Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T08:15:40.662Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

We still have to excavate – but not at any price

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2011

Abstract

We have no choice: we must excavate, first because whole continents are still barely known from an archaeological point of view, and second because thousands of archaeological sites disappear every day as a result of economic development. Rescue or preventive archaeology is thus an ethical duty. Nevertheless, there is a serious risk of a split between academic archaeology, with its wealth of thinking but poverty of funding, and commercial archaeology, where the situation is the opposite and the goal is, above all, financial profit. So the question is not just to know why one excavates, but also how.

Type
Discussion Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)