Annoyingly, someone on Britarch has said -

Is it vandalism or are they contributing to the future archaeological record in the same way that Roman or Mediaeval additions to older rock art did?

and

What has the amount of evidence we leave behind got to do with it? Plenty of civilisations left lots of material remains, and plenty of societies have interfered with and corrupted the evidence left by earlier ones.

Its called life - that thing that people do before they die.

There is a heritage worship prevalent today, in intellectual circles, which says that what previous societies have done is somehow sacred.

We bemoan the "destruction" of sites, but that destruction is evidence which will fascinate future archaeologists. Why do we somehow seem to feel that history has stopped, and we are now custodians of some dead thing. Our ancestors simply got on with life, shouldn't we do the same?

Or are we too precious about culture?

My interest in archaeology stems from wanting to understand past societies, by examining the remains they left us - whatever they are. Is it not fascinating to read Roman graffiti, to see the damage wreaked by Vikings?

Why is that sort of stuff when it happened in the past is considered revealing and significant, but when it happens now it's vandalism?

Prattish navel-gazing I reckon. No wonder stuff happens, both abroad and here, when there is a minority of professionals that talk like that.