We have seen here several times how collectors of portable antiquities in the United States advocate other countries abandoning their current "restrictive" archaeological heritage protection legislation. They demand that they adopt the current laissez faire approach of England and Wales to the collecting of so-called "portable antiquities" with a voluntary reporting of finds and an unregulated market. These advocates fail to recognise that the United States has itself in fact just such a "restrictive" system of archaeological resources protection legislation in the case of sites and artefacts from "federal and indian lands", which is in fact the greater part of the land area of the country. Nevertheless such legislation offers next to little protection to sites on private land. This means that US artefact hunters can legally dig up and sell almost what they want from private land, but cannot touch sites on public land without a permit. From the collectors' point of view, the US system embodies the "best of both worlds".
It does not however work that way, because in the milieu of portable antiquity collectors the world over are greedy self-centred individuals who care little about where the items they covet come from. The "best" Native American sites (richest, easier to find and dig) in the US are often on public land.
We saw an example of this in southern Utah, where 24 people were recently arrested for illegal activities concerning Native American antiquities. This case has received wide publicity pour encourager les autres and there has been some reaction on the associated forums. This material is useful to give those of us not from rural Utah an insight into the collecting mentality and what has been going on in portable antiquity collecting circles. In particular, the affadavit to the search warrant issued in the case of schoolteacher Dave Lacy published online by two US news media organizations gives us the information based on the investigating officer’s “knowledge, experience and information provided by other law enforcement officers” concerning artefact hunting and the antiquities trade in the area.
Given the discussion that has been going on with US collectors of ancient coins removed from foreign archaeological sites on documenting provenance of the ancient items being offered for sale, my attention was caught by the issue of documentation of provenance in this milieu. It is, however, a complex matter. Apparently, in this milieu in the US engaged in the collecting of this sort of portable antiquity:
The problem is not so straightforward however, since - depite the abundant opportunities to collect archaeological material without any conflict with the law - in the collecting of archaeological material from the US there are unscrupulous law-breakers too. The same text notes that
The document alleges that in a second sale of artefact by the same person took place in the middle of January involved organic finds from several different sites (loincloth, menstrual pad, basket, sandals) and a pot. Two of the sandals came from a burial in Cottonwood Wash (an area mentioned in a previous prosecution case), while the pot was in fact from a piece of private property and was thus a licitly obtained find. The affadavit alleges:
If these sorts of practice are at all prevalent in US pot-digging circles, it means that even here any letters of provenience indicating which cannot be independently verified are suspect. What can be done to prevent liars and cheats misrepresenting archaeological material in the United States? Perhaps they need to introduce some form of Portable Antiquities Scheme there before insisting that other countries adopt something like it.
It does not however work that way, because in the milieu of portable antiquity collectors the world over are greedy self-centred individuals who care little about where the items they covet come from. The "best" Native American sites (richest, easier to find and dig) in the US are often on public land.
We saw an example of this in southern Utah, where 24 people were recently arrested for illegal activities concerning Native American antiquities. This case has received wide publicity pour encourager les autres and there has been some reaction on the associated forums. This material is useful to give those of us not from rural Utah an insight into the collecting mentality and what has been going on in portable antiquity collecting circles. In particular, the affadavit to the search warrant issued in the case of schoolteacher Dave Lacy published online by two US news media organizations gives us the information based on the investigating officer’s “knowledge, experience and information provided by other law enforcement officers” concerning artefact hunting and the antiquities trade in the area.Given the discussion that has been going on with US collectors of ancient coins removed from foreign archaeological sites on documenting provenance of the ancient items being offered for sale, my attention was caught by the issue of documentation of provenance in this milieu. It is, however, a complex matter. Apparently, in this milieu in the US engaged in the collecting of this sort of portable antiquity:
“objects typically are sold with a letter or provenance which acts as a sort of title document. Letters of provenance usually list the individual who found the item, usually the location where it as found, and include assurances that the item was not illegally collected from public or Indian lands.” (Affadavit pointThis is interesting, it suggests that in one part of the portable antiquity collecting community in the US due to the structure of the legislation the maintenance of documentation for the legal origin of objects in the collection is standard practice for law abiding collectors and dealers, which makes even more incomprehensible the refusal of collectors of other types of portable antiquity prone to contamination with illicitly obtained material (like ancient coins) to maintain such documentation.
13).
The problem is not so straightforward however, since - depite the abundant opportunities to collect archaeological material without any conflict with the law - in the collecting of archaeological material from the US there are unscrupulous law-breakers too. The same text notes that
“Individuals who deal in stolen archaeological objects are usually very careful to disguise the site of origin. This is usually done by identifying the site of origin as leased and/or private property” (Affadavit points 13 and 17).The affadavit goes on to describe how in some cases a blank letter of provenance form may be supplied by the buyer for the seller to complete with false provenance details. This is what allegedly happened in a transaction which reportedly occurred in December 2007 in Blanding, Utah, when the accused man Dave Lacy offered the individual (“the Source”) working undercover for the FBI several items from his collection. The deal was made (over six thousand dollars were paid for four groups of artifacts) and
The problem is that when he indicated the true origin of the items, a blanket, a digging stick and knife, they had come from other sites, including public land.“Lacy asked the source if he had something for him to sign. The Source provided Lacy with a Letter of Provenience. The source stated that lacy needed to put private property as the location where the artifacts were found. Lacy then listed a private property location, Eugene Guyman’s land Mustang Mesa and signed the false letter of provenience”.
The document alleges that in a second sale of artefact by the same person took place in the middle of January involved organic finds from several different sites (loincloth, menstrual pad, basket, sandals) and a pot. Two of the sandals came from a burial in Cottonwood Wash (an area mentioned in a previous prosecution case), while the pot was in fact from a piece of private property and was thus a licitly obtained find. The affadavit alleges:
Lacy filled out a letter of provenance stating that all the above items were found on “Preston Nielsons property (Westwater) ”. Lacy then signed this fraudulent Letter of Provenience.It should be noted that one of the items in this group (the pot) could apparently have been sold under its real provenence, but it was given a false one at the time of the sale by the digger (Affadavit points 24-28). This means that as it passes throught successive private collections, it will perpetuate the deceit that it comes from to an archaeological site which in fact does not exist.
If these sorts of practice are at all prevalent in US pot-digging circles, it means that even here any letters of provenience indicating which cannot be independently verified are suspect. What can be done to prevent liars and cheats misrepresenting archaeological material in the United States? Perhaps they need to introduce some form of Portable Antiquities Scheme there before insisting that other countries adopt something like it.
Vignette: Some of the sites mentioned in the case (source Salt Lake Tribune)
7 comments:
I suspect there's very little overlap between the American collectors of ancient coins and the American collectors of Native American artifacts (it's a big country), so it's not really surprising that the two groups would differ in their attitudes.
Thanks for the comment, funnily enough I was going to settle down to writing something about that after lunch (it's raining, so I'm not going out for my walk). I think there are some interesting issues there and it has always puzzled me how collectors can see "two" pasts, "two" groups of collectors ("them"[bad] and "us" [good]), so I thought I'd explore it in the light of the recent comments from the "coineys" about the Sisto case contrasted with the other FBI investigation in the news at the moment. There is one past and surely only a limited number of ways collectors can interact with it (or whatever it is they do with it) by collecting relices of it. After all in the UK collectors gather material from the landscape around them and they are often displayed alongside other more exotic stuff from eBay (a sort of a mini, domestic, "universal museum"). Being a "big country" I do not think is the full explanation.
I don't think it's so much a matter of "good" and "bad" collectors, from anyone's point of view, just very different groups of people (though there's surely some overlap). I don't know much about coin collectors, but judging from the fact that they seem to have organizations and so forth they seem a lot more open about what they do (though certainly not about the background to it) than pothunter types, who may have more in common with the metal-detectorist crowd in the UK.
As I think about it now, though, I think it may be more that the collectors themselves are pretty similar, and may be the same people to some extent, but they're different from the people who are actually going out and digging up the stuff (whether in the US or in Europe), who have more in common with each other. The diggers may collect themselves, of course, but probably not in the same way. One way or another, the fanciest stuff gets to the wealthiest collectors.
This is related to something else about the Blanding indictments that I think is important: that there are really two types of artifact collecting in the US. One is picking up potsherds, arrowheads, etc., and keeping them as part of a personal collection. This is pretty easy to do in many parts of the southwest, including the Blanding area, and it's a pretty widespread hobby. Depending on where the stuff is found, it can even be legal, but it usually isn't. People who do it are not necessarily aware of the legal issues involved. The people in Blanding being quoted in news reports expressing their outrage at the indictments talk about how harmless collecting is; they're talking about this sort of thing. It's damaging to the archaeological record, for sure, but otherwise not generally considered a very big deal.
The other kind, however, is the organized looting of well-preserved sites for the rather shady artifact market. This is what the Blanding indictments are about. This is big-money stuff, and the end target is the big-time collectors rather than local pothunters' own collections. These looters are armed and well-aware that what they do is illegal. Very little of this sort of thing is on private land, so while it's theoretically possible for a valuable artifact of this sort to be obtained legally it's extremely unlikely. This makes it pretty difficult to crack down on if people are falsifying documentation.
Not that I would say the first type of collecting is "good," of course. One of the main effects it has is to desensitize people to collecting in general, which lets the bigger collectors and the looters feeding their desires get away with more than they could if public opinion were more consistently against them.
I'm now unsure how this relates to the market in foreign antiquities, but I'm sure there are some similarities. There's also a whole strain of racism and exoticism running through all of this.
Thanks for your comments.
I don't think it's so much a matter of "good" and "bad" collectors, from anyone's point of view,
You’ve apparently not been hanging around US collectors of ancient coins much. They present themselves as an elite engaged in scholarly research (all of ‘em) and “spreading the word” among the hoi polloi about classical culture and “respect” for cultures and the past (sic). Have a look at the ACCG stuff. All nonsense of course, but they claim quite seriously to be quite separate from US pot-diggers and arrowhead collectors (and UK metal detectorists) when a comparison is drawn. They will tell you they look down on them almost as much as they obviously look down on and despise archaeologists, museums staff, conservationists and legislators. Even European “metal detectorists” that collect ancient coins are not really treated by them as “real” ancient coin collectors.
I tried to find some quotes yesterday but got sidetracked (it stopped raining).
The Blanding arrests have received next to no attention on the forums of those collecting ancient artefacts. Presumably collectors of shabtis, Cypriote pottery, oil lamps and dubious cycladic figurines do not (prefer not to) see this as in any way connected with their own purchases.
This is to my mind a false dichotomy and part of a series of self-deceptions which underlie the collecting ethos.
but judging from the fact that they seem to have organizations and so forth they seem a lot more open about what they do Ummm, well, er… I think if you are talking about collectors of US coinage, OK (except there has been a conspiracy of silence about the extent of highly deceptive fakes in fake slabs which is slowly being admitted). If we are talking about the market in ancient coins, I could not disagree with you more. They are engaged in covering up what is going on, take a closer look and ask why.
Gamblershouse wrote: there are really two types of artifact collecting in the US. One is picking up potsherds, arrowheads, etc., and keeping them as part of a personal collection. […] It's damaging to the archaeological record, for sure, but otherwise not generally considered a very big deal.
This is where it would be helpful to set up something like the Portable Antiquities Scheme to gather records of where people are finding things and to educate the public on the issues involved in collecting in general and the value of gathering information like this to get a better view of the historical landscape.
After all, as we have seen here, some US collectors are demanding that other “source countries” should do it, so let’s see them demand that the US do it first. The CCPIA demands that petitioning countries demonstrate they are protecting the archaeological record from exploitation, can the US? (rhetorical)
You suggest a dichomy between hobby collector and commercial artefact hunter. I get the impression from what I read (both the news coverage and the forum discussion attached to it) that some of the Blanding pot hunters (both those in the case and others) do in fact have their own collections, and what they are selling is material which is surplus to it. So its like what UK metal detectorists do.
There's also a whole strain of racism and exoticism running through all of this. I’ve been trawling through the dozens of pages of comments on the Salt Lake Tribune on the Blanding bust looking at what people there are saying to try and understand the background. It’s eye-opening stuff, shattering a few illusions.
while it's theoretically possible for a valuable artifact of this sort to be obtained legally it's extremely unlikely. So we come back down to the ethics of the individual collector and the degree to which they will scrutinize the provenance of an offered item. If the collector really does not care, the looting and falsification goes on.
Not that I would say the first type of collecting [surface collection, arrowheads etc] is "good," of course. One of the main effects it has is to desensitize people to collecting in general, which lets the bigger collectors and the looters feeding their desires get away with more than they could if public opinion were more consistently against them. which is exactly how I see UK policies on artefact hunting with metal detectors and the exploitation of British archaeological sites as sources of collectables for entertainment and profit. It is entirely because of this that we rarely see any activity directed at the market of illicit antiquities of which Britain is one of the centers – to the shame of the British who cannot be bothered to tackle the problem properly.
Yeah, as I was writing the previous comment it occurred to me that we're probably not disagreeing at all. Obviously I don't spend much time around coin collectors (most of what I know about them is through your blog, actually), so I'll take your word on their attitudes and activities. I do definitely agree that to the extent that they claim to be totally dissociated from looters and such they're totally wrong. It's all the same ecosystem, and the different players have different roles in it but are dependent on each other for its continued viability.
Obviously I don't spend much time around coin collectors (most of what I know about them is through your blog, actually), so I'll take your word on their attitudes and activities.
whooops!! There'll be a copy of "Celator" and Alfredo De La Fe's "Journal of Ancient Numismatics" on its way to that man in the next post I warrant.
Shame on you "Gamblershouse", check out the ACCG website and the ACCG-supporters' blogs (Sayles, Welsh, Tompa, Lueke, de La Fe, McGarigle at least) for yourself and see if it is not as I say. Don't rely on hearsay, that's what the "coineys" do.
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