<HTML>(1) Archaeological evidence vs. geologic evidence. I would suggest that when investigating an issue of archaeological importance (as the Sphinx issue is), archaeological evidence trumps geological speculations (which is what Schoch's argument boils down to). I would no more claim that an archaeologist can "deduce" the age of a mountain range from archaeological excavation than a geologist can argue (in the face of the archaeological evidence) that a human artifact has been misdated by millennia based on his (disputed) opinion of geologic weathering on that artifact. To a degree, it's a clash of disciplines. But it's also a case of bad and blinkered methodology.
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How can you possibly argue this position -- when you know full well that geology underpines the dating of the vast majority of archeological finds. Without the apriori conclusions of geologists, regarding the regularity of stratification, archeology would be impossble.
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I would suggest that when investigating an issue of archaeological importance (as the Sphinx issue is), archaeological evidence trumps geological speculations (which is what Schoch's argument boils down to).
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Your fist statement, that the importance of an artifact to a particular dicipline governs which discipline has jurisdiction over its meaning, is nonsensical - as I am certain you know. Diciplinary relivance canot be used to determine who "trumps" whom.
As for your qualification of Schoch's conclusions as "speculation," when compared to the so called "evidenciary" nature of Archeological finds, on what basis do you make this qualification? How is it that archeologists are so adept at finding evidence while geologists can merely speculate?
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I would no more claim that an archaeologist can "deduce" the age of a mountain range from archaeological excavation than a geologist can argue (in the face of the archaeological evidence) that a human artifact has been misdated by millennia....
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Your second statement, if true, would (as stated above) undermine the whole of Archeology as a dicipline. Archeologists routinely rely upon geological evidence to establish the dating of recovered articacts.
This is why Archeologists would do well to sit back and wait for the geologists to resolve this debate. Geology must provide the basis for Archeological conclusions or Acheologists can reach no conclusions at all.
ISHMAEL</HTML>
