Anita's comment brings to mind a story that a friend related some years ago: Bob has always been something of a "picker", growing up in the midwest and hunting "arrowheads" since he was a child. He has little formal schooling, but is passionately interested in the early European settlement of the region. Consequently, he spends a good deal of time researching primary sources, walking fields looking for sites, and yes, occasionally picking up surface finds. One summer he was camping and canoeing with his family near the site of an early French village, and noticed a group of folks with shovels and rakes and "implements of destruction" [to quote Arlo Guthrie] in a field. They were digging. Now, Bob had walked those fields many times, and asked the young archaeologist what they were looking for. "We're looking for evidence of past human activity", she replied down her nose. "Any particular humans?" Bob politely inquired. "There were French people living here a long time ago," she answered. Bob told her that he had walked over much of the area along the banks of the river, and wondered why they were digging in this particular spot. Still acting aloof, the archaeologist replied that the dark colored soil meant that people had lived on this spot. He looked closely at the ground. "You mean this dark stuff?", bending down to pick up a piece of burned feed sack, "this is where the farmer burns trash in the fall." With an irritated look on her face, the "professional" looked up and informed Bob (a farmer himself) that it took years of training to understand the complex stories that the soil holds, and excused herself. Bob called after her that he had found bits of glass, pipe stems and nails in the woods along the river, and that in a few places you could still see the mounds of stone from collapsed chimneys. She walked back quickly and snapped, "Pot-hunting is illegal on state land and you could be arrested!...Archaeology is a delicate science, and when you pick up things that you haven't been trained to interpret, you destroy the archaeological record. Now please let us get on with our work and don't pick up artifacts." The crew spent the summer (financed largely by state funds, although Bob could never get anyone in the state capital to reveal how much) surveying one of the few fields in the area that had no significant cultural remains. Bob has tried to get access to archaeological collections held "in trust" by public agencies...only to find the material misplaced, uncataloged, or available only by appointment (for which you much pay an access fee). Bob has waited for the publication of research conducted at public expense...only to find that the "professional" has moved on to new projects. Bob is understandably somewhat contemptuous of archaeologists. We could learn a great deal from people like Bob. Can Graduate schools do a better job of preparing students for dealing with people who haven't been cloistered away for years? --