I think Lyle and Joe have made good points on this issue. They point out 
that there are artifact collectors and there are looters. In my experience 
there is a third group (possibly the largest group) that overlaps the two. 
People who don't necessarily make a living with their collecting (or common 
pay bail with it), or necessarily even sell artifacts, but will readily 
trespass and damage sites as a "hobby" and who are usually unresponsive to 
reasonable discourse from the archaeological community. Since the 
archaeologcal community through their professional organizations pays for 
lobbying on capital hill, maybe we could suggest to SAA that they form an 
'intervention' team to go out and 'deprogram' these people. A lot of them 
get started in the Boy Scouts, so we could lobby to limit the acces to 
public land by this group. The idea of going out and missionizing them is 
nice for the independently wealthy, but my professional duties and personal 
life do not leave me time for what, in my experience, is largely a waste of 
time.

But those who do have time, by all means should go ahead and do it, and 
report back to the rest of us on success and failure so that we can become 
more successful withmore  limited efforts in this area. Tight lines!

Tim T.



Date:    Sat, 22 Apr 2006 11:45:12 -0400
From:    Joe Roberts <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Individual rights and relic hunting: Thorny issues