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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;SeptimusT, post: 3874439, member: 91240&quot;]While I agree that coins (and artifacts in general) often end up neglected and forgotten in museum basements, I have to defend its destructive nature. While preservation and archaeology are not mutually exclusive, they are not the same. The reality is that it is simply impossible to preserve everything, and so archaeology seeks to preserve what it can - the information, if not the substance. </p><p><br /></p><p>It is true that that information is not always published and presented as well as it should be (although this is sometimes due to funding issues), those sites which are destroyed in the process of excavation would have likely been destroyed anyway, just without any information being salvaged. And of course, in order to understand the full story of a site, it is necessary to excavate it fully to understand what came before the structures. </p><p><br /></p><p>Destructive analysis is inherent to archaeology and is the only means we have for recovering <i>anything</i> from those sites. The fact that it is destructive is why the recovered data has to be recorded so carefully and minutely, so that the excavation can be reconstructed as accurately as possible. That said, I am an advocate for and involved in public archaeology, and have been lucky enough to see professionals, amateurs, and what many would consider &#039;treasure hunters&#039; all working together quite fruitfully.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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