Archaeopterygid bird from China

[Richard Pyle]

I'm not an expert on fossils, so I may be way out of line here.
But....doesn't the geographic distribution of rare(ish) fossils tell us more
about the geographic distribution of circumstances conducive to fossil
creation (historical geology), and/or the geographic distribution of human
effort to excavate fossils (anthropology)...than it does about historical
distribution patterns of certain lineages (historical biogeography)?

John -- is this something along the lines of the point you are trying to
make?

Aloha,
Rich