Archaeology park
Mike DeMasi highlights an idea for Liberty Park/parking lot district/former convention center site in downtown Albany: "What if instead of redeveloping the entire site with apartments, retail stores, offices and parking garages, a portion was an active archaeological excavation open to the public? You - and your children - could climb down into the holes and, guided by experts, actually dig through history. The artifacts - clam shells, ceramic fragments, pieces of brick - would be interpreted by tour guides and catalogued for safe-keeping." [Biz Review]
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Archaeology is not a tourist attraction. Archaeology is not done to draw people downtown. Archaeology is not done just because.
Archaeology, Mr. DeMasi is a science. Archaeologist use the scientific method to determine where and if they will conduct a dig. This is because, Mr. DeMasi, archaeology is destructive. Once you break ground, once you pit a spade into the dirt you are disturbing the stratigraphy of the site. Once you disturb a site that can never be undone.
If you want children and the public to be educated about history and archaeology, get in touch with the state museum. They have open houses at their digs (which are done for science) where you can learn about how archaeology works.
Please please please don't let this happen. This is bad science. This is bad archaeology.
... said Winnie_the_pew on Apr 30, 2018 at 1:30 PM | link
Check this out if you want to learn how archaeology works
http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/programs/archaeology-van-schaick-mansion
... said Winnie_the_pew on Apr 30, 2018 at 2:48 PM | link
In an earlier career, I spent 21 years as a professional archaeologist. During those years I did participate in many public archaeological excavations, most notably as chief archaeologist for a site in Colonial Williamsburg that was "on the tour." We spent hundreds of hours explaining what we were doing to visitors hanging on the fences overlooking our "holes" (odd choice of words from original post, our 'holes' were very precisely defined "squares" where the side-walls were as important as the material we removed). I have participated in work on sites where amateurs were welcome to participate, though most amateur archaeologists have an appreciation for the science and understand it is not simply "digging stuff up." One thing I'd never entertain as an archaeologist, however, is having uncontrolled chaos of many people trying to work in the same area.
The idea of a public archaeological dig could be, as suggested in the Biz Journal article, an interesting attraction. Look at how this has been done over the years at many famous sites. Making the digs public is great, providing interpretation of the archaeological science can be great, and , yes, it may even bring some folks downtown for other activities. But as Winnie has said, the idea of doing it with people wandering the actual "dig" could be disastrous.
... said BobF on May 1, 2018 at 2:39 PM | link