Nigel, you make a good point. This is not confined to archaeology -- all academic disciplines have senior figures who measure their own reputations by the extent to which their ancient theories are preserved and verified. And some -- not all, thank God -- resent the new bloods who come along and demolish the old theories and put new ones in their place. I was an academic geomorphologist long ago, and was mystified when several perfectly good research papers were turned down -- until I discovered that the journals involved had used one particular very senior referee whose ideas I was intent upon challenging and disproving. The papers got published in the end, of course, but that taught me that some academics do take "challenges" and new ideas as threats to their own self-esteem. But as somebody said the other day, the more these guys hang onto their fragile theories, in the face of lack of evidence to support them, the greater is the likelihood of an eventual catastrophic collapse.