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seereeves's review against another edition
3.0
I folded over a lot of corners in this book because there was a story or a quote that I found particularly thought provoking. However, the book quickly becomes very repetitive. He makes his point very early on about how he feels about artifacts, his conflicting thoughts, his ambivalences, etc. Then he continues to belabor that point in between the little vignettes that I think are supposed to help illustrate his thoughts. Even the vignettes start to get repetitive after a while. Also, there is one detail included in the book that makes me question all the other details. He is talking in broad strokes of Mormon families picnicking in areas filled with potshards (or has he says potsherds) and arrowheads. He describes picnic blankets and shovels and then he throws in a thermos of coffee. They're Mormons. No coffee. Unless he is trying to highlight his view of their pot hunting as "illicit" by indicating they are doing other illicit things, he just screwed up and had a hypothetical Mormon family drinking coffee. So if he can't get that detail right, can I trust all the other details in the book?
jrpal's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting look at the complicated ethics of archeology, with a particular focus on the American Southwest.
sohnesorge's review against another edition
Childs explores the motivation and ethics behind archaeology and antiquity collecting, professional and amateur, and probably ends up widening a Pandora's box of fascinating issues by three or four inches. He is as consitent and devoted to his notion of the right thing to do with archaeological relics as it is possible to be, and his reverence of human artifacts is charming and touching. That there are no right answers is apparent, and the start of hours of pleasant contemplation of the curious human desire (obsession) to preserve the past. A very engaging writer. One of my favourites so far this year.
librarianonparade's review
3.0
This book is essentially one long personal rumination on the ethics of archaeology, of artefact preservation and collection, the role of museum curators, archaeologists, dealers and collectors in both preserving and destroying the archaeological record, depending on which side of the ethical fence you fall on. It's an interesting moral dilemma, one I'm not sure I've fully come to a conclusion on, even at the end of this book.
Childs argues that in removing artefacts from their locations we are losing something, that despite the preservation of the object itself, we lose the context, the geographical link between object and land, that in making the decision to remove it, to study it and save it for posterity, we are stamping our own brand of ownership on it, indulging in the human need to collect. He effectively argues that we should leave things where we find them, that not everything needs to be studied and logged and stored.
It's not an argument I'm entirely sure I agree with. If taken to its logical conclusion, we would know nothing of our history, and progress would either be paralysed by the necessity of preserving relics intact so as not to disturb them at all or the artefacts would be utterly destroyed with no attempt to understand them or their history. To a certain extent it's a very sentimental view of history, that somehow simply being old lends these objects a certain sacredness, an inviolability. Their original viewers would almost certainly not have held such a view, although they also probably wouldn't have understood our interest to begin with.
On the flip side, this urge to collect has led to a massive black market trade in illicit artefacts and valuable historical sites being utterly destroyed by looters and diggers intent only on finding things of value to sell. Childs definitely feels that in such a circumstance, archaeological digs are the lesser of two evils and that if anyone must remove relics and artefacts he would rather it was archaeologists with the intent to study and understand and preserve, than looters intend only on a quick buck and collectors motivated by the urge to possess. The author's ambivalent position comes across very strongly in this book, and one feels that his heart is urging him to leave things alone, to see, appreciate and move on, whilst his head understands the need to study and preserve.
Personally, I think the advancement of human knowledge is more important than leaving items as they are. Yes, it might be wonderful to think of historical sites preserved in situ, as they were intended to be seen, that we 'look but don't touch', that we let nature take its course. But I feel that's a fanciful view of the world that has no grounding in reality. It seems humans either value these items too much and covet them or we value them not at all and destroy them. Either way, leaving them alone seems to me simply a recipe for the worst of both worlds - no advancement of knowledge and understanding and no preservation either.
Childs argues that in removing artefacts from their locations we are losing something, that despite the preservation of the object itself, we lose the context, the geographical link between object and land, that in making the decision to remove it, to study it and save it for posterity, we are stamping our own brand of ownership on it, indulging in the human need to collect. He effectively argues that we should leave things where we find them, that not everything needs to be studied and logged and stored.
It's not an argument I'm entirely sure I agree with. If taken to its logical conclusion, we would know nothing of our history, and progress would either be paralysed by the necessity of preserving relics intact so as not to disturb them at all or the artefacts would be utterly destroyed with no attempt to understand them or their history. To a certain extent it's a very sentimental view of history, that somehow simply being old lends these objects a certain sacredness, an inviolability. Their original viewers would almost certainly not have held such a view, although they also probably wouldn't have understood our interest to begin with.
On the flip side, this urge to collect has led to a massive black market trade in illicit artefacts and valuable historical sites being utterly destroyed by looters and diggers intent only on finding things of value to sell. Childs definitely feels that in such a circumstance, archaeological digs are the lesser of two evils and that if anyone must remove relics and artefacts he would rather it was archaeologists with the intent to study and understand and preserve, than looters intend only on a quick buck and collectors motivated by the urge to possess. The author's ambivalent position comes across very strongly in this book, and one feels that his heart is urging him to leave things alone, to see, appreciate and move on, whilst his head understands the need to study and preserve.
Personally, I think the advancement of human knowledge is more important than leaving items as they are. Yes, it might be wonderful to think of historical sites preserved in situ, as they were intended to be seen, that we 'look but don't touch', that we let nature take its course. But I feel that's a fanciful view of the world that has no grounding in reality. It seems humans either value these items too much and covet them or we value them not at all and destroy them. Either way, leaving them alone seems to me simply a recipe for the worst of both worlds - no advancement of knowledge and understanding and no preservation either.
ashley073's review
3.0
I initially checked this book out to develop a deeper understanding of the process of archaeological plunder. I was writing an art history paper that was supposed to mostly revolve around the Parthenon and the "Elgin" Marbles, but I wanted to look at the broader issues at play and happened to stumble on this book while at the library.
It definitely became a bit repetitive, but it was a pretty enjoyable/easy read. It read a lot like a Mary Roach book, in my opinion- giving you a bit of a fly-on-the-wall experience.
Decent book. Not something I would have gravitated towards had it not been for my paper, but it was enjoyable enough even though I never actually used anything from the book in my paper.
It definitely became a bit repetitive, but it was a pretty enjoyable/easy read. It read a lot like a Mary Roach book, in my opinion- giving you a bit of a fly-on-the-wall experience.
Decent book. Not something I would have gravitated towards had it not been for my paper, but it was enjoyable enough even though I never actually used anything from the book in my paper.
trogdor19's review
4.0
I was eager to snatch up Child’s latest book, because he’s spent even more time wandering around to backcountry ruins than I have, and I was ecstatic to see that this book dealt with the questions that have always circled in my head when I visited these lonely sites.
It seems to me that pothunters and archaeologists are just two spots on a long spectrum the inevitably destroys the evidence of history. Childs deals with this issue beautifully, showing the pros and cons of both ways. He talks about meticulously detailed provenances (though we all know how paperwork can get lost and software can crash), about good pothunters and bad, about the gut-wrenching idea of sacred artifacts soaked in poisons to preserve them and then repatriated to their home Indian tribes to be dealt with, about museum storerooms stuffed full with artifacts that the public will never get to see, that have been taken from their places in fields or wilderness or under the ground that anyone with a pair of hiking boots and half a day could have visited.
With his gift for writing, you can see the allure of untouched history, unstudied and undisturbed, the excitement of preserved and well-displayed artistry in gardens and museums, and the casual humanity of history as a continuum, a seven-hundred year old jar re-painted and used as a vase on the kitchen table. The last should appear as blasphemy, but in some ways, it also feels the most right.
On the desert study plots where I work, a can two days old is trash and a can sixty years old is an arch site and they don’t look a whole lot different. And while I despise the careless grave robbing of pothunters, I remember fondly visiting Rome and walking up marble stairs worn uneven by feet, through streets lined with buildings of every age. The windows in their museums were open to the air, not hermetically sealed. I stood in front of a six hundred year old church that had been torn down to reveal the twelve hundred year old building beneath, both outdating any European structures in my own country. They stood next to a shop that sold printer paper and ink cartridges.
When in Rome, I remember thinking that the blending of past and present was the most natural, the least contrived and the most beautiful way to handle antiquities. But there are too many of us now, so that unprotected history gets broken and thrown on trash heaps and taken far from where it was made. I don’t want to see pre-Columbian vessels treated the same as McDonald’s cups, but like Childs, I don’t see any perfect places to draw hard and fast lines that find some behavior acceptable and some illegal.
In the book, Childs describes a tree root that had grown into an archeology site and had twined its fingers around a jar. It was a very vivid image and I thought: there. That is beautiful, that is what I want for the past. The world goes on, the present touches the past and they both are already shaping the future. But still, when they dug it up, the root had crushed the jar to pieces.
In this book, Childs peeks respectfully in on every argument, visits all the deserts and board rooms and kitchens where decisions about the past are made. He doesn’t place his own opinion in bold type, but sketches it in the dagger point of an arrowhead, untaken, and whispers that to study the past is to change the past. And then it isn’t the past at all.
But we love it just the same.
It seems to me that pothunters and archaeologists are just two spots on a long spectrum the inevitably destroys the evidence of history. Childs deals with this issue beautifully, showing the pros and cons of both ways. He talks about meticulously detailed provenances (though we all know how paperwork can get lost and software can crash), about good pothunters and bad, about the gut-wrenching idea of sacred artifacts soaked in poisons to preserve them and then repatriated to their home Indian tribes to be dealt with, about museum storerooms stuffed full with artifacts that the public will never get to see, that have been taken from their places in fields or wilderness or under the ground that anyone with a pair of hiking boots and half a day could have visited.
With his gift for writing, you can see the allure of untouched history, unstudied and undisturbed, the excitement of preserved and well-displayed artistry in gardens and museums, and the casual humanity of history as a continuum, a seven-hundred year old jar re-painted and used as a vase on the kitchen table. The last should appear as blasphemy, but in some ways, it also feels the most right.
On the desert study plots where I work, a can two days old is trash and a can sixty years old is an arch site and they don’t look a whole lot different. And while I despise the careless grave robbing of pothunters, I remember fondly visiting Rome and walking up marble stairs worn uneven by feet, through streets lined with buildings of every age. The windows in their museums were open to the air, not hermetically sealed. I stood in front of a six hundred year old church that had been torn down to reveal the twelve hundred year old building beneath, both outdating any European structures in my own country. They stood next to a shop that sold printer paper and ink cartridges.
When in Rome, I remember thinking that the blending of past and present was the most natural, the least contrived and the most beautiful way to handle antiquities. But there are too many of us now, so that unprotected history gets broken and thrown on trash heaps and taken far from where it was made. I don’t want to see pre-Columbian vessels treated the same as McDonald’s cups, but like Childs, I don’t see any perfect places to draw hard and fast lines that find some behavior acceptable and some illegal.
In the book, Childs describes a tree root that had grown into an archeology site and had twined its fingers around a jar. It was a very vivid image and I thought: there. That is beautiful, that is what I want for the past. The world goes on, the present touches the past and they both are already shaping the future. But still, when they dug it up, the root had crushed the jar to pieces.
In this book, Childs peeks respectfully in on every argument, visits all the deserts and board rooms and kitchens where decisions about the past are made. He doesn’t place his own opinion in bold type, but sketches it in the dagger point of an arrowhead, untaken, and whispers that to study the past is to change the past. And then it isn’t the past at all.
But we love it just the same.