(I've been linked here from nonfluffypagans.)

It seems to me that theswordmaiden was trying to agree with your original post, and to disagree with cerebesque. However, in the process of trying to agree with you theswordmaiden made some comments about evidence that appear to disagree with the research you've talked about doing. Your response suggests that you took offence to those comments about evidence, and your comment about "trashing a lifetime's work" seems unfair to me.

I suspect that theswordmaiden's fear of being misunderstood and attacked is stimulated by comments like this one:

The unbelievable amount of nonsense you manage to discharge in the rest of a rather short comment would give me work till tomorrow merely to ridicule it properly.

Comments like that suggest that your objective is not the exchange of ideas, but victory.