision to see the potential for this project. Although, it seemed like herding cats sometimes, in the end, we made some progress. The archaeology group was particularly productive - at least by the second day - managing to crank out more than 50 term definitions in 6 different domains of information. The next (tougher) step, is integrating these into the domains and terms presented by the other group (combined geochronology/biology/spatial).
The weirdest thing I learned at the meeting: archaeologists and paleoanthropologists have reverse meanings for the terms site and locality. To an archaeologist (at least to those of us in the room), a site is the smaller spatial unit, while a locality is often a larger area, possibly including multiple sites. The reverse is true for paleoanthropologists. I wonder if this is a result of how permits are structured in the two disciplines. For paleoanthropologists, a permit for a site covers a huge area (many square miles), in which they are permitted to seek and collect fossils. Archaeologists, by contrast, apply for a site permit to cover one specific location, generally where they plan to dig. So we headed down different linguistic paths a while ago, apparently unaware of the diverging meaning. Many people in the room seemed surprised by this distinction.
Anyway, you've been warned - even the most basic terms may not mean what you think! Don't even ask me about the definition of "lithic" (or how long we had to debate it)!
The weirdest thing I learned at the meeting: archaeologists and paleoanthropologists have reverse meanings for the terms site and locality. To an archaeologist (at least to those of us in the room), a site is the smaller spatial unit, while a locality is often a larger area, possibly including multiple sites. The reverse is true for paleoanthropologists. I wonder if this is a result of how permits are structured in the two disciplines. For paleoanthropologists, a permit for a site covers a huge area (many square miles), in which they are permitted to seek and collect fossils. Archaeologists, by contrast, apply for a site permit to cover one specific location, generally where they plan to dig. So we headed down different linguistic paths a while ago, apparently unaware of the diverging meaning. Many people in the room seemed surprised by this distinction.
Anyway, you've been warned - even the most basic terms may not mean what you think! Don't even ask me about the definition of "lithic" (or how long we had to debate it)!