Nimrod103 wrote:Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. A famous dictum which too many scientists forget.
And which too many non-scientists use to justify all sorts of nonsense, from aliens to pixies to the Loch Ness monster and a lot else.
An absence of evidence
is evidence of absence in a well studied/observed area. E.g. we can dismiss any claim that there's a pack of wolves living in Hyde Park precisely for that reason.
I have no idea how well studied archaeological bedbugs are, however I do know that environmental sampling and analysis is something that's regularly done in excavations. I've taken column samples for that purpose myself on a couple of digs (although not done the analysis; they went off to a lab for that).