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Tidying up offerings
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BuckyE
468 posts

Re: Tidying up offerings
Jun 05, 2010, 05:05
Hasn't there been discussion here about how many of the UK sites have been destroyed by agriculture, Church practices, etc.? This destruction went on for centuries before there even WAS an America, so don't get your knickers in a twist about us!

I understand perfectly your desire to preserve the sites for many reasons, including spiritual ones. And sympathize completely. As a small bit of proof of my comradeship, I wonder how many other Americans than Loie and myself have visited with the members of this forum, and attended a megameet?

So please believe that it is with respect and commiseration that I post here.

There seems to be a basic misunderstanding about what I propose. Paulus says "...american ways will infect everywhere in its dangerous notions of land ownership and privatization." I perfectly well agree. But, it's been precisely the concept of allowing the sites to be privately owned--and concomitantly mismanaged--that has resulted in their rampant destruction and disrespect of them.

And as I've said before, we have exactly the same problems here with Native American sites. No one knows how much destruction has been allowed by having our sites in private hands, unguarded. Other than that it's certainly been immense. At that rate, it's a truism that archaeological sites are being plundered and destroyed all over the world. This is just a result of there being more and more people who can get to them. Most of the people respect the sites well enough to not trash them, but it only takes a few do do the damage. And there are more of those few all the time.

That's not going to change.

So long as any bunch of Yahoos--of whatever nationality--are allowed to piss in, climb on, spray paint, knock over, plow under, litter, leave crappy offerings in and generally do whatever they like for free at the sites, well, that's what's going to happen. Sorry, but that's been the fate of the sites for millennia. It's amazing any remain at all.

How are the few that have managed to survive going to be protected against this Yahoo behavior? I ask very seriously.
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