to an impartial mind, I can assure you that I have not
dismissed 'off-hand' such theories; in 1952 I did
considerable and quite impartial research into the
probabilities associated with Watkin's theory and showed
that it was largely baseless "but perhaps with some residue
of truth". ....I agree, therefore, with almost all you say
in your letter about not dismissing such theories in a
summary manner and not creating an archaeological orthodoxy,
but I must be allowed to bring to bear on any theory all the
"apparatus criticus" at my disposal and must give heed to
the opinions of scholarly professionals much better informed
than I on general archaeology,,.,"
April 10th. Chambers to Harley: "Many thanks for your very
courteous letter ....If I misrepresented your views in mine
it was of course quite unintentional. What sticks in my
mind is this; we find all over the place standing stones,
mounds and the like the purpose of which is not known.
....Our remote ancestors must have had some reason for
sticking these things up. Watkins gives a logical and well-
reasoned explanation, I do not know if he is right or not,
....but his views are entitled to a more thorough examination
than in the main they have received in the past. It is also
present in my thinking that we smile at the theories of
geologists and antiquarians in the past....but how do we
know that our ideas will not seem equally ludicrous to the
thinkers of the future? ....I remember reading some time
ago a series of articles (in "Antiquity") in which they
dismissed not only Harrison's eoliths, but also the
rostrocarinates and Reid—Moir's Cromer implements. This
means in effect that man's first efforts in shaping flints
were the relatively highly-finished products of the lower
Palaeolithic or in other words that when we learned to write
we did so in the settled hands of our maturity, I quite
agree that one must make up one's mind sooner or later
....what side of the fence you come down on, ....I am
inclined to react rather too vigorously against authority of
any kind. But I must admit that the attitude of some
professionals terrifies me. They accept what is in their
text-books absolutely unquestioningly, and anything which is
not in them is just ignored,"
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