Alternative interpretations

Abstract

In our literature review on the subject we came across a number of publications each proposing a different interpretation about the cart-ruts. These alternative interpretations are different from the ones discussed earlier mainly in that they differ significantly from the usual hypotheses involving vehicles and transport. Additionally, in testing these alternative ideas on several of the sites we surveyed we could not find how these hypotheses could have worked. Therefore, we do not agree on any point made by these sources for reasons stated further on. However, we felt that these interpretations still merit mention as they are part of the archaeological thinking community and the way some of the arguments are built up are at times almost convincing even to archaeologists. However, on the basis of our discussion in the previous chapters, we cannot agree with these interpretations. In the first instance, in most cases, the writers started with a fixed idea and then attempted to force the 'evidence' to fit their interpretation.