Lyle Browning wrote:

>Where there are egregious outbreaks of stupidity
>such as those Linda Derry mentioned, it would seem
>to me that the SHPO review office should have
>lowered the proverbial boom on the offending
>blinkered anthropologically bent person (not an
>archaeologist in my book).

Unfortunately, the watchers too frequently aren't watching.

Or they are wearing the same anthropological blinders.

It is possible to completely ignore essential elements of a
site and still get past the reviewers, as long as your sherd
counts are in order. Our CRM system, as Linda suggests, is
based upon formal compliance, rather than creativity or
contribution to human knowledge.

In a state where I work, Industrial Archaeology simply
does not exist, as far as the SHPO is concerned. I have seen
nationally-important archaeological sites dismissed and destroyed
with only a single sentence in a report. Industrial Archaeology isn't
even mentioned in the state plan, anywhere, anyhow.
In fact, I have been told by SHPO staff that IA has
nothing to contribute.

Sometimes archaeology is stupidity, too.