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As someone who grew up on a farm in Ireland there is an embarrassment of archaeological sites. The general philosophy is they are safer in the ground and we’ll

As someone who grew up on a farm in Ireland there is an embarrassment of archaeological sites. The general philosophy is they are safer in the ground and we’ll excavate them when we get round to it. That said there is a real danger of sites being destroyed before they are properly investigated and I think more should be done to chronicle them properly otherwise you are relying on people to work against their self interest when developing sites (an archaeological dig can seriously impact the owner or developer of a site)

leeoniya 4y ago
> The general philosophy is they are safer in the ground and we’ll excavate them when we get round to it. it seems so! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32402373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32402373
Beltalowda 4y ago
I think one of the issues is that there's just so much of it. In many part of Europe you can find archaeology pretty much anywhere outside of cities and other areas that have been developed in modern times. The article mentions "250,000 monuments in the Republic". I went hiking around Co. Cork a few years back and you can find neolithic monuments all over the place if you pay a bit of attention.
- AlotOfReading 4y ago
  This is surprisingly true of much of the world, though a little more evident in Europe than most places. One of the (few) fun things about fieldwalking as an archaeologist is how dense archaeological sites are. I've done very few surveys where there wasn't something every few dozen meters. You're usually within sight of a habitation site or 3 as well. We don't see it because our built environment tends to hide it and we're not usually looking closely, but it's there.
  - mushbino 4y ago
    You can hardly throw a rock without hitting an archeological site in Meso, central, or South America.
    - tigerlily 4y ago
      Sometimes the rock is the archeological site.
- ginko 4y ago
  >In many part of Europe you can find archaeology pretty much anywhere outside of cities and other areas that have been developed in modern times. I can assure you that you can find plenty archeology within cities as well. Probably even more than on the countryside. It's just that it's all covered by several layers of development.
- bburrito 4y ago
  > In many part of Europe you can find archaeology In the US the layer of soil where Clovis man was found has been used to determine a lower limit of where we can expect to find artifacts. But in many construction discussion groups you can find plenty of talk about stuff that has been found far deeper than the Clovis layers. Human civilization is far far older than we are led to believe.
  - kwere 4y ago
    for context, a pre Clovis society wuold mean that human came before the 13k yrs ago mark, the problem is ths the bering strait and a giant ice sheet in NA are believed to have been traversable 14k yrs ago and 40-50k yrs ago. if true, it would meand that human came to NA 40k yrs ago or that there were other ways to come to the new world. A bold theory is that polinesians/Austronesian "could" have developed some sea faring tecnique before tha proven date of 1100s AC.
weq 4y ago
the travesty is actually that these religious cults are being remembered instead of the natives who they committed genocide against.
- hef19898 4y ago
  Wrong part of the world and wrong period.
  - filoeleven 4y ago
    A monastery built atop Neolithic structures clearly points to the mostly-forgotten invasion of the pixies’ domain by human settlers. They didn’t always live in the barrows and the standing stones, you know. Those are simply their last retreat into holdfasts that humans do not know how to enter. As with most territory wars, it was far from bloodless. I agree that calling it a genocide is a stretch. But the pixies remember. That’s why they sometimes lead unwary travelers astray. The humans who live there now, some of them anyway, are aware of the pixies’ presence if not the full history, and try to keep relations friendly by offering gifts. An uneasy truce has been maintained this way for millennia. Personally, I think they’re biding their time until the humans go virtual, uploading our minds into our own rune-carved megaliths; running on silicon and freeing up space. At that point the situation will be poetically reversed: the pixies will re-inhabit their ancient lands, this time without any bloodshed or battles. We will retreat of our own free will. There are, however, whispers of rumors that the clever, headlong rush towards the singularity is not driven by human minds alone…
feintruled 4y ago
Reminds me of an anecdote from my wife's uncle, who has a such a site on his land (also somewhere in Ireland, I'll not get too specific!), a burial site covered with a large stone. He told some researchers in the university about it and they had a field trip to study it. The professor was very excited about it as the orientation of the stone confirmed some theory of his, to which my wife's uncle whispered to one of the students that out of curiosity he had actually lifted and replaced the stone with a JCB not necessarily in the same place at all. The student's advice was 'don't tell him, it would only disappoint him.'

leeoniya 4y ago

> The general philosophy is they are safer in the ground and we’ll excavate them when we get round to it. it seems so! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32402373 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32402373

Beltalowda 4y ago

I think one of the issues is that there's just so much of it. In many part of Europe you can find archaeology pretty much anywhere outside of cities and other areas that have been developed in modern times. The article mentions "250,000 monuments in the Republic". I went hiking around Co. Cork a few years back and you can find neolithic monuments all over the place if you pay a bit of attention.

AlotOfReading 4y ago
This is surprisingly true of much of the world, though a little more evident in Europe than most places. One of the (few) fun things about fieldwalking as an archaeologist is how dense archaeological sites are. I've done very few surveys where there wasn't something every few dozen meters. You're usually within sight of a habitation site or 3 as well. We don't see it because our built environment tends to hide it and we're not usually looking closely, but it's there.
- mushbino 4y ago
  You can hardly throw a rock without hitting an archeological site in Meso, central, or South America.
  - tigerlily 4y ago
    Sometimes the rock is the archeological site.
ginko 4y ago
>In many part of Europe you can find archaeology pretty much anywhere outside of cities and other areas that have been developed in modern times. I can assure you that you can find plenty archeology within cities as well. Probably even more than on the countryside. It's just that it's all covered by several layers of development.
bburrito 4y ago
> In many part of Europe you can find archaeology In the US the layer of soil where Clovis man was found has been used to determine a lower limit of where we can expect to find artifacts. But in many construction discussion groups you can find plenty of talk about stuff that has been found far deeper than the Clovis layers. Human civilization is far far older than we are led to believe.
- kwere 4y ago
  for context, a pre Clovis society wuold mean that human came before the 13k yrs ago mark, the problem is ths the bering strait and a giant ice sheet in NA are believed to have been traversable 14k yrs ago and 40-50k yrs ago. if true, it would meand that human came to NA 40k yrs ago or that there were other ways to come to the new world. A bold theory is that polinesians/Austronesian "could" have developed some sea faring tecnique before tha proven date of 1100s AC.

weq 4y ago

the travesty is actually that these religious cults are being remembered instead of the natives who they committed genocide against.

hef19898 4y ago
Wrong part of the world and wrong period.
- filoeleven 4y ago
  A monastery built atop Neolithic structures clearly points to the mostly-forgotten invasion of the pixies’ domain by human settlers. They didn’t always live in the barrows and the standing stones, you know. Those are simply their last retreat into holdfasts that humans do not know how to enter. As with most territory wars, it was far from bloodless. I agree that calling it a genocide is a stretch. But the pixies remember. That’s why they sometimes lead unwary travelers astray. The humans who live there now, some of them anyway, are aware of the pixies’ presence if not the full history, and try to keep relations friendly by offering gifts. An uneasy truce has been maintained this way for millennia. Personally, I think they’re biding their time until the humans go virtual, uploading our minds into our own rune-carved megaliths; running on silicon and freeing up space. At that point the situation will be poetically reversed: the pixies will re-inhabit their ancient lands, this time without any bloodshed or battles. We will retreat of our own free will. There are, however, whispers of rumors that the clever, headlong rush towards the singularity is not driven by human minds alone…

feintruled 4y ago

Reminds me of an anecdote from my wife's uncle, who has a such a site on his land (also somewhere in Ireland, I'll not get too specific!), a burial site covered with a large stone. He told some researchers in the university about it and they had a field trip to study it. The professor was very excited about it as the orientation of the stone confirmed some theory of his, to which my wife's uncle whispered to one of the students that out of curiosity he had actually lifted and replaced the stone with a JCB not necessarily in the same place at all. The student's advice was 'don't tell him, it would only disappoint him.'