what buildings? all I saw was a big hill thing that was fenced in. why not restore it so people can learn rather than just grab what they wanted. its listed on a pine barrens brochure thing I got at the country living fair. i don't understand why they would tell us to go there and check it out of people already came, pillaged it, and buried it again?
So there's two things that happens to buildings when they stop being occupied. The first thing is that the weather takes its toll and they eventually collapse. The other thing is that people come along and start robbing out stones to build other stuff. (This is something that has gone on for thousands of years.) When the buildings collapse and fall down, eventually a layer of soil will build up over them. In time they'll become completely buried, and you'd be surprised how quickly that can happen.
So when the dig at Martha happened in the 60s, they put in some trenches, excavated some parts of the town, and did a survey. During the process, people came to the site and started to loot it. Someone even tried to drag out a huge piece of iron that was part of the furnace with a big truck (and failed.)
After a dig completes, they fill in their trenches and leave the site as undisturbed as they can for future archaeologists. Future advances in archaeology, geophysics, and history that comes to light can mean that in the future we can gain an even more accurate picture of what towns like Martha were like.
Why not restore it? Because New Jersey invests practically nothing towards historic restoration. If you've seen the mansion at Atsion you'll see that the state largely let it rot for 50+ years, and even after investing $1M into a restoration it's falling apart again. Historic preservation and restorations cost a LOT of money, and in the case of Martha, people simply just don't know enough today to make an accurate reconstruction and nobody wants to cough up the money to preserve the site.
