Senior Thesis In Progress

The daily struggle with the senior honors thesis is the result of my desire to make it absolutely perfect. Needless to say, I'm starting to break through this bad habit. However, after many months of searching through my sources for the "perfect quote" to begin the damn thing, I think I have finally come upon it. I was forced to take another look at Oliver Rakham's "A History of the Countryside", since someone out there decided they wanted to check out the book I have been continuously renewing. In reading page 6, I decided to use this quote:

The historian has to combine the several types of evidence at his disposal. A story based on one kind of evidence is never so complete or secure as the one that is corroborated from some quite different direction. Unfortunately, many historians confine themselves to the written word or, worse still, to the literary word; they are reluctant to put on their boots and to see what the land itself, and the things that grow on it, have to say. -Oliver Rackham

Seeing as I'm writing my thesis on landscape archaeology within the History department, where the reluctance is evident, it seems to fit perfectly.

As far as the rest of the thesis, I am making nice progress. I have completed my own Microsoft Access database that contains entries for all 200 units I rewalked in September. The bulk of my thesis will discuss several hypotheses I made during my fieldwork. I will share those now:

1. Despite the argument of Albert J. Ammerman, and based on experimental evidence by Robert Schon, there may not be a significant need to resurvey units, at least in the short term. The new 2004 data will agree with this assessment--not much has changed in four years.

2. The land cover category, "Weeds", does much to harm correlations between Land Cover/Visibility/Artifact Density because of the walker tendency to check weeds with any sighting of weeds, whether significantly hindering visibility to the unit or not. "Weeds" can imply so many things, making it an insignificant category. There are many versions, including weeds that are tall and light that seem to not hinder visibility. Therefore, it is impossible to say that weeds hinder visibility, thus hindering artifact recovery.

3. Correlations can be drawn between a high visibility and olive groves, low visibility and apricot and almond groves, which in turn produce both high and low artifact densities. Farmer care of certain fields (Olives v. other cultivation) can tell us something about visibility and artifact density.

4. There is a correlation between low visibility and the number of land cover categories checked, particularly in the area of Kenchreai. This area has a low visibility overall, therefore has low artifact density. Five or more land cover categories present is especially inhibiting.

5. Field walker inconsistency is rather minor, based on the 2004 rewalking of 200 units.

More soon...