1131 – Visiting an Archaeological Site
Lillian: Look at this! I’m going to take this home as a souvenir.
Bruce: You can’t do that. That might be an artifact of some kind. It belongs to this archaeological site.
Lillian: It’s just a rock. No one will miss it.
Bruce: That’s not the point. Everything here should be preserved. That’s the point of doing a careful excavation. Everything should be recorded and nothing should be lost.
Lillian: Take it easy. It’s not like I’m defacing anything. And if they’re trying to preserve this site, why are they doing this dig? Wouldn’t it be better just to leave it frozen in time?
Bruce: The point is to learn more about the peoples of ancient civilizations who lived here in prehistory.
Lillian: In my opinion, it’s disrespectful to disturb burial mounds and tombs. They were never meant to be desecrated like this.
Bruce: Some people would agree with you, but that’s the price we have to pay to add to our knowledge about human history. I really think you should leave that rock where you found it. It could be a fossil.
Lillian: Do you really think so?
Bruce: You never know. You could hold in your hand the key to understanding this entire civilization.
Lillian: Wow, if I take it, I could preserve it for posterity.
Bruce: What happened to leaving things undisturbed?
Lillian: That’s before I realized I could go down in history for my own discovery!