It definitely sets up perverse incentives. Archeological dating is difficult and easy to screw up. Incorrect yet "plausibly deniable" mistakes can get you dates

It definitely sets up perverse incentives. Archeological dating is difficult and easy to screw up. Incorrect yet "plausibly deniable" mistakes can get you dates far off from reliably established estimates. There's also a problem of what the end criterion is. Is just publishing a paper in a reputable journal enough? Does it need secondary confirmation, or the decade+ of debate that boundary-pushing finds like Monte Verde require to be established?