We must move from the traditional model of archaeological knowledge as a Gruyère cheese with holes in it to that of a sparse suspension of information particles of varying size, not even randomly distributed in archaeological space and time. The first thing we may deduce from this revision is that many of our taxonomic entity divisions are defined by lines drawn through gaps in the evidence and zones of greatest ignorance; this does not make these taxa invalid but it does gravely alter what constitutes meaningful manipulation and explanation of such entities.
Source
David Clarke. 1979. The Analytical Archaeologist: Collected Papers of David L. Clarke. Academic Press, London.
via: Hirst, KK. 2009. An Archaeologist's Book of Quotations. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek California.
