Archaeologists
excavation, field survey, site databases, radiocarbon, isotopes and materials analysis
Several problems turn on sites that have never been securely identified, excavated or published in full, or on claims that radiocarbon dates, isotope signatures and materials analysis could test. Archaeologists and archaeological scientists can supply the field evidence, dating and laboratory results that documents alone cannot.
16 problems need archaeologists
- 01Where was Agade, the capital of the Sargonic empire?
Rank the candidate mounds, including Ishan Mizyad and Tell Mohammed, by what survey and coring could show, and report any Sargonic material held in the Iraq Museum.
Places · Middle East · 2350–539 BCEalso needs geoscientists and GIS specialists - 02How many people lived in the Americas in 1492?
Derive occupation estimates for the decades before contact from LiDAR surveys and radiocarbon date densities, and state how they compare with documentary counts for the same region.
Demography · Americas · 1492–1650also needs demographers, geneticists and data scientists - 03Did the Black Death reach sub-Saharan Africa in the fourteenth century?
Build a geo-referenced register of candidate sites and human remains with calibrated radiocarbon ranges and laboratory codes, keeping settlement disruption and dated burials separate.
Disease · Africa · 1340–1500also needs geneticists and epidemiologists - 04What new evidence can fix when and why five historically extinct species disappeared?
Date great auk and sea cow bones from North Atlantic and North Pacific middens to establish ranges before European contact and when local populations disappeared.
Chronology · Global · 1500–1945also needs archivists, geneticists, data scientists, philologists, computational linguists and GIS specialists - 05Does the Indus script encode language, or a non-linguistic sign system?
Reconcile the Mahadevan, CISI and ICIT sign lists into an open, versioned corpus, recording object type and site for each inscription and keeping alternative sign mergers side by side.
Languages & scripts · South Asia · 2600–1900 BCEalso needs computational linguists and data scientists - 06How many people did the Justinianic Plague kill, and did it change late antique society?
Supply dated settlement, building and pollen chronologies by region, with explicit pre-541 baselines, so event-study comparisons can test for breaks at each plague wave.
Disease · Mediterranean · 541–750also needs geneticists and epidemiologists - 07Do khipus record more than numbers, and can their non-numerical signs be read?
Search colonial visitas, revisitas and court records, including the Archivo General de la Nación, for documents read from khipus, and match each candidate pair by totals and structure.
Languages & scripts · Americas · 1400–1800also needs computational linguists and data scientists - 08Can the Meroitic language be translated beyond its funerary formulae?
Supply find context, object type and date for REM inscriptions and texts published since 2000, so that passages can be read against their offering scenes, place lists and iconography.
Languages & scripts · Africa · 300 BCE–450 CEalso needs philologists and archivists - 09What is the absolute chronology of early second-millennium BCE Mesopotamia?
Combine the Anatolian dendro-radiocarbon wiggle-matches with the textual constraints in a Bayesian model, stating calibration and regional-offset assumptions and checking stability when each line of evidence is removed.
Chronology · Middle East · 2000–1500 BCEalso needs astronomers - 10Where was the land of Punt?
Compare the Puntite goods and ceramics from Mersa/Wadi Gawasis with second-millennium BCE material from Eritrean, Sudanese and Yemeni coastal sites, and extend isotope baselines for baboons and residue analysis of resins against Boswellia and Commiphora references.
Places · Africa · 2500–1150 BCEalso needs geneticists - 11When was the consonantal text of the Qurʾān standardized?
Build a model combining the radiocarbon dates of early Qurʾān parchments with palaeographic evidence to bound when the Uthmanic archetype was produced.
Texts & authorship · Middle East · 632–750also needs philologists and conservation scientists - 12How large was the Roman citizen population in the late Republic and under Augustus?
Harmonize the Tiber Valley, Suburbium, Pontine, Albegna and Biferno survey gazetteers into site counts by period and size class, stating how broadly dated sites are treated.
Demography · Mediterranean · 115 BCE–14 CEalso needs demographers - 13Was rongorongo an independent invention of writing?
Extend radiocarbon dating and wood identification to the undated tablets, using minimally invasive samples from carved surfaces or associated residues with AMS laboratories.
Languages & scripts · Pacific · 1400–1870also needs computational linguists and conservation scientists - 14How much iron did Song China produce in the eleventh century?
Compile a register of attested Song iron sites linked to the Song huiyao and gazetteers, and measure slag-heap volumes, furnace capacities and fuel types to give an output estimate independent of the fiscal record.
Economy · East Asia · 960–1127also needs economists - 15Where was Yamatai, the realm of Queen Himiko?
Build a dated database of Yayoi to early Kofun settlements, mounded tombs, mirrors, iron and pottery from the Nara National Research Institute site reports, recording each date basis.
Places · East Asia · 180–280also needs GIS specialists - 16In what year did the Zhou conquer the Shang?
Obtain new high-precision radiocarbon dates on short-lived samples from securely stratified pre- and post-conquest contexts at Fengxi and Yinxu, wiggle-matched where timber survives.
Chronology · East Asia · 1130–1018 BCEalso needs astronomers and philologists
Can you help?
Propose an approach or leave a comment on any problem above, or write to say what you could contribute.
Drafted by Claude Opus 5.5