Abstract

With the introduction of heritage legislation in Ontario over the last three decades, the growth of Cultural Resource Management, and the resulting trend towards implementation of regional archaeological master plans, several predictive models have been produced for use in archaeological planning. Yet, there is a reluctance on the part of Ontario archaeologists to incorporate these methodologies into a standard cohesive long term strategy. Rather, archaeologists continue to rely on simple 'distance to water' criterion when determining high, medium, and low archaeological site potential. Why? The reason may lie both in the orthodox nature of government bureaucracy and in the inadequacy of deploying difficult to use models that continue to be untested, without validation, or any other form of nullification. As such, some regional master plans become obsolete: the implementation schedule does not meet the needs of the client. Is this a question of theory or scale? This paper will review and address the utility of predictive modelling in Ontario. An alternative approach is suggested combining several attributes of deductive spatial models employed elsewhere with technological solutions to the problem of low resolution of inductive approaches. These new methodologies would incorporate known aspects of culture history alongside environmental variables and contemporary social realities.