Archaeological Context: If it looks like a shoveller duck and quacks like one, then...

This is definitely a "duck" says John Hooker,
following Cyril Fox. Could be a spoonbill
though, couldn't it?  Or just an imaginary creature.

It has been pointed out that it was in some way wrong of me to mention in passing that John Hooker mentions La Tène shoveller ducks because (name-drop-alert) it was Cyril Fox who recognised the duck. If you follow that, you'll get a taste of the tenor of John Hooker's response to my discussion [here, and here] of his "methodological" proposals for archaeology (or rather against archaeology). This falls into the typical artefact collector pattern. He bemoans the fact anyone has actually commented on what he wrote, sidetracks off - butterfly like - to the side topic of ducks and that I said his finial was unpublished (which he gyrates to suggest is not true, when in fact it is indeed unpublished), he brags a bit, drops a few more names, adds a few ad hominem comments, and concludes by saying he "laughed" at my text, before pretending he regrets he is failing in his duty to prevent others who do not know as much about everything as he does from being "misled" by what people like me say. So more or less like every metal detectorist under the sun, though in his case a tad more articulately.  Hooker is under the impression that this is enough to settle the topic. He was right, because it is obviously not worth trying to engage people like this in any real discussion because he will not allow it to focus on the issue, but continually try to deflect it onto sidetracks. Typical collector behaviour.

Anything I said about his misunderstanding what contextual archaeology and archaeological context are is water off a (shoveller) duck's back to him. But nevertheless that, and not his unfocussed and introductory speculations about the belief systems of any La Tene (sic) elite was the topic of my comments here. But then his failure to address the points I made about what he initially wrote simply leaves him once again unable to justify a single element of his attempted deconstruction of archaeological  methodology.

Vignette: Torres duck after Wikipedia.