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I don’t know why you’re getting such combative and inaccurate answers, but this is an excellent question! It’s called backfilling, and it’s an extremely common practice at archaeological digs all over the world for a number of reasons.
You can’t beat the natural processes of the earth for preserving much of what is found. It must have done a good-enough job up to the point of excavation, otherwise we wouldn’t have found whatever it is we found. So it is usually more efficient, cost-effective, and functional to backfill an area that you know you’ll need to come back to later.
Excavation is inherently destructive, you can’t “repeat” the process like you can with hard science experiments, so archaeologists are encouraged and often required to preserve (meaning not dig) areas of a site for future research when we know our technologies will be improved. And if you can’t dig a whole feature properly in one season, backfilling it to preserve your progress until the next dig season is incredibly common practice.
The natural processes of sedimentation do a much better job at preserving something that has already been exposed to the elements than most of our modern techniques. So if there is an important find, it’s often easier to backfill it with clean sediment to ensure it’s still well-preserved when the researchers are ready to properly study it. Often a layer of geo-frabric is laid down under the backfilled material to mark where the area of interest starts, and so that you know you can dig quickly without worrying until you reach the fabric.
It’s harder for looters to know where to look for “treasure” when a site has been backfilled between seasons. It’s often one of the only security measures in place at sites that are under excavation year after year.
There are many other reasons for why backfilling is a pretty standard procedure at archaeological sites. I don’t know specifically if backfilling is common at Pompeii, but I’d imagine they must do it every so often. Pompeii is one of the most famous tourist sites in the world though, so it’s probably not the most representative example.
Regardless, your instinct is right, backfilling is incredibly common, and often the best way to preserve a site for the future. Don’t let the haters get you down!
The reason people are being combative and spewing misinformation while calling me an idiot is that I’m nonbinary. Remember when a woman would put forward a scientific opinion, and every man in the room would contradict her even if she’s right, because women aren’t supposed to do science? It’s the same for nonbinary people. My gender means people can’t take me seriously in a scientific discussion, no matter what right or wrong are. I have to be called an idiot for having an opinion in the first place. What I’m “supposed” to do is say “Thank you for educating me, you smart boys” so they can feel superior. If I pushback, then it’s okay to call me high or stupid for daring to disagree with a man.
You never mentioned you were nonbinary. Isn’t it possible that people were being contrarian without being transphobic?
People can tell on a subconscious level. It’s all in the mannerisms and cultural subtleties. “You didn’t notice, but your brain did”
You can’t be serious.
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Why are you being sexist?
There you go again, dismissing my opinion because a nonbinary person said it. I’m nonbinary and I have opinions, so they must be wrong. You don’t even bother to invent a reason to disagree, you just dismiss me out of hand. I’m not even worth your time to invent an excuse to take me unseriously.
No, I actually thought you were joking. I think people are pretty ordinary and can’t telepathically tell that stuff in text. I bet you can’t deduce my gender, orientation, race, hair color, and name. I assume this because I didn’t tell you any of these things.
Poe’s law, so hard right now. I actually assume everyone on Lemmy is a man until they say otherwise, because Lemmy is tech people and tech is sadly like that.
Wait, can you tell the gender of the person of every post you read?
How can they tell?? Wtf
I don’t talk like a man, and I don’t talk like a woman. People are only used to hearing men and women talk. That’s the scope of their experience talking to human beings. Which means that I don’t sound human. I sound like some kind of bizarre alien intelligence. It’s scary for these people.
Most people on lemmy, reddit, etc just assume you’re a man until you say otherwise. It constantly happens to me, a woman.
I hate to break it to you, but you sound just like every gendered person on the planet. No difference in the way you speak on here from men or women.
You’re also a fool, because you think that you can perceive all subconscious influences on your mind. That’s the opposite of what subconscious means.
You know how some people have imaginary friends? I think you have imaginary enemies.
You’re making an assertion that people can identify specific personal details over text, but somehow we still need to use a /S to identify sarcasm because text doesn’t convey tone or body language. That requires some pretty heavy backup.
Holy fuck, I read your responses and you talk like any human being on the internet.
Yes, you are being ridiculed unfairly. No, I don’t think it’s because you are neurodivergent or non-male. As far as I can tell, there is 0 evidence to suggest that people are targeting you for your identity. They’re literally just assholes.
Ahh yes, so the future generations of archaeologists have a Pompeii to uncover
Found in a time capsule in 2150: hey guys, we left you a little something over there by Vesuvius…you’ll thank us later. And you better not have built a McDonald’s on it…
You can’t just cover things back up. Archaeological digs have been slowly buried over time in environmental conditions that allowed for their preservation, or in Pompeii’s case, initially very quickly and then slowly. Covering it back up would not only ruin the discovery potential of future investigation that relies on identification by context (for example, dating a pot by the chemical composition of the surrounding and previously contained materials, but it would also endanger anything we’ve found by introducing an uncontrolled and entirely new environment. It’s not like we can layer on the ash and other stuff in the same order it was deposited and in the exact same location with the same chemical composition.
Conservation is a necessary and very active effort as soon as something is found, because the act of studying it aleays causes at least some initial destruction.
Define “done”.
Explode the volcano again!
Somebody put this guy in charge!
