Why are archeologists like this?
July 18, 2001 at 10:34:32
In Reply to: i think it's refered to as
posted by jim central mo on July 17, 2001 at 11:25:29
There are reasons why archeologists are like this. Some of the reasons include:
Placement of items in the matrix (outhouse, campsite or other site) When things are taken out without being measured, weighed and compared to each other, lots of information about the items and the culture is lost. A good example is an ancient coin hoard found by a looter. The hoard gets sold, broken up, and put into private collections. Information such as which coins were circulating at the same time, whose home it was hoarded in and why, what condition the coins were in and where they were minted is all lost when a hoard isn’t examined by an archeologist.
Testing of items gets better every year. Object dating technologies allow us to increasingly pinpoint the ages of objects. We can better identify item compositions for example identifying what quarry a gem came from, which metal vein a sample of silver came from and which river a particular shell piece came from. This information can better explain the living patterns and capabilities of a culture.
Finally, a full picture of a culture, including our own, can not be recorded if enough sites are not preserved for archeologists to study. Would we not be a poorer culture if we had not saved a few homesteads of the founders, a few representative buildings of each era? The same goes for what has been buried and/or covered.
Do I argue that there should be no private property? No way. I do suggest that a FEW things are important enough for a culture to preserve, in some fashion. How we do this is open to debate.
 Follow Ups:
Post a Followup
This forum has been discontinued - please use our new forum
Comments:
| 
