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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MGibster" data-source="post: 9841957" data-attributes="member: 4534">I used to buy novelty dice every once in a while, nothing made out of dinosaur bones of course, but it didn't take long for the novelty to wear thin.  I have a set of metal dice I never use because I don't want to risk denting the table I play on.  There are other novelty dice that are oddly shaped 4 or 6 siders that I don't use because they're more difficult to read than standard dice.[ATTACH]427620[/ATTACH]Does this apply Does this apply to all fossils?  A few years ago I happened upon a rather inexpensive trilobite at a rock shop in Colorado.  These suckers survived in our oceans for approximately 270,000,000 years and left behind such numerous fossilized remains that you can buy them for $5 at tourist traps.  This is a good specimen, so it cost me a lot more than $5.  What about megalodon teeth?  I've got some of those.Which presents another problem.  There are so many pottery sherds in places like the Smithsonian Museum that storage is a serious problem.  The majority of the sherds are useless for research purposes because their provenance is either unknown or dicey at best, but they're preserved because it seems wrong to destroy them and there's some hope maybe we'll be able to use them for useful research in the future.  At some point, we're going to run out of space or we're not going to have the funds to keep storing them.Let's talk about the ethics of even digging these things up for scientific research.  It was impressed upon me as an undergraduate that archaeology was inherently destructive.  No matter how careful you were, no matter how well you catalogued, you were destroying the site.  Maybe if we wait long enough we'll have the technology to investigate underground without destroying the site.  And here in the United States at least, there are other considerations.  If I find a T-Rex on my property it belongs to me.  i.e.  It's just as much my property as any other rock I dig out of the ground.  I'm free to do with it whatever I want.</blockquote>

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