.
In a recent case over in the USA a number of people who were actually observed trashing archaeological sites, destroying contexts, disturbing graves to get saleable ancient artefacts got sentences of six months probation and a wrist slap. Mr Landau found out though that if you move a few relatively modern documents from one place to another, you get seven years in prison AND three years' "supervision". Of course many of the displaced documents had the signatures of the White Man's presidents on them, not the results of the carefree destruction of the material cultural record of 'injun' history, which apparently counts there for much less in the judicial system. That probably goes a long way to explaining the lack of understanding of the issues surrounding dugup artefacts in general.
Rick St Hilaire: 'Landau's Theft of Historical Documents Earns Time Behind Bars', June 27, 2012.
In a recent case over in the USA a number of people who were actually observed trashing archaeological sites, destroying contexts, disturbing graves to get saleable ancient artefacts got sentences of six months probation and a wrist slap. Mr Landau found out though that if you move a few relatively modern documents from one place to another, you get seven years in prison AND three years' "supervision". Of course many of the displaced documents had the signatures of the White Man's presidents on them, not the results of the carefree destruction of the material cultural record of 'injun' history, which apparently counts there for much less in the judicial system. That probably goes a long way to explaining the lack of understanding of the issues surrounding dugup artefacts in general.
Rick St Hilaire: 'Landau's Theft of Historical Documents Earns Time Behind Bars', June 27, 2012.
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