> The plain and simple truth to all this is: IF THESE SITE 
> STEWARDS DONT WANT 
> US ON THIS GROUNDS.. THEY NEED TO POST SIGNS STATING THIS IS AN 
> ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE. Period.

The problem with that, Scott, is that once the location of an
archaeological site is made public, by any medium, you are signing that
site's death warrant. There are still plenty of pothunters and other
unscrupulous people who will think nothing of devastating that site in
hopes of finding saleable artifacts (and sadly, there is enough of a
market for those artifacts to make the risks worthwhile to some). And
that is the "Catch-22" of the site stewards. If the archaeological site
locations are kept secret, they risk accidental damage by those of us
who don't realize what we're walking on. If the site locations are made
available, they risk deliberate destruction.

The solution, as Libby so well stated earlier, is to get permission to
place the cache. If we ask first, the land managers/site stewards have
an opportunity to assess if the area we want to use is at risk, and tell
us if it's a problem, without compromising the locations of specific
archaeological sites. And if asking permission becomes the practice I
believe Geocaching's detractors and any "controversy" surrounding our
game would go away.

Steve
Team Tierra Buena