John and Phil,
Make something clear. Are you advocating a law restricting the rights of
property owners to do undocumented amateur archaeology on their land? Thats
what I am reading into your messages. These laws, I am assuming would be
similar to the preservation statutes in England.
I agree with John on a couple points but I dont know how "competition" is
the issue. I have worked with a contractor who detailed to me his extensive
collection of points and tools that he had collected on private property on
his own time. Sometime after this I had a brief problem when I was informed
that there had been testing done in an area of my site not in the APE but in
a site suggestive of settlement. I take serious offence against this as this
contractor was working on the site. It makes me nervous to think that an
archaeologist could lift objects from my sites. Now I have to think about
this and watch for it all the time. Something that I would not have
considered before. I think there are serious ethical problems when
professionals collect on their own time, even if it is legal. In this case
John is right that the collecting(stealing) can become additive. On the
other hand, I know a farmer in northern Ohio who has a collection in the
neighborhood of 6000 undocumented artifacts that he has picked up after
plowing his fields. This I have no problem with. It is a matter of intent.
Any kind of law you are advocating will effect this farmer. Obviously, his
farm sits on a fairly extensive pre-historic site. He is doing nothing wrong
and is not destroying anything, he is just farming. Now, what if he, or his
children after he is dead or even better a third party settling his estate,
wanted to sell the stuff. How can you convince anyone in the general public
that this is a problem. And yet, any law that would protect a Civil War site
on private land would effect him. Additionally, I am sure there are a lot
more farmers with pre historic sites on their land than there are private
landowners with battlefield sites, especially here in the north. It comes
down to a matter of public interest as Kevin has said several times. If it
is a matter of educating the public about these resources and their
importance than we are not doing a very good job.
Neal Hitch
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dendy, John [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2000 4:50 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: clandestine digging for dough
>
> Phil Levy writes:
> "(T)he majority of enthusiasts (for lack of a better term) obey
> those laws".
> and
> "Most pothunting is legal and I don't see how people involved in a
> legal activity can be outlaws."
>
> I don't know where you're living, but a great many "pothunters"
> start the slippery slope to crime with trespass and move on from there.
> When
> I worked in Denver there were two cases of "pothunters" killed during
> their
> "avocation" while trespassing under somone else's building looking for
> goodies.
>
> I concur that "pothunters" are our competitors in the sense that
> they trash scientific information for the sake of a few "good" pieces. I
> have historic refuse sites here on federal land that look like Slack's
> Farm,
> where "enthusiasts" have lined up tens of historic bottles on the sides of
> their looter's pits only to select two or three for re-sale. Worse yet,
> there are people always trying to find the location of known sites so that
> they can help themselves to artifacts.
>
> But, I think the saddest state of a "pothunter" is the addictive
> one. These are the people that have oil drums full of arrowheads on their
> porches. They can't keep from picking up things. Eventually, they start
> picking up bones, pots, whatever. It's cool stuff! No mystic
> connections....No spiritual communing.....Just grab it. Try working with
> one
> of them some time.
>
> Finally, I think you're all being a bit naive about the level of
> criminality involved in pothunting. Many of these people are armed and
> dangerous and know damn well that they're breaking the law.
>
> John Dendy
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