ABSTRACT
Fancy what a game at chess would be if all the chessmen had passions and intellects . . .: if you were not only uncertain about your adversary’s men, but a little uncertain also about your own; if your knight could shuffl e himself on to a new square by the sly; if your bishop, in disgust at your castling, could wheedle your pawns out of their places; and if your pawns, hating you because they are pawns, could make away from their appointed posts that you might get checkmate on a sudden. . . . You might be the longest-headed of deductive reasoners, and yet you might be beaten by your own pawns. You would be especially likely to be beaten, if you . . . regarded your passionate pieces with contempt. (George Eliot Felix Holt, The Radical [1866])
Achieving a successful outcome in forensic archaeology is like playing a game of chess-but the game of chess as described by George Eliot. The organization that you work for has a mind of its own. You have a mind of your own. Your team members have minds of their own. Any human piece on the chessboard may move to checkmate the most technologically and logistically prepared of missions.
