They took a poll today most people think replies to email should go at the
bottom. However I thought this was important enough to put up here.

Years ago when I was studying Suffolk County, Long Island, where there is a
repository for artifacts across the street from the Custer Institute for
Astronomy in Southold, NY (where it is said Dartmouth, originally and still
partly in kind, a school for native "Indian" Americans) and was intrigued by
the experimental archaeology some had done, paddling a dugout across the
Long Island Sound to Connecticut (Johanneman, et al, the dugout was last
seen at the Garvies Point Museum, near the homestead of ex-President
Theodore Roosevelt, Oyster Bay). I had heard of a totemic artifact found as
we were discussing "birdstones" a mis application of a term to small
projectile points, small enough to acquire that name, perhaps from people
familiar with "birdshot" (.22 tiny lead shot). I researched these in the
library at Stony Brook University (where upward of 60% of it's collection is
out-of-print it's stated) and found a book of limited printing, 500 copies
which referred to the totemic "birdstones" sometimes referred to as looking
"oarlock" like. Apparently a large number had been collected by the author
of the book and described their distribution as mostly on the North Fork of
Long Island (where the "Silent Service" began in the very early 20th
century) as shown on a map and described the "bug-eyed" birds made out of
stone (a slate or other material was used) which generally had two holes
frilled into them. It was thought that perhaps they went on the front of
their boats though no known example had been found to prove one way or
another. Apparently whole classes of artifacts can end up in another state
like these, in Colorado. Anyone out there seen them?


----Original Message Follows----
From: Stephen Austin <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Good Bust
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 13:08:37 -0800

Carol Serr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
"Most people in America see it as their "right to Treasure
hunt"...unfortunately. Of course it obviously is illegal to damage or remove
anything from Federal or State lands...."

Not entirely - problem being on Federal lands with ARPA that "arrowheads"
etc. recovered per the exception conditions stated in ARPA can indeed be
taken/collected.  Of course, then most agencies then have management
"regulations" which prohibit the removal of ANY government property - only a
court case will ever settle this one.

"Of course...how did all those museums (mostly on the east coast) acquire
all their marvelous collections of artifacts (and human remains) from the SW
and mounds in the mid-west...etc. ?? They paid people to "loot" graves,
etc...in the name of Science."

How is this different by a significant degree from today?  (yes -I'm bull
baiting...)



S.P. Austin

_________________________________________________________________
Find high-speed ‘net deals — comparison-shop your local providers here.
https://broadband.msn.com