"The act of archaeology is desecration." From an earlier
posting.
I've worked with archaeologists, though I have only a
passing experience with the field. But it is my
understanding that archaeologists themselves have developed
a stringent code about removing artifacts. As I understand
it, this code more or less says that nothing will be removed
from a site unless the site is going to be disturbed by
either natural or human activity. This is as much for
scientific/technical reasons (better diagnostic tools will
be available in the future), as it is for
ethical/moral/spiritual reasons.
Again, there are probably people in this list who understand
this better than I do. My own $.02.
eric siegel
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