Messages from the past are important to contemporary society, but scientists who work with those messages seem unable to make their work appear relevant to the public, archaeologist Jim Judge said Friday.
Judge closed a three-day symposium celebrating 100 years of research at Mesa Verde National Park. He called for some second thoughts about why archaeologists work and how they are allowed to work.
Kind of a confusing article. Most of the quotes seem to be supportive of Judge, though maybe a bit less stridently expressed. As regular readers know, I tend on the conserve-as-much-as-possible side of that argument, but apart from aboriginal concerns, there doesn't seem to be much standing in the way of research into materials on public lands. Still, excavation ought to be a last resort for gathering info, I think.