<HTML>If an object is situated in a dated context, then it is up to those who claim the dating is not secure to prove it isn't.
E.g. take the example of Klasies River Mouth. There are deposits in Cave 3 and deposits outside on the cliff face which have been stratigraphically linked with those inside. Say an artifact, call is a armature, is found in stratigraphic layer 5a and is dated by association with faunal remains to c. 70 000 BP. Say a similiar thing happens with an object in the same layer in the cliff face deposits. Here we have two corroborating dates.
Now lets say there is a hypothetical site about ten kilometers inland with a stratigraphic sequence suspected to date to before 40 000 BP. And lets say the excavators come upon a layer comprised predominantly of armatures, a composition which resembles closely the securely dated sequence at Klasies River. Yet the excavators suspect the dates for this layer at their site could be different than Klasies. They send away material for analysis and dating, and contrasting dates come back. One date is 80 000 BP, another is 85 000 BP and the third matches the 70 000 BP date from Klasies.
The chances are very good initially that the armatures from the hypothetical site do indeed date also to 70 000 BP and the other two dates are perhaps the result of some form of contamination having occurred. Yet the excavators of the site disagree and lean towards the 80 000 BP date as being more accurate. It is up to them to prove why the correlated 70 000 BP date is inaccurate, as well as why one anomalous date should be accepted above the second anomalous date of 85 000 BP.
I hope this example may clear up any confusion any lurkers may have had.
Mike.</HTML>
