Seeing the variety of threads on battlefield digs makes me wonder about the ethics of such projects. While it is fascinating to see what is recovered, I wonder what history might be lost from groups of relics being broken up for individual collections and removed from their original context. I can certainly appreciate the urge to dig (make money, acquire that special missing piece in one's collection) but I wonder if digging might be robbing future historians of untouched sites that might offer perspective on the history of the Second World War. In the U.S. Midwest, digging in Indian mounds was a popular weekend outing at the turn of the century. Sadly, when there was a better understanding of the importance of the mounds and the items buried there, they were long gone.
I'd be curious to get opinions from the community on this topic. I've been working on my Master's to become an archivist and I've been thinking about the code of ethics for that field and for ethical issues facing historians as well.
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