[paulusthe]

It's not probably out there, it's definitely out there. One of the absolute best places to be a hunter gatherer is in river deltas and low lying floodplains. If we could magically lower sea levels by 100m, we'd find evidence of humanity not only in doggerland but off the coast of Africa, China, Australia, and more.

In fact some archaeologists are planning future underwater digs based on today's topographical hints of ancient riverbeds now underwater. There's a massive one off Bengal, another one near Ceylon, and a few more I can't remember right now.

[mywacaday]

I used to lifeguard on a beach in Ireland, on a very low tide and if the sand had shifted there were solid black slimy things just under the sand, turns out they were the remains of an ancient oak forest, would be amazing to see what 100m would should, that was only 3-4 meters.

[malux85]

Could these places be a source for gold? Were these cultures advanced enough to be mining and smelting gold?

[shrubble]

They definitely would be a good place to search. Not only for historical artifacts but becuase the plains would trap the heavier gold flakes that got eroded either locally or upstream.

For instance the state of Pennsylania has no known gold vein deposits but small flakes of gold are often found in the rivers, since the quartz rocks that contained the flakes were eroded, freeing the flakes which are then washed into the river by rain.

[jewayne]

So, your first thought when searching for artifacts from the ancient past is whether they can be melted down into commodities?

[Teever]

A more charitable interpretation of the comment that you replied to is that the artifacts may be located near ancient gold mines, and after we've retrieved the artifacts during excavation then we could potentially continue to mine the valuable resources in the same location.

[AlotOfReading]

Any implication that archaeologists are remotely interested in gold or that there's monetary profit to be had from excavations is almost always destructive to the cause of heritage programs.

I've done anti-looting programs in various places around the world as part of excavations. The belief that gold and other precious artifacts will be found is one of the most common causes/justifications for looting. Moreover, the belief that archaeologists are motivated or will in any way help to find precious metals is utterly corrosive to our ability to work with local authorities because it reduces trust and incentivises preemptive looting whenever we show up, among other things.

Let me emphasize this: finding precious metals sucks. It means you have a lot more paperwork, it means you get a lot more looting, it means a lot of government interest, it means treasure hoard laws apply, future excavation decisions become far more political, etc. It's a massive pain in the butt all around.

[lazyasciiart]

> I've done anti-looting programs in various places around the world as part of excavations.

This sounds fascinating, do you know of anywhere I can read about this kind of work?

[AlotOfReading]

It's way more boring than you're thinking. The goal is to reduce looting by

1) educating people about the harm it does

2) convince the audience that whatever goals might be sought in looting are unlikely to be met (profit, cool-stuff-factor, "helping archaeologists", etc)

3) Ensuring site security and getting legal frameworks in place to monitor/enforce heritage preservation.

The first is usually pretty easy. The NPS used to have this video called "Assault on Time" that they show to people. People who don't want to fill out requisition forms from the government usually just show pictures of looted sites. I had a professor who liked to use pictures of Mimbres sites in New Mexico. I prefer to use Ai-Khanoum because the before [0] and after [1] is so stark.

For the second, usually this takes the form of inviting locals out to see what you're excavating and showing them any finds. This will usually be rocks, charcoal, lithics, and other profoundly unprofitable things. It also humanizes the historical people to help locals build personal connections with the sites. In a lot of cases you'll also be hiring locals to help with the excavations, so they know there's nothing hidden because they're present for everything.

This usually isn't effective on the "collectors" and "metal detectorists" (see e.g. Coping with Site Looting [2]), so other things are necessary. That tends to be site monitoring and heritage protection laws, which depend on the country and situation. Sometimes it's best to just invite local officials to the site. Meeting with important officials can be very inconvenient though. Ever tried getting wrinkles out of a suit in a field site 2 days from the nearest city? Those clothes did not survive the expedition.

That's just the lowest level of cooperation that has to happen as well. The key is having embedded experts making connections with the people who can implement those laws and fines, then enforce them. This is also the level most affected by the budgetary constraints of heritage programs globally. Last I checked, there were fewer than 100 positions for this sort of work available in the US every year. Some countries may have less than a dozen people total.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ai_Khanoum_landscape_phot...

[1] https://m.psecn.photoshelter.com/img-get/I0000lqdxnldw3QE/s/...

[2] http://npshistory.com/series/archeology/seac/rapp/1.pdf

[mxkopy]

I think GP might've been sarcastic, but even if not, there's no need to be charitable to such a caricaturistic intent to extract resources.

[throwbadubadu]

Erm, just no and that wasn't necessary, or GPT?

[BurningFrog]

We know very close to nothing about them, so the answer to most such questions is "maybe".

[sandworm101]

No. These areas were not flooded overnight. It took many years. Any valuable items would have been taken as people moved ahead of the very very slowly rising water. Your chances would be little different than finding gold randomly on dry land.