Feek, believe it or not, despite some slightly different interpretations on how best to deal with it… I do think we are fighting on the same side. We both want the artifacts and scientific data (and context) preserved as best as possible.
And you ARE on to something… amateur archaeologist… under the supervision of a real archaeologist can do a LOT of good. And frankly it’s easy to flip people unless they are died in the wool pot hunters. They are interested in the artifacts and culture… most of the looting of artifacts is… innocent ignorance honestly. People aren’t aware of the damage they do when they remove an artifact from a site. They don’t even consider it theft of public property because they never thought of it that way.
I personally consider this a rather civil discourse and pretty far from the flame war I feared.
I’d be happy to continue the discussion, perhaps we both can learn something from the other’s perspective?
I should declare my own bias… as you declared yours. My stepfather is an archaeologist in a REALLY cool resource area… rather not say where obviously. My own academic background is in anthropology. I was actually taking college anthro courses… starting in Jr. High. By the time I graduated high school, I had most of an anthro major finished. At one point, at the age of 13, I was the youngest person ever certified for site survey and excavation in the history of the archaeological society in the state in which I used to live… I actually don’t know if anyone took my record down, for all I know I still hold it… there were serious requirements including academic credit hours in specific courses, supervision and sign off by an archaeologist etc. Ironically, this all happened when my step father was my teacher before he met my mother. So I have actually been one of those somewhat qualified amateurs working under the supervision of a real archaeologist. Naturally with this academic background, I became a… database developer. lol
It can get a personal for me. My step father has received actual, honest to god death threats. For things like speaking out against pot hunting… or having the audacity to mention evolution in the classroom. (sorry if this offends, but if someone disagree with evolution, may I suggest the Theology department instead of the Anthropology department?) So I have a short fuse on some of these issues for very personal reasons. It actually can’t get much more personal than someone threatening to kill your mother now can it?
So that’s my bias. Thank you for being civil and not pushing those buttons. But it should be pretty clear I quite literally despise pot hunters for not just the ethical reasons… but personal reasons as well. I will ALWAYS actively work against them. Always. Basically pot hunters and I are sworn enemies.
And like I said, clearly we have some disagreement… but I really do think we are both playing for the same team here.
We both want the same thing… just quibbling on how best to go about it is all.
So I say, let’s resume the quibble. What can we learn from each other’s perspective on this?
Civil debate with informed people is FAR too rare these days (and apparently unheard of among politicians). And what fun would it be if everyone always agreed with each other right? Is it possible that between the two of us, we might actually come up with some ideas that might help the situation?
Quite repeating myself.
