Petroglyphs in America

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nigelswift N
nigelswift Jun 19, 2006 08:07:15
Replying to Rhiannon

What protection do stone things have in this country? Or is it just *gold* the law's interested in?

The Monuments Protection Programme identified 600,000 sites of outstanding national importance and worthy of protection. Less than 6% are Scheduled and 94% are up for grabs.

Plus, all archaeological investigation prior to development is on the basis of funding by the developer, so the piper calls the tune (ask George).

Finally, my dear little mates the metal detectorists have hoiked 400,000 archaeological objects out of the ground every year for the past 40 years....

There's good news though. At least we're not Ireland. ;)

F FourWinds
FourWinds Jun 19, 2006 08:33:57
Replying to nigelswift

Well, over here the problem's an odd one. Every antiquity is legally protected once identified. Until the Minister says it isn't ...

You may have heard that there's a big problem here with the amount of info that's being collected and not published. 20,000 archaeological licenses are given each year due to development. There simply isn't the time to publish the data and finds.

Worse still - publishing doesn't earn money. Digging does! Most of the digs are undertaken by private companies who are not interested in publishing their finds, because there's no money in it.

It should be law (or at least part of the contract) that findings must be published within 6 months of any digs, especially ones funded by the gov't for roads etc.

The National Museum has run out of storage space!

M moss
moss Jun 19, 2006 08:37:07
Replying to nigelswift

"stop the needless, careless, and intentional destruction of archaeological sites and organized and intentional theft of the valuable remains of previous civilizations.''

Is perhaps the wording that should be used on our national monuments notice boards for M/Ds and people who chip/take bits of stones away; (and then sell them on EBay)
is'nt the problem with America that they are only just beginning to wake up to the fact their country has a "past"...

"intentional theft" is an interesting concept for lawyers to argue over..