From Bangor: 'Archäologische Denkmalpflege Neu Denken'

Raimund Karl (Professor of Archaeology and Historic Preservation at Bangor University),  has started a new blog Archäologische Denkmalpflege (http://archdenk.blogspot.co.uk/) where he posts his thoughts on heritage protection. Most of the posts so far are in German, though some of his controversial ideas are there in insular-speak to gladden the hearts of English-speaking artefact collectors too. He says:

 ich sehe dies hier als experimentelle Blogschrift, ein Mittelding zwischen Blog und Zeitschrift.

and seems to welcome guest posts. There is your opportunity, messers Thugwit, Howland, Taylor, Winter, Stout and all the rest of you 'members of the public so interested in the past that you want to collect it all away' that Dr Karl so assiduously supports - your own pro-collecting archaeological magazine.  Mind you, the guest:

  ist herzlich eingeladen, seine Texte an mich zu schicken und um ihre Aufnahme auf diesen Wissenschaftsblog zu ersuchen. Sofern sie den gewöhnlichen Regeln des zivilisierten Umgangs miteinander genügen und auch so verfasst sind, dass sie als - und sei es nur mehr oder minder - wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit Fragen von Denkmalschutz und Denkmalpflege zu betrachten sind....

I suppose that depends on what one considers to be protection and preservation of the historical resource and archaeological record. Whether or not some of the information (for it can never be more) gets into the hands of the denkmalpflege-folk, it seems pretty obvious that Collection-Driven Exploitation of the archaeological record can never be any form of protection or preservation. That is the basic issue on which Raimund Karl and myself will never agree. But nevertheless, it certainly will be worth looking at the ideas he will be presenting in this new blog and debating them, both within the discipline and outside it (with lawmakers and in the public domain through social media).