to carl - we and others were working on a number of small, mostly urban
sites in eastern north carolina. despite police tape, requests for
regular patrols and desparate pleading these and other sites were
regularly robbed during and after the investigation period. short of
hiring armed help a la central and south american sites, there was
nothing we could do to stop them. and objects from the sites showed up
almost overnight on ebay. so everyone knew who was doing it. if you
called them up via the ebay contact system they bragged about it. some
of these sites did fall under protective legislation. the local police
would not make an arrest however as they did not believe a successful
prosecution would ensue - this at any rate was what they said. to the
extent that protective legislation exists at all on a local level i have
seen little evidence of enforcement. in a culture where i regularly had
anthro majors, staff and faculty approach me proudly with tales of the
sites they'd been rifling through and the fine collections they had of
the things they couldn't sell -- well, is this really that suprising? i
was trained in the u.k. and really had no idea that things were as bleak
as this  - it took me a while to reach the  level of pessimism required
to carry on -- as for what developers will do, i could write a book
about it.

maureen basedow, ph.d