Digs

The shortsightedness of professional archaeologists and anthropologists as shown by Dean R. Snow in his recent article (“Martians & Vikings, Madocs & Runes,” October/November, 1981) has prompted this letter. He would label me an amateur archaeologist, only because I haven’t been schooled by his good books. We amateurs are looking for answers not grades; we’re interested in results, not grants, we’re looking for truth—not from the good books—but by studying, researching, and analyzing. We’re serious-minded individuals who do more than run off at the mouth. These know-it-alls sit at their desks and ridicule almost everyone who isn’t a “trained professional archaeologistanthropologist.” When it doesn’t fit their theories—books—it’s a fake, hoax, or an outright fraud. They have all the answers, the plow did it, the farmer, nature, or God did it all. …

Should all our learned scientists ever place their heads in the very holes they helped to dig, as Mr. Snow has obviously done, we as a people would never have learned anything.