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Dear Collegues

 

Recently I acquired a GPS, a Garmin Quest 2. Quite usefull as it can be used both for car and for trekking, cycling and so on.

 

Among the several sports related with GPS, there's something very usefull that could be done with GPS.

As you know, heritage and archaeological sites are at risk all over the world. It would be nice to preserve them in some way or another.

 

The ideia is to mark archaeological sites, ruins, old monuments, mainly the abandoned and forgotten ones, and create a Waypoint file, and group them with one or more photos from the place. Rule number 1 - places can not be changed in any way, no garbage, no graffitis, no destruction, to preserve and record is the main rule.

 

The objective: To know places, to spread the information, to catalog heritage sites.

 

What do you think? Instead of being around leaving plastic boxes in some weird places, this seams quite more insteresting and usefull.

 

Thanks

 

TOF

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Sounds like you've just discovered Waymarking. :P

There's categories for Abandoned Cemeteries, New World Ancient Evidence, which seeks to waymark ancient cultures in the New World, and many others.

 

I don't see anything specific for abandoned archaeological sites, probably because the Waymark Category owners wanted to be more specific than that - there's all kinds of types of sites (such as the New World one linked above.)

 

If you like that sort of thing, check out Waymarking. Sounds like you two were made for each other. :P

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Isnt what you are talkin about is called a virtual cache? The idea of cataloging them into a group so a database waypoint seach for just acrheo-historical sites is a good idea though, actually its a great one that I would like too see. Though I am still new to this and this may already be applicable.

Edited by metalhack
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Instead of being around leaving plastic boxes in some weird places, this seams quite more insteresting and usefull.

Are you suggesting we would do this instead of geocaching?

Waymarking is a spin-off from geocaching. Owned and operated by the same great staff and everything.

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Speaking as one who does archaeology for a living, i think it could be a great addition to Waymarking and a lot of fun. The problem is that, at least in North America, most identified archaological sites are on private property, and are only identified due to construction, etc. Now, ruins, cemeteries, and monuments are another story, and i think it would be great to document them, like an amatuer version of HABS/HAER. I know i'd be involved in that.

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Instead of being around leaving plastic boxes in some weird places, this seams quite more insteresting and usefull.

Are you suggesting we would do this instead of geocaching?

Waymarking is a spin-off from geocaching. Owned and operated by the same great staff and everything.

True, but that has nothing to do with my question. I wasn't asking if the OP was suggesting Waymarking in addition to geocaching, where Waymarking comes from, or even who started it. :laughing:

 

The OP clearly states that the activity he suggests be done INSTEAD of geocaching ("leaving plastic boxes in some weird places"). My question was an attempt to find out if that's what he really meant.

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Are you suggesting we would do this instead of geocaching?

Waymarking is a spin-off from geocaching. Owned and operated by the same great staff and everything.

True, but that has nothing to do with my question. I wasn't asking if the OP was suggesting Waymarking in addition to geocaching, where Waymarking comes from, or even who started it. :laughing:

 

The OP clearly states that the activity he suggests be done INSTEAD of geocaching ("leaving plastic boxes in some weird places"). My question was an attempt to find out if that's what he really meant.

 

Hi guys

 

Thanks for the comments

 

I didn't now Waymarking, it seems to fit my purposes, but a category should be created, for instance, Archaeological Sites.

 

Concerning the last comment, I should clarify that personaly I think that Waymarking is far more interesting than geocaching. I'm not saying that geocaching should be replaced. Each one should do what he likes most. This is only my opinion :laughing: Geocaching can be trouble some to implement, in isolated places it can be easy to leave a box, but anyway, someone, a non-geocacher could find it and destroy it, but in a city it can be very tricky to hide a plastic box, and with the terrorism paranoia, someone hiding a box could be misunderstood.....

 

Getting back to Waymarking, I Live in Portugal, near to Spain, Europe, we have a history back to Neolitic age, we have Megalitic monuments, iron age "castros", romans ruins, ( roads, bridges, buildings ), medieval castles, the defense lines that defeat Napoleon armies, etc..... unfortunately, most of them are left abandoned. The governement is very slow in catalog all of them, and sometimes when a builder finds some ancient remains, he tries to hide or destroy it. So, if such an activity like this could be spread, such sites could be identified, catalogued, even if in a personal level, and when things are known, there's more public pressure to preserve them.

 

Thanks

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Getting back to Waymarking, I Live in Portugal, near to Spain, Europe, we have a history back to Neolitic age, we have Megalitic monuments, iron age "castros", romans ruins, ( roads, bridges, buildings ), medieval castles, the defense lines that defeat Napoleon armies, etc..... unfortunately, most of them are left abandoned. The governement is very slow in catalog all of them, and sometimes when a builder finds some ancient remains, he tries to hide or destroy it. So, if such an activity like this could be spread, such sites could be identified, catalogued, even if in a personal level, and when things are known, there's more public pressure to preserve them.

 

 

Hi 3o5, and welcome to Waymarking. Something to keep in mind is that the site is much easier to use when more specific categories are submitted. Searches are conducted within whichever level of the directory you happen to be at the time of searching, so having a single category titled "Roman Ruins" would be better than simply "Archaelogical Sites". After several different archaelogy-related categories are in the directory, Groundspeak will create an "Archaelogy" department (sub-category) to hold all the other archaelogy-related categories. By creating this hierarchy it gives you a lot of different choices when searching for waymarks near you.

 

Thanks for your input!

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A perfect fit for Waymarking, especially since the Geocache Listing Guidelines prohibit caches at or near sensitive archaeological sites. That issue has presented high-profile problems in the past; hence the guideline.

 

but what about the sensitivity of these areas? if one looke in the NRHP database long enough, you are bound to find a site such as this, and the location is RESTRICTED.

 

personally, i have avoided this type of site due to these types of concerns. yes, some might be included in a category such as this, but that what about the opportunity for looting and destruction by 'the masses'?

 

in the past few months i have been to/collected info on a lot of sensitive sites. since i was an employee, the ethics of posting this information on here has led me to just keep it to myself. but if someone else ('a visitor to the area') finds and posts it, i am ready to log my visit.

 

remember that Waymarking is still too new, and TPTB (not Groundspeak) really have no idea what is happening here--as far as i can tell, but they might be watching me type right now. i would predict that Waymarking will eventually have restrictions imposed, much like geocaching has.

 

as a side note, a coworker had stated that the NSS [national speleological society] is currently making motions to get into the caching world; in that they are trying to review caches near their resources, and remove those that could possibly cause damage to them. if i knew how, i would apply for this position. how would that be? a job that entails geocaching and analyzing the validity of them?

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Hello,

Can I suggest that if you go out finding ancient and archaeological sites, that you submit them to us at the Megalthic Portal, where we are set up to accept photos and all types of information about many different types of site worldwide and have a community of volunteers to assist and help identify them.

 

http://www.megalithic.co.uk

 

Add a new site:

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/submitsite.php

 

You can now also download our entire database of over 15,000 sites for use with Google Earth:

 

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146412594

 

Cheers,

Andy

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