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Digging And Destruction: Artifact Collecting As Meaningful Social Practice, Siobhan M. Hart, Elizabeth S. Chilton
Digging And Destruction: Artifact Collecting As Meaningful Social Practice, Siobhan M. Hart, Elizabeth S. Chilton
Anthropology Department Faculty Publication Series
Collected sites are commonly seen as places requiring expert intervention to ‘save the past’ from destruction by artifact collectors and looters. Despite engaging directly with the physical effects of collecting and vandalism, little attention is given to the meanings of these actions and the contributions they make to the stories told about sites or the past more broadly. Professional archaeologists often position their engagement with site destruction as heritage ‘salvage’ and regard collecting as lacking any value in contemporary society. Repositioning collecting as meaningful social practice and heritage action raises the question: in failing to understand legal or illegal collecting …