Ok guys, here are my five cents, or pennies or Euro cents
I have been digging since the last 70's and my dad, who retired from the RAF was an honorary archaeologist for the Roman-Germanic Museum, Xanten, in Germany. I believe digging in itself is not the problem. The problems arise when people find explosives and do not report them, but rather place them on hiking trails. Or when they dig huge, deep holes and not fill them back in. Another is the looting of human remains. I recover MIAs out of my own pocket and do it to help families find closure, but I have known cases where a pilot was tossed back in the hole just because the vultures were digging without permission and wanted to come back a few weeks later to finish of the dig. I also know of a case where two American MIAs were found only a few months back and looted. Only after a while did one of the guys grow a conscious and report the find. The only thing they returned with the remains were the dog tags and I had to use all my persuasive powers for them to do that!
On the flip side, states like Schleswig Holstein have gone overboard with their intentions of protecting these sites. They claim anything in water or on land and older then 50 years belongs to their archaeological society. As an example, they banned removal of remains from a German sub sunk of the coast. When I asked them when they will salvage the sub, I was basically told I was daft as the state did not have the money or the desire to recover a rusty old sub. So my question then was, why not let people salvage parts from it. The answer was quite simple...if we cannot have it, then they cannot either. Another instance was a WW2 British bomber found by a research ship looking to lay fibreoptic cables. When I was approached by members of the British government to dive the site and establish an ID (human remains were recorded at the crash-site), I was told by the SH state that no one could dive there and the wreck was theirs. I believe a lot of countries/states do not even know who legally owns these wrecks/remains. Anyways, best stop now before my keyboard catches fire! Danny
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