On the front page

The front pages of two recent issues of The New York Times have featured articles concerning the preservation or technical examination and dating of works of art. One, “Greek Antiquities, Long Fragile, Are Endangered by Austerity” (by Randy Kennedy, June 12, 2012), discusses the grim situation in Greece for the preservation of archaeological sites and for archaeological research that is a direct result of government austerity measures. The other, “With Science, New Portrait of the Cave Artist” (by John Noble Wilford, June 15, 2012) discusses how new refinements to the technique of uranium-thorium dating have led to revised earlier dates for Spanish cave paintings which have brought “current ideas about the prehistory of human art in Southern Europe into question”.
The question we might ask is whether the placement of these articles on the front page of the main section (and not on an interior page or in the Arts or Science sections) is an indication that conservation and technical analysis have finally attained a higher status.