Digging Under Houses: Facing the Crisis

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In his comments to a blog post on PACHI (and repeated on his own lobbyist blog) US Lobboblogger Peter Tompa expresses outrage that "the Egyptian cultural bureaucracy wants to control more than they can or should (even what you find under your own house!)". This was a response to the video which showed how houses had collapsed, killing people because their foundations were undermined by artefact hunters. Obviously the dealers' advocate wants us to agree with him that the destruction of nationally important non-renewable resources should be allowed on private property. The Spike network TV company responded here to criticisms of their American Digger televised artefact grabfest in a similar manner saying: “If property owners sign off, then it is legal–landowners can do whatever they choose with artifacts found on their land. That’s the argument Shana Tepper, spokesperson for Spike TV, made to Science Insider. “Our show is shot on private property,” she said.  .  As noted on another blog, ('Using National Archaeology Day as a Response to American Digger', Archaeology, Museums and Outrreach blog, March 5, 2012) this private property rationale is reminiscent of the Slack Farm debacle of the 1980s. This notorious case in Kentucky even has a Wikipedia article about it: In 1987 the ten looters of Slack Farm paid $10,000 to a new landowner of the Slack Farm property for the right to dig at the site. After renting a tractor, the ten individuals spent two months destroying hundreds of Native American graves, Mississippian culture houses, and unknown other artifacts. Local complaints by the people of Uniontown led to the arrest of the perpetrators [...] Prosecution on this charge was difficult in the late 1980s, in part because this predated the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and related state legislation, which made it clearer that such activities were illegal. The looting of Slack Farm contributed to the passage of more stringent laws in the state of Kentucky relating to the protection of burials, sacred grounds, and indigenous/archaeological sites. The damage done to Slack Farm attracted worldwide attention [...] prompting widespread outcry against illicit removal of antiquities. More than 400 graves had been disturbed, left with mounds of dirt with pieces of human bone beside the gaping holes. There was a rather explicit article in the National Geographic Magazine about the Slack Farm looting. See “Who Owns Our Past?”, by Harvey Arden, National Geographic, Vol. 175, no. 3 (March 1989), pp 376-390. This tragic case was instrumental in Congress taking an interest in protecting sites, and eventually the passage in 1990 of the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, an oddity in its own right. In the west of the USA large areas of land, in part containing ancient sites, are  federal land and the sites are protected (the Four Corners case reveals how loosely) on that basis.

In the east there is little federal land, many states have, in the last ten to 15 years, either passed laws strengthening previous antiquity acts, or enacted legislation dealing specifically with looting of graves. These are the laws the Task Force for metal Detecting Rights are trying to get overturned so they can take artefacts from the historical record for their own personal use. Another feature added to legislation at this time (in a section of ARPA),  makes it a federal crime to transport antiquities across state lines which are taken in violation of state law.

Exactly fourteen years ago today an article was published online by the Archaeological Institute of America on looting in the U.S. (Hester Davis, 'Facing the Crisis' Archaeological Institute of America July 1, 1998) which puts the "on private property, innit?" argument into a wider perspective. It seems lobboblogger Cultural Property Observer has not observed it yet. Some of the text brings a wry smile to the lips (look at the bit about Earl Shumway), but it's worth a look.

In the meanwhile, in the light of Mr Tompa's evident belief that any man has the right to go tunnelling under their house without any interference from the authorities,  if his neighbbours see Mr Tompa emerging from his basement wheeling a series of barrows full of earth, they might be wise to ask him just what he's doing and in which direction he is tunnelling. Just in case. 

Photo:  Looter trenches on private property at Slack Farm, Kentucky USA in 1987