You know, the Net is rife with the 'privy digger' web
sites. Many of them have extensive how-to sections,
which range considerably in terms of safety, ethics,
and destructiveness. The most objectionable thing to
me is that so many adopt the term 'urban
archaeologists', which makes our lives as
archaeologists more difficult. While it's technically
legal and while our privydigger Eddie may have a nice
website, and while he may be enthusiastic about
history and a nice guy to boot, this does not mean we
should legitimize it. Privy diggers like this take out
all material at the same time, pick and choose what
they want, and toss the rest. Information on faunal
and floral remains, actual MNIs, stratigraphy, etc,
gone. Forever.

I think a hundred years from now, historical
archaeologists will look back at our attitudes about
this much like we look back at amateur archaeologists
from a hundred years ago who excavated burial mounds
with dynamite: why didn't professional archaeologists
try to do more to protect sites? Why didn't they try
to reach the public more to explain the difference
between archaeology and treasure hunting? Why didn't
they realize that these resources will be gone with no
record for the future?

So, anyone out there interested in putting together an
urban archaeology web site aimed at people googling
'privy digging' and 'bottle hunting'? Illustrate in it
some of the best of urban projects from all over the
country, describe the importance of context and
sampling, go into interpretation, and compare what we
do to what amateur privy diggers do? Anyone already
have a website for which they want to devote room to
this?

D. Ryan Gray
New Orleans

--- [log in to unmask] wrote:

> Hey all you mid-westerners..
>
> check out www.privydigger.com
>
> anyone know this guy?
>




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