Pleistocene Timor: Further corrections, A reply to Bednarik

Abstract

This paper revisits a number of topics raised by Bednarik in his paper 'Pleistocene Timor: some corrections' and questions the validity of some of the claims he makes concerning the Pleistocene archaeology of East Timor. These claims are examined within the context of work undertaken by Ian Glover in the 1960s and more recent work carried out over the past few years by the East Timor Archaeological Project (by the author, Matthew Spriggs and Peter Veth). Some of Bednarik's assessments for a Pleistocene age for stone artefacts are shown to rest on redundant and inappropriate typological classifications where the geoarchaeological context of the finds clearly shows that they were deposited in the Holocene.