title: Walking back the cat: Unsupervised classification as an aid in "remote" fossil prospecting.
abstract: Counterintelligence analysts use a technique called "walking back the cat'' to reveal "moles" or others passing on disinformation in which they compare what they now know as fact against what their agents or informers had told them to expect about certain persons or events. Thus, "walking back the cat" is a perfect metaphor for working backwards; that is, retracing the complex development of an event and examining the "run up" to it in order to gain useful insights about how that event unfolded. Perhaps paleoanthropology can profit from such an approach.
authors.forename: Glenn C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Conroy
mesh_terms: D005580:Fossils; D040362:Geographic Information Systems; D006801:Humans; D010163:Paleontology / Q000379:methods*; D012107:Research Design; D014589:Utah
keywords: Uinta Basin; geographic information systems; image analysis; remote sensing; unsupervised classification; vertebrate paleontology