To answer your question:  "am i alone in getting annoyed when all the work
we do is reduced to
'treasure hunting' even by the people who should know better?"  No of course
not!  However, I think this harkens back to a previous thread about crossing
discipline divides (rather than just talking to ourselves.  One way to
approach this problem may be to start showing up at the conferences for
Museum types and "preach" a bit.  For example,  my pet peeve is the "dig
boxes" that are showing up in natural history museums in my area.  Kids are
encouraged, as a hand's on exercise, to dig for artifacts in a basically
unsupervised "treasure hunt."  So,... I'm considering going to my state
museum association's annual meeting and offering a workshop to explain the
concerns of archaeologists in this matter and to model some alternative
hands-on activities or,.... if they just have to have a dig box, suggest
alternative approaches.   Mostly, I just want the curators to be aware of
the concerns about dig boxes being expressed within the archaeological
community.   If they are not aware of these discussions, we as
archaeologists must bear some responsibility because we are so insular with
our concerns.

Linda Derry, Director
Old Cahawba - AHC
719 Tremont St.
Selma, AL 36701 - 5446
ph. 334/875-2529 / email: [log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of geoff
carver
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 8:43 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: treasure hunting


just outside my window there's an advertising pillar of the type quite
common
here in europe - it just stands there, waiting for someone to change the
posters
glued onto it -
        right now it's advertising an exhibition called "treasures from X"
(not
going to bother with the country, it's not important) being shown at our
local
state museum of archaeology -
        am i alone in getting annoyed when all the work we do is reduced to
"treasure hunting" even by the people who should know better? the museum
here is
tied in with the state archaeological service (excavation is a state
monopoly,
with all that that entails); which has no standing exhibits (partly because
of
want of a permanent venue), and tends otherwise to glamourise the whole
thing
into a fairly empty bunch of superlatives: the oldest this, the earliest
that...
        i was also annoyed about 2 years ago when some of my finds were
described on a poster as "treasures from a latrine" -
        is this a general archaeological problem (assumption that all the
[assumed] stupid public wants to see is/are treasures), laziness on the part
of
curators, a general unwillingness to communicate with the public...?
        i'm not going to suggest that the public really likes this kind of
stuff
because they flock to erich von daniken readings but for the most part stay
away from serious museum exhibits...
        any ideas/comments?


geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
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