I recall stopping at the Hiwassee/Ocoee Scenic River State Park
(Spring Creek Road PO Box 5 Delano, TN 37325, near Etowah mounds in
northern Georgia) a number of years ago and with only a few employees
year-round its hard to watch everything the ranger there stated. There
were looters in the mounds on the islands in the river with backhoes,
he related which is a different type of activity than "relic hunting".

Where I am I think we need better laws, for example in nearby Suffolk
County, where traditional barn building is still a business (one old
one on a register site had roman numerals marking the joins, it was
"saved" to a county park, where it was burned by vandals) a man was
having a barn built and a cellar dug for it and found a number of
burials of native origin which technically I am given to understand
have very few regulations in regard to procedure and treatment on
private property. Another example was a "twin" adult burial I cleared
in NYC's City Hall Park in the planned water fountain construction. I
don't know how that was handled per se (I haven't back there yet since
1999) I hope the fountain was moved, around the edge of the "First
Almshouse" because there is no law I can read that says
"if...then...". Th first legal basis I know of, from research in the
Bowery where the Methodists and Quaker burials were moved in the
mid-nineteenth century, was when a burial left behind was found in the
construction of the Courthouse on 2nd Ave and 2nd Street, which
required a special vote in the State Legislature in Albany, NY giving
the right to the Dept. of Education to remove and supervise.

Unfortunately, the records of the proceedings of that session before
the NY Legislature burned in an archives fire in the State Capital a
number of years later, so only the actual law and its pronouncement
has survived in the numerous publications of government by outside
printing concerns. Today the courthouse is the Anthology Film Archives
"Screening site and film preservation center, located at 2nd Ave and
2nd Street, New York, NY" supported by many in the media. It is across
the street from "The New York City Marble Cemetery" which  "...was
begun in 1831 and was the second non-sectarian burial ground in the
City opened to the public." In it was once ex-President James Monroe,
who, after a vote in the Virginia legislature was finally interred in
the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia sometime after July 2,
1858. Other notable people are interred there see: The New York City
Marble Cemetery http://www.nycmc.org/history.html.

One other example might be the Montaukett burial ground of which one
burial was dug up and whose history in commemorated in the "Montauk
Club" building in Brooklyn, NY, designed in a Venice, Italy building
style, its terracotta entablature relief commemorates the meeting of
Europeans with the Montaukett natives of eastern Long Island, New
York. At one time building lots on the what became known as one of the
cemeteries of theirs, were going in 1980's dollars, $1 million. Not
knowing for sure, an archaeologist found one who had dug up the grave
("Contact period") and made an effort to screen the backfill pile for
anything small that might have been missed, beads, etc., and the land
was bought by Suffolk County and se-aside from development, another
"undefined area" of the law. I am also given to understand, that
abandoned cemeteries become the property and care of the Brookhaven
Town in New York State, it's largest town in area, though I have not
read the law, just cut the grass in one in the Bicentennial (1976) for
their parks dept., in a summer job I won in a lottery. Perhaps a model
for consideration there, where George Washington had his "Spy Nest".

On 4/16/06, George Myers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Unearthed War Relics See Battle Again
> Archaeologists Decry History Buffs' Digs
> By Brigid Schulte
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Sunday, April 16, 2006; Page A01
>
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/15/AR2006041501187.html?sub=AR
>


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