Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that a little while back I got into a tussle with a number of senior staff members at University College London and Plymouth University. The short version is that Andrew Bevan, Sue Colledge, Dorian Fuller, Ralph Fyfe, Stephen Shennan, and Chris Stevens (all at UCL) along with Ralph Fyfe (PU) published a paper called Holocene fluctuations in human population demonstrate repeated links to food production and climate in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). Unfortunately for me, they neglected to give due credit to the fact that they’d made use of my IR&DD Radiocarbon dates resource (the Catalogue of Radiocarbon Determinations & Dendrochronology Dates ). Unfortunately for them, Andrew Bevan told me about it. I was initially annoyed at what I thought was an oversight, but this was as nothing when I  found that Bevan did not believe he’s done anything wrong. My work was...

Introduction The oft-recited adage is that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Going by this logic, there can be no higher praise from an academic than outright plagiarism of your work. I have had recent cause to be on the receiving end of just such praise and I can assure you, dear reader, that it doesn’t feel like a compliment at all. In fact, it sucks. I decided that, rather than meekly accept it, I was going to fight back for the recognition due to my work. To this end, I reached out to the two universities involved (University College London and Plymouth University) and the publishing journal (PNAS) and asked them to initiate investigations into the conduct of their employees/authors. I trusted that these institutions would be keen to ensure that their academics adhered to the highest standards and that any deviation would be met with swift correction. I was wrong and my trust was sorely misplaced. Until now I have only really discussed this issue with my cont...