We have a law in this state that all public construction must be preceded by an "archaeological survey" of the site, that is, before the power-shovels move in, an archaeological team must dig around and determine the "value" of the site. Is it an indian burial ground? A forgotten colonial village? Etc. etc.
Anyway, here we are just post-9/11 and some new buildings are being plotted on Camp (name omitted.) A survey is being undertaken on the site by a professor-emeritus of an Ivy university not far away, and two grad students. After 9/11, Threatcon C is announced and the installation "centralizes" parking of vehicles in a lot just inside the main gate. The "surveyors" from Ivy U. must hump their gear a half-mile over a not-too-gentle parade field to the survey site. And they've got a lot of gear.
One chilly morning in October, driving my guard vehicle (a CUCV Blazer,) I offered the grad-student of the day a lift over to the dig site. She could put her wheelbarrow, shovels, sieves, trowels, etc in the back and I would truck her right over there. Well, sir, she gave me a look such as I hadn't seen since I got back from Vietnam to San Francisco Int'l Airport in August of '66! It was as if I had lice crawling out of my eyebrows! So I retired from the scene, vowing not to extend myself to these birds again.
The next night, still feeling the sting of her scorn, and perhaps a little vindictive, I drove by the dig-site in the light of the moon: there it was -- three or four trenches about a yard wide and six to ten feet long, dug at odd angles. A mound of spoil marked where the diggers had shoveled and sieved three or four feet deep of the sand and underlying clay. Hmm -- they were down to the clay.
When I was part of the Sinai peacekeeping force (MFO) a few years earlier, I had occasion to go to Israel a few times. In Jerusalem, I had bought a bunch of cheap souvenirs, some of which I still had -- in fact, I had a little plastic bag of six or eight bronze Phonecian/Roman coin replicas. Jeez, they really looked like the real thing! So what could bring more excitement to these proceedings of the archaeologists than to find something a little... special? So -- it was only natural that on my next circuit of the post, I got out and planted a few bronze "surprises" for them to come up with. Haven't heard anything since, but you really don't know: these academics play things close to the chest. We may never know if they found them until the the next Nobel Prizes are announced!
Leave the archaeologists alone, lol.
My son and I used to take two weeks each Christmas an traipse around the Yucatan. One year we rented a vehicle and drove into the boonies as far as we could go and then backpacked in another two days.
We came across an active archaeological site. No-one was there...it looked like they just walked away for Christmas leaving all their instruments and things spread around under a big tent. We didn't bother anything but, we did leave a big sign saying "Merry Christmas, Santa was here." LOL (I won't tell you about the scary times we got lost and once we spotted some smugglers, etc.)