Looting!

[Frank Harrist]

There are Caddo indian house mounds all around here and also burial grounds. It's hard to find one that hasn't been looted. In fact sometimes the fact that it was looted is one of the fiorst indications that it is actually a site. I found a house mound near my home, noticed it from the highway. As I approached it I noticed an old trench through the center of it. After I saw that I was sure it was an actual site. No one would spend that much time and effort to dig this trench unless they were finding something. I recorded the site. I never got to dig it other than a few shovel tests to affirm it's authenticity. Looting is a problem. I do, however know conscientious collectors who only pick up surface finds. Their information can be invaluable in searching for sites. People who loot for profit should be jailed. It is as Charlie says, legal in Texas, at least, for land-owners to do as they wish with what ever they find on their property.

[Minimalist]

Yes, there is a legal distinction to be made between what people do on their own land and what they do on someone else's. I would think that most restrictions on private property usage fall in the nature of "zoning laws" and are inherently local in nature.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Here's a blog parked over at anthropology.net, with one person's take on the issue:


http://anthropology.net/user/afarensis/ ... ical_sites

[Minimalist]

As came out in some of Arch's posts on the subject....wherever that was... there is a distinction between people who simply want the artifact and those who want to study the context of the find. The first batch are basically treasure hunters and the second group are archaeologists.

[Charlie Hatchett]

As came out in some of Arch's posts on the subject....wherever that was... there is a distinction between people who simply want the artifact and those who want to study the context of the find. The first batch are basically treasure hunters and the second group are archaeologists.

There's one huge Archaic midden, and possibly older in the deeper strata, here locally ("Mike"):



This thing is getting looted pretty severely. I've advised TARL, but it's on private property, and the elderly lady that owns the land doesn't seem to care...I'll have to take some photos, and post them.

[War Arrow]

I've realised this thread goes over similar ground to the earlier one about and called Pilfering, which Stan kicked off with this:

Some acquaintances of mine were in Italy a few years back and they found a Roman artifact on the ground somewhere, and brought it back to the US. They found it in field outside a town on the coast near Rome, in a field littered with old bricks, stones, and so on. When I chided them about taking it,
they said, "Oh, there is lots of stuff like this over there."

I'll describe it, and I would like everyone on this forum to rate this archaeological
"crime" on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being insignificant and 10 being
heinous.

It is one half of a mold for casting a metal
spearhead. It is of gray stone or ceramic, about the size of an ordinary brick, and you can the shape of the spearhead clearly in it.

I've been there myself the once. Whilst wandering around in the fields surrounding Teotihuacan I bent down to tie my shoelace and saw a shard of obsidian staring straight at me.

Hmmph. So much for google images.
Anyway, that sort of thing, as used for piercing, shaving etc. The fragment I found is much smaller (about 4mm across, 15mm in length) and much cleaner in terms of the lines, plus it looked close on identical to sections of complete specimens in the on-site museum (most of them very thin and up to 8 or 9cm in length). I felt a bit like a gold smuggler but having almost quacked my pants with excitement, I bought it home. If I'd found something bigger and more obviously impressive or telling, I'm pretty sure I would have acted differently. I think this is probably the same argument as the one about arrow-heads laying around in fields.

[stan]

In the case of your obsidian shard it seems likely that the area was already looted before you got there and your piece was tossed aside. I shan't criticise, not knowing more about it. Do you think your find is of any significance to Mexican archaeologists?

A long time ago I found some pottery shards in a creek near an old indian settlement in the southeast US. I think I brought 4 home in my pocket. My argument was that they were out of context, i.e. washed down the creek, and would probably not add to the sum total of the knowledge of this
settlement even if they were in some museum. But I have always felt a little guilty about it.

When I was in New Mexico more recently, at the Bandolier national monument and otherplaces, the ground was littered with literally millions of pottery shards. Apparently there was a tradition of ritual smashing of pottery (no joke).
It was as if the ground were made up of shards.
Most of them were much smaller than a US quarter. Anyway,
I stood in awe of these places and dared not to remove anything. I suppose someone could go to the trouble one day to try to reassemble some of these fragments....

In the case of my friends' taking the spearhead mold from Italy, i thought that there might be an identifiable and specific
context for it that would make it valuable, since Roman history is well-known. And, Oh yes, there's a law against taking it!

[stan]

In the case of your obsidian shard it seems likely that the area was already looted before you got there and your piece was tossed aside. I shan't criticise, not knowing more about it. Do you think your find is of any significance to Mexican archaeologists?

A long time ago I found some pottery shards in a creek near an old indian settlement in the southeast US. I think I brought 4 home in my pocket. My argument was that they were out of context, i.e. washed down the creek, and would probably not add to the sum total of the knowledge of this
settlement even if they were in some museum. But I have always felt a little guilty about it.

When I was in New Mexico more recently, at the Bandolier national monument and otherplaces, the ground was littered with literally millions of pottery shards. Apparently there was a tradition of ritual smashing of pottery (no joke).
It was as if the ground were made up of shards.
Most of them were much smaller than a US quarter. Anyway,
I stood in awe of these places and dared not to remove anything. I suppose someone could go to the trouble one day to try to reassemble some of these fragments....

In the case of my friends' taking the spearhead mold from Italy, i thought that there might be an identifiable and specific
context for it that would make it valuable, since Roman history is well-known. And, Oh yes, there's a law against taking it!

[Minimalist]

A more 'macro' view of the question.


http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0517/p09s02-coop.html

If it weren't for collectors' and curators' love of history and culture, I'm afraid all of us the world over (whether Aboriginal or not) would be losing ours.

[War Arrow]

In the case of your obsidian shard it seems likely that the area was already looted before you got there and your piece was tossed aside. I shan't criticise, not knowing more about it. Do you think your find is of any significance to Mexican archaeologists?

I honestly wouldn't have thought so seeing as every Museum I went to seemed to have plenty of these razors, all complete, all bigger and better than my humble fragment. Plus there's an expression along the lines of all you have to do in Mexico is stick a trowel in the ground and you'll find something from preHispanic times - which seems to be true in my experience. Although I had no trowel at hand, I'll admit.

A long time ago I found some pottery shards in a creek near an old indian settlement in the southeast US. I think I brought 4 home in my pocket. My argument was that they were out of context, i.e. washed down the creek, and would probably not add to the sum total of the knowledge of this settlement even if they were in some museum. But I have always felt a little guilty about it.

I suspect the fact that you felt a little guilty (just as I did) kind of answers the question. If I'd come across a perfectly preserved codex proving once and for all that the Aztecs wrote the tune of 'Happy Birthday' (for example) I'm sure I would have mustered my crap Spanish in order to report it to someone who could make use of such a find. I think you'd probably do the same. In fact, I imagine that's true of most of us on this forum.
The issues in Min's link though are probably another matter and maybe there is no absolute right or wrong in this case. The Powhowton (er... spell check?) cape is pretty impressive and when I first saw it I thought 'Wow! What the f*** is this doing here?' Objects like that, I think there's a pretty good case for returning them to their place of origin, because that cape seems pretty unique, plus just out of respect. With less distinctive objects, I'm not so sure.

[Minimalist]

I had the opportunity to see the Elgin Marbles in London 10 years ago. Carefully displayed they were in pretty good condition. The same would not be true if they were still attached to the Parthenon dissolving away in today's standard Athenian pollution.

Some of this Zahi Hawass-style hoopla is nothing more than nationalism masquerading as archaeological political correctness. Egypt, at least, makes an effort to preserve and protect the items returned. Would you return a Buddha statue to Afghanistan so they could have a little more demolition practice?

[Bruce]

Went to Vegas recently and got the bug, so drove my rented Jeep Cherokee out west to the end of the devolopments, down a ravine to the top of the other side. Got out and marveled at all the handaxes, pottery shards and stuff you could tell were of human origin. I felt no guilt at all picking up some of the better pieces and bringing them home. Yeah I showed them to whoever I could find, but of course hand axes are not something you find in America, and when I told them where I found them nobody definitly wanted to talk. That was last winter and I'm sure that hill is leveled and paved with houses on it.
You want to see some good rock art drive the back streets of old town Vegas and check out the fences and walls people have built out of 1' rocks! There's even a cave with a sandstone wall by it, but it has so much graffetti on it anything under it is probaly ruined. Did some research but no record of it seems to be had.
BTW the rock items went right thru the metal detectors with no problem. Felt a whole lot safer on that flight knowing I had a razor sharp hand axe in my pocket!

[Cognito]

but of course hand axes are not something you find in America

Hey ... that would be a great defense to looting in a court of law. "Your Honor, my client cannot be guilty of looting ancient artifacts since, as my expert witnesses will show, there are no paleo hand axes in America!"

[Minimalist]

Think of all the Club Members you could call as expert witnesses!

[Starflower]

http://news.ert.gr/en/12/22324.asp

A 60-year old Professor of the Thrace University was arrested when the police authorities in Thessaloniki found in his two houses about 10,000 ancient items.

Now that is just a bit of an illegal collection wouldn't you say?