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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Severus Alexander, post: 7994463, member: 84744&quot;]I greatly appreciate the many points above about how complex the history of any artifact is, making it virtually impossible to determine who &quot;really&quot; ought to have any particular ancient artifact.&nbsp; Two additional complexities: 1) the massive migration of peoples that has occurred over the last 2-3 thousand years, and 2)...</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>We all have a ridiculously massive number of ancestors.&nbsp; Assuming an average 25y/generation, 1000 years gets us to <i>1 trillion ancestors</i> (not actually possible of course, there&#039;s lots of duplication within each person&#039;s family tree).&nbsp; Assuming a very generous average 30y/generation, that still gets us 10 billion ancestors each within the last millenium.&nbsp; In other words, it would be astonishing if anyone today with even a little bit of European ancestry wasn&#039;t descended from Charlemagne.</p><p><br /></p><p>Coupled with all the migration mentioned earlier, each one of us is related to tons of ancient people who lived anywhere in the world you can name.</p><p><br /></p><p>The natural move is to rely, not on ancestry, but on cultural descent.&nbsp; But if anything, the history of culture is even more complex and interconnected than ancestry is.</p><p><br /></p><p>That leaves geography.&nbsp; Why should geography matter so much when we are all connected in multiple ways to every ancient location on Earth?</p><p><br /></p><p>Recent looting, e.g. the Elgin Marbles, may well be different.&nbsp; I think a legitimate case can be made based on the <i>very recent</i> value to Greeks that these have had.&nbsp; This doesn&#039;t apply to anything forgotten though, e.g. something just now recovered from the ground.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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