Silbury Hill 180
Image by bawn79

oh I missed out that you said "Merely setting foot on Silbury damages it in a way that setting foot inside a house at Skara Brae wouldn't damage that structure"

I'm not sure there's any difference, you can say that one person climbing silbury - I climbing silbury - does not leave any noticeable damage at all. Likewise at Skara Brae. But the important thing is the cumulative damage to our irreplaceable prehistoric structures.

That's why people aren't allowed to wander through Skara Brae, right? What other reason would there be? It got nearly 70 thousand tourists this year!

"The question is, am I more special than everyone else, do I have some special right to bend the rules that apply to everyone else for the good of the site? What's more important in the long run, the welfare of the site or me satisfying my impulse?

(It sounds like I like rules, I don't particularly, but I think we're talking about rules as in societal consensus. The people looking after Silbury, Skara Brae, Stonehenge, you'd like to think they are people who have the sites' protection at heart, and they're experienced / educated people who have been hired for their expertise. So if they decide we shouldn't trample all over Silbury etc, in this case I'm willing to believe that it's quite a good decision)"
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....tumultuous applause....
(From me anyway)