piratediver
Sr. Member
Hi Pete,
Good to talk to you. I don't necessarily agree with the point in your first paragraph. It is true that archaeologists allowing items to be lost in conservation, poorly recorded, unpublished, etc. leads to a loss of data, but I wouldn't equate that to a shipwreck salvage project where artifacts are intended to be sold from the very start. All of these unprofessional behaviors may indicate a sloppy or irresponsible archaeologist, but presumably no one sets out for such a career, and if we are professional we learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to prevent this kind of sloppy work which leads to a loss of data. If I consistently did these things, I could no longer get a permit from the state of Florida, and my sloppy archaeology would stop in its tracks.
But really, I think there are relatively few (if any) professional archaeologists who are so bad/lazy/irresponsible that they constitute a significant data loss. We have all been taught that excavation destroys a site and that we have a responsibility to do it right to the best of our ability.
On the other hand, the entire intent of treasure hunting is to sell artifacts in order to make enough profit to justify shareholders'
investments. That is an automatic data loss, regardless of how scientific and systematic treasure hunter methodologies are (or are not). And I don't see how any group could use the typically super-time-consuming and expensive methodologies that most archaeologists agree are necessary to systematically excavate a wreck, while still making a profit. This summer I could have excavated an entire shipwreck in the time it took to finish 7 meter square units if I didn't have to worry about accuracy, provenience, sampling, stratigraphy, etc. We still have volunteers spending hours upon hours to sort out, count, and weigh tiny pieces of coal from our provenienced dredge spoil collected months prior. I just don't believe that most (if
any) treasure hunters take the same time and effort to do the things that most archaeologists feel are essential to gain as much knowledge as possible from an excavation.
When archaeologists lose data, it is because of errors or mistakes, which presumably are minimized and learned from. When treasure hunters lose data, it is because that is the only way they can work a shipwreck while meeting their bottom line.
Now on to the second part of your discussion. The reason I think that academia has not come up with a single working standard is that I think such a standard is impossible. Every site is different, and every environment is different. And there are very many different schools of thought in archaeology about what those best practices are (digging in arbitrary vs. stratigraphic levels, for example). My statement was that archaeology involves a "scientific and systematic" methodology. I know that is a general statement but it covers a lot and we all should be using scientific and systematic methods to best record and excavate any particular site in any particular environment. I believe that a lot of the "low-tech" methods from twenty-years ago are still applicable for many projects, a lot of "high-tech" super-accurate methods that simply won't work in some situations, and a lot of area between the two. There is always room for improvement and we should always strive for greater precision, but I don't think that means we should never excavate anything if we can't afford the latest and greatest softwares or other technological tools, or if our site is in particularly low vis or heavy currents. I think that we need to see this as a case by case decision made by the archaeologist in charge, who is responsible for success or failure. On the Belle we had the budget to acquire the best technology available at the time, and a full excavation of a wreck of that caliber pretty much demanded that expenditure. If that budget is not available, then we might choose to answer research questions through selective test excavation so as to leave the wreck partially or mostly intact for future generations of scientists. In some conditions, we realistically must lower our standards of precision despite any available technology, while in others a high degree of accuracy is possible through old-school practices. But we are all professionals, who know that excavation erases part of the archaeological record and that we are responsible for doing the best job we can to record it as accurately as possible. I think we can trust archaeologists' judgments on these things, and allow for a wide variety of methodologies, especially since we can hold our peers accountable through reviewed journals and scholarly interaction.
I'd like to think that we can admit our mistakes when we make them, and that we as a community can learn from that kind of thing. If we are being ethical archaeologists, then we do the best we can to use the most productive scientific/systematic methods at our disposal for any particular site, we publish our data, we maintain our collections open to other scholars, we share the good data and the bad mistakes with our colleagues, and all that other good stuff.
That's my two cents worth, at least.
Good to talk to you. I don't necessarily agree with the point in your first paragraph. It is true that archaeologists allowing items to be lost in conservation, poorly recorded, unpublished, etc. leads to a loss of data, but I wouldn't equate that to a shipwreck salvage project where artifacts are intended to be sold from the very start. All of these unprofessional behaviors may indicate a sloppy or irresponsible archaeologist, but presumably no one sets out for such a career, and if we are professional we learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to prevent this kind of sloppy work which leads to a loss of data. If I consistently did these things, I could no longer get a permit from the state of Florida, and my sloppy archaeology would stop in its tracks.
But really, I think there are relatively few (if any) professional archaeologists who are so bad/lazy/irresponsible that they constitute a significant data loss. We have all been taught that excavation destroys a site and that we have a responsibility to do it right to the best of our ability.
On the other hand, the entire intent of treasure hunting is to sell artifacts in order to make enough profit to justify shareholders'
investments. That is an automatic data loss, regardless of how scientific and systematic treasure hunter methodologies are (or are not). And I don't see how any group could use the typically super-time-consuming and expensive methodologies that most archaeologists agree are necessary to systematically excavate a wreck, while still making a profit. This summer I could have excavated an entire shipwreck in the time it took to finish 7 meter square units if I didn't have to worry about accuracy, provenience, sampling, stratigraphy, etc. We still have volunteers spending hours upon hours to sort out, count, and weigh tiny pieces of coal from our provenienced dredge spoil collected months prior. I just don't believe that most (if
any) treasure hunters take the same time and effort to do the things that most archaeologists feel are essential to gain as much knowledge as possible from an excavation.
When archaeologists lose data, it is because of errors or mistakes, which presumably are minimized and learned from. When treasure hunters lose data, it is because that is the only way they can work a shipwreck while meeting their bottom line.
Now on to the second part of your discussion. The reason I think that academia has not come up with a single working standard is that I think such a standard is impossible. Every site is different, and every environment is different. And there are very many different schools of thought in archaeology about what those best practices are (digging in arbitrary vs. stratigraphic levels, for example). My statement was that archaeology involves a "scientific and systematic" methodology. I know that is a general statement but it covers a lot and we all should be using scientific and systematic methods to best record and excavate any particular site in any particular environment. I believe that a lot of the "low-tech" methods from twenty-years ago are still applicable for many projects, a lot of "high-tech" super-accurate methods that simply won't work in some situations, and a lot of area between the two. There is always room for improvement and we should always strive for greater precision, but I don't think that means we should never excavate anything if we can't afford the latest and greatest softwares or other technological tools, or if our site is in particularly low vis or heavy currents. I think that we need to see this as a case by case decision made by the archaeologist in charge, who is responsible for success or failure. On the Belle we had the budget to acquire the best technology available at the time, and a full excavation of a wreck of that caliber pretty much demanded that expenditure. If that budget is not available, then we might choose to answer research questions through selective test excavation so as to leave the wreck partially or mostly intact for future generations of scientists. In some conditions, we realistically must lower our standards of precision despite any available technology, while in others a high degree of accuracy is possible through old-school practices. But we are all professionals, who know that excavation erases part of the archaeological record and that we are responsible for doing the best job we can to record it as accurately as possible. I think we can trust archaeologists' judgments on these things, and allow for a wide variety of methodologies, especially since we can hold our peers accountable through reviewed journals and scholarly interaction.
I'd like to think that we can admit our mistakes when we make them, and that we as a community can learn from that kind of thing. If we are being ethical archaeologists, then we do the best we can to use the most productive scientific/systematic methods at our disposal for any particular site, we publish our data, we maintain our collections open to other scholars, we share the good data and the bad mistakes with our colleagues, and all that other good stuff.
That's my two cents worth, at least.
