Why no USPAS?

Wayne Sayles reckons that he's got it sussed. He "knows" why preservationists question whether Britain's Portable Antiquities Scheme is the solution to Britain's problem with the erosion of the archaeological record by artefact hunters. According to him (February 1, 2014 at 4:30 PM):

"The problem with the UK system, from a Cultural Property Nationalist's (sic) view is that it gives more than just lip service to individual rights."

Well, it is not exactly cultural property nationism to want to conserve the archaeological resource, any more than it is pachidermal nationalism to want to prevent elephant populations being decimated by ivory hunters. That aside, if the PAS is the ultimate expression of individual rights, why is it not applied in the US? We read on a metal detecting forum that the archaeological preservation legislation of Texas "tramples" those very "rights" (quoting here from Dick Stout's standard-setting blog February 2, 2014 at 11:21 am):

 It is the public policy and in the public interest of the State of Texas to locate, protect, and preserve all sites, objects, buildings, pre-twentieth century shipwrecks, and locations of historical, archeological, educational, or scientific interest, including but not limited to prehistoric and historical American Indian or aboriginal campsites, dwellings, and habitation sites, archeological sites of every character, treasure imbedded in the earth, sunken or abandoned ships and wrecks of the sea or any part of their contents, maps, records, documents, books, artifacts, and implements of culture in any way related to the inhabitants, pre-history, history, natural history, government, or culture in, on, or under any of the land in the State of Texas, including the tidelands, submerged land, and the bed of the sea within the jurisdiction of the State of Texas. [http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/NR/htm/NR.191.htm].

Preserving and protecting them among other things from hoiking all the metal small finds and "relics" from them with a metal detector for personal entertainment and profit. As the metal detectorist says (February 2, 2014 at 4:55 pm):

Texas is one of those states where you go detecting, keep your finds to yourself and move on [...] the good ole boys here in the state capital decided that it was the way to go and as a result they lose out. The Texas Antiquities law is the worst of any I’ve seen.

So far nobody in sixty odd comments to the post discussing recording has remarked on the notion that one would be breaking the law for a Texan tekkie to hoik, keep finds and move on to the next protected site. Still, what do we expect? Metal detectorists.

Obviously, in such a situation, supporting US "collectors rights" surely can only logically imply for the "collectors rights" advocates scrapping the existing restrictive legislation in states like Texas and replacing it by a liberty-loving-England-style free-for-all Treasure Act. Then we would "see the US public benefiting from the artefacts in sites on public lands".

The "collectors rights" organization which Mr Sayles heads goes further. The ACCG says source states such as Cyprus, Bulgaria, Italy and Greece "should adopt" a system of heritage management mirroring the British system. They imagine this would increase the availability of collectables on the market, and transparently that is their only real interest in the matter. Indeed they actually (and repeatedly) imperiously urge that the CPAC and State Department should make the introduction of something like the PAS at a condition for any further co-operation in the fight against illicit movements of cultural property. They want to enforce acceding to the needs of American collectors and dealers on those source countries and impose upon them "the American system". Except that is NOT the American system. America has ARPA and local statutes like the one that so troubles Texan tekkies. Quite willing to DEMAND its imposition on other countries with pre-existing legislation, the American collectors are not at all prepared to attempt to enforce it at home first.  Why not?

Well, it turns out that American metal detectorists don't really want one. They are doing fine without one, many of them hoiking, keeping finds and moving on to the next protected site. They do not need anyone looking over their shoulder, they do not feel the need to explain themselves to anyone. Individual liberties, you see, they are different from the Brits. Special. Oh, they show a few relics to someone, most often one feels if they can get some kudos from it (like the guy with the James VI shilling the other day, got a pat on the head from a guy with a PhD and got his name in the papers), or if there's money in it. 

The other reason that they'll not push for a US PAS is it's just too expensive (especially as it would have minimal takeup like the Florida Isolated Finds program which foundered after a decade). As Peter Tompa notes on his favourite metal detectorist's blog (February 4, 2014 at 6:04 pm)

 Any thought the federal or even state governments would create a new bureaucracy to support such a program is unrealistic given current budget realities. 

So, he is quite happy to demand the imposition of such an expense on the small countries of south and eastern Europe, but realises that this is beyond the USA.  I think this well illustrates the underlying hypocrisy of the ACCG arguments and Witschonke Premise.