http://www.ajaonline.org/sites/default/files/1171_Proulx.pdf
Artifact Looting, Theft and Smuggling
Expedition Magazine | Archaeological Looting
and while one may be able to post links about professionals in the field "looting", it is rare and that person will never be certified to excavate again.
Yeah well...One certainly can...that was one page of a quick google search....and it is interesting that you think that when a regular citizen takes something it is looting, but when a professional does it is "looting". The professional archaeologists that stole are just as much a looter as anyone else...EXCEPT...they are supposed to be protecting the sites they loot...so I think to a lot of people, would consider that, at least morally, a little worse.
Again, Human greed is human greed, whether you have a PHD, work in a museum, or are some kind of meth head....but a lot of people want to post all these links about looting, and throw up the two recent cases of arrests, and label everyone without grant money in their pockets as looters, but when you turn the tables and show that it happens on both sides, it's "rare".
My county used to have mounds all over it...but they are mostly all gone....looters? No...the state bulldozed them, hauled them off, and used them for road beds. And Mound Park Hospital in St. Petersburg? Well, it's Bayfront Health now...and the mound? Progress once again obliterates history.
The point is...again...the looter and grave robber labels can be applied to all parties involved if you want...the difference is, the pro-Isolated Finds and permit side, is open minded enough to see both sides and make a common sense evaluation on the subject, whereas, the other side is sticking to their indoctrinated beliefs that they are the only ones that should be allowed to touch anything remotely ancient (like 50 years old pennies).
I believe sites are looted every day. I believe that something should be done about it. I think a projectile point on the river bottom between some fishing sinkers, some beer cans, and a bicycle wheel is out of context, and will never be excavated and studied by a professional archaeologist. I think the current laws in Florida are over-reaching, and the tactics and penalties are over-bearing. I think the biggest threat to all sites in Florida (now that we don't build roads out of them), is construction, logging, and the lack of any professional interest in them, until after they are looted. I believe that someone that buys a point on Craigslist, then sells it on Ebay isn't a looter. I believe someone that picks up an isolated find isn't a looter. I believe that a professional archaeologist that steals from a site is a looter and not a "looter".
You are free, of course, to keep posting links to stories about how looting occurs, and how archaeologists don't like looters, but we don't need convincing...We get it. This conversation...once again...is about the lack of the Isolated Finds Program, the current Florida law, and the FWC's tactics.
And I hate to have to lay it out...but...that was humor...not arrogance...
