I think I have said this before, but I am both an archaeologist and an historian. I found your friends blog post on relic collecting interesting. My archaeologist friends can be overzealous on the topic of relic hunting/collecting. Often this focuses on Native American sites and is as much about destroying culturally specific sites such as burials as it is collecting. In the context of indigenous archaeology most public or academic archaeologists excavating a particular site will invite local collectors to share what they have and know.
About 5 yrs ago I was involved in excavating a Civil War site in Mn. We invited local collectors to share and participate and got a limited response. I think that was do the nature of the site. My point is I think these practices among archaeologists are much more common than they were 20 yrs ago.
I will close by saying I was suprized during by recent visits to Gettysburg and Antietam at the no relic collecting signs. I had not seen that before at a national battlefield site. This suggests to me NPS sees relic collecting at such places as an issue.
I think I have said this before, but I am both an archaeologist and an historian. I found your friends blog post on relic collecting interesting. My archaeologist friends can be overzealous on the topic of relic hunting/collecting. Often this focuses on Native American sites and is as much about destroying culturally specific sites such as burials as it is collecting. In the context of indigenous archaeology most public or academic archaeologists excavating a particular site will invite local collectors to share what they have and know.
About 5 yrs ago I was involved in excavating a Civil War site in Mn. We invited local collectors to share and participate and got a limited response. I think that was do the nature of the site. My point is I think these practices among archaeologists are much more common than they were 20 yrs ago.
I will close by saying I was suprized during by recent visits to Gettysburg and Antietam at the no relic collecting signs. I had not seen that before at a national battlefield site. This suggests to me NPS sees relic collecting at such places as an issue.
As a person born on April 9, 1965, I believe it should be a federal holiday. Definitely.