Well-said, Melissa. As long as professionals are compelled to provide comments and recommendations for non-archaeologists on these issues, I agree with the importance of thoughtful recommendations and comments that specifically address or respond to some of the most common and destructive misconceptions or rationalizations that are broadcast and rebroadcast by the relic hunter community (and implied by these reality TV shows). In addition to the suggestions you've already provided in that regard, one biggee is their "talking point" about how archaeologists aren't digging up all the sites anyway and if relic hunters don't "rescue it, it's just going to rot in the ground." It can't hurt and may just help to share links to online information or videos about proper conservation techniques for metal or other artifact types that become unstable as soon as they are removed from the ground.

JBJ

-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Melissa Diamanti
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 9:38 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: American Digger

The problem with this kind of show is that we can see the flaws, but the general audience cannot.  It takes the old saying of "digging for Dollars" and shifts it from refering to pay to refering to loot, and that ends up being the take-away message - that you can get rich by looting.
 
As long as we are on the subject of protesting such shows, I'll pass along some thoughts.
When I read comments being posted about the show on Spike TV, I was happy that they were all negative (in the beginning).  But the problem is that most of them were in the vein of "leave the digging to the experts."  This may be true, but it won't get people to listen to you.  They've heard that before and still think they can do it just as well as you can. Instead, or in addition, I recommend making arguements about learning from the objects we dig up.  Or about respecting the people whose lives are represented by these objects.  Or about the idea that it is everyone's shared history, not just one person's to hoard or sell.  Refering to the need to preserve "context" does not have any meaning outside the archaeological community either.  To demonstrate it's importance to the public, you have to give a lenghty lecture, with very specific and concrete examples of how the meaning of one object was only gained from its association with other objects.
Or you can take the moral high ground, as I did in protest to National Geographic about the Diggers show, and suggest that the concept does not fit in with their mission to educate the public.
back to the fray....
Meli

Melissa Diamanti, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Archaeological & Historical Consultants, Inc.
PO Box 482, 101 N. Pennsylvania Avenue, Centre Hall PA 16828
814.364.2135
[log in to unmask]


>________________________________
> From: Rich Green <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Sent: Wednesday, March 7, 2012 9:40 PM
>Subject: American Digger
>  
>All the hoopla over the American Digger show was for nothing. The show is a total farce with a script obviously written by morons and acted out by imbeciles. The artifacts were obviously salted and the star of the show's ludicrous claims of value in the thousands was even more ridiculous. This wasn't even good comedy. 
>
>
>
>Rich Green
>Historic Archaeological Research
>4338 Hadley Court
>West Lafayette, IN 47906
>Office:  (765) 464-8735
>Mobile: (765) 427-4082
>www.har-indy.com
>
>
>