After bankrolling archeological work on a prehistoric site discovered during construction, a state department of transportation has successfully lobbied to retract an article about the researchers’ findings officials said were “published prematurely.”
The whole process was “a bit of a surprise” for the paper’s co-authors, said Logan Miller, one of the authors and an archeology professor at Illinois State University. He and lead author David Leslie both told Retraction Watch they stand by the article’s findings, but declined to comment further about the retraction.
Their research began in 2019, when the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) wanted to replace a bridge in the town of Avon. When construction workers started digging into the old bridge’s foundations, however, they discovered thousands of ancient objects from the Paleoindians, the earliest known people to live in New England. CTDOT temporarily halted the work and contracted an archaeology firm to excavate the site.
This January, two archeologists, including the researcher who oversaw the excavation, published an article in Taylor & Francis’ PaleoAmerica detailing a perforated rock pendant found there. The article, “Early Paleoindian Personal Adornment: An example from the Brian D. Jones Site in Avon, Connecticut,” has not been cited, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
After a push from CTDOT, the journal retracted the article this month.
The retraction notice stated:
The article was not authorized by the relevant authorities responsible for the site and artifacts recovered. The authors apologize for this oversight and therefore, they have agreed to the retraction of this article.
A spokesperson for Taylor & Francis said “checking permissions” is not part of the peer review process, so the issue was not caught before publication. He also said the retraction would not bar the authors from submitting work to Taylor & Francis journals in the future.
A spokesperson for CTDOT confirmed the agency pushed for the retraction. He said in an email:
The results and interpretation of the site were published prematurely. The materials uncovered are still in labs being tested. Since all stakeholders did not have a chance to review and provide comment, and interpretations were not yet completed, CTDOT asked for the retraction. A final report [is] expected to be completed by the end of next year.
The spokesperson declined to identify the “stakeholders” who were not able to review the article, and also declined to comment on whether the articles’ findings were faulty.
Leslie was previously a senior archeologist with Archaeological and Historical Services, the firm CTDOT hired to excavate and analyze the site. He now works at Heritage Consultants, another company CTDOT contracts with. After finishing the excavation, he co-wrote an initial research brief published in PaleoAmerica in 2020.
If the findings hold up, Miller says they could have significance beyond Connecticut. According to the retracted article, archeologists consider this excavation to be the oldest site in southern New England. Radiocarbon dating analyses suggest that the excavated objects and materials are 12,500 years old, from what is called the Paleoindian period. Humans first appeared in the archeological record in North America during this time as the last of the glaciers retreated and the ice age ended. The pendant could be the oldest that archeologists have found on the continent, according to the article.
Much of the data contained within the retracted article remains publicly available via a webinar series from the Avon Historical Society. CTDOT declined to comment on why these presentations and the 2020 publication were approved while the 2023 article was retracted.
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Press release here identifies some of the others involved:
https://portal.ct.gov/DOT/CTDOT-Press-Releases/2019/CTDOT-ARCHAEOLOGICAL-INVESTIGATIONS-ENCOUNTER-EARLY-NATIVE-AMERICAN-SITE-IN-TOWN-OF-AVON
I can imagine that getting a group like this to work together is challenging.
“ Since all stakeholders did not have a chance to review and provide comment, and interpretations were not yet completed, [the funder] asked for the retraction .”
Challenging group indeed, but for a funder to quash a paper because they have a different interpretation forthcoming sounds like bullying. Remarkable that T&F buckled so easily under pressure, especially since it just sounds like it was just CTDOT’s say so, not that some confidentiality agreement was produced. Worse, the fact that the authors agreed to what sounds like a groundless retraction suggests that a small archeological consultancy in Connecticut couldn’t afford to antagonize a source of future projects. I haven’t looked if ‘funder bullying’ is a category in the RW database.
The authors were too honest. Their findings are contrary to the interests of their funder, so now they’re being punished for their academic integrity.
We should support them.
Shame on the Connecticut Department of Transportation!