IS IT FAIR TO DIG RELICS

[gnewt]

I would say yes, if it is not on sacred ground. Sacred ground is not always marked and some burials were done by white man or enemy and the people were put in a hole or burned. Most laws are against digging. I disagree with the law but we must obey them. Personally I have a fear of digging. I have a friend that dug years ago and has a beautiful collection of Creek and Hillabee tracks. Over the years my tracks are hidden, on rocks and beechnut trees. They are now 70 years old. I admire peoples collections.
I hope the law is changed and people can research, find history and identify burials, even put some kind of a mark down. I think most people on this net would jump at the chance. I'll bet that would get some group action going. I talked with the chief of the Cherokee in NC and I am sure he would love to see this. Anyone want to go to Washington get this started.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Cry Of The Eagle: History And Legends Of The Cherokee Indians And Their Buried Treasure - Grab it through Amazon!

[Cannonman17]

I guess I think it's a lot more complicated than what you make it sound. We can't just go to Washington and say let us dig because there are always going to be people who take it too far and dig everything they can without care because they are greedy... these greedy people that have no respect for the past are the reason these laws come to pass to start with. That and the fact that there are still a good many places where it's perfectly leagal to dig until your heart is content if it's on private property and you're not grave robbing.

 

[kuger]

I keep saying to myself I am done here and I am(after I am done defending myself)but I personally think it is wrong to dig,if it is meant to be found then it will be readily made available on the surface.However I am not going to tell anybody what they can and cant do,according to me! I must ask though,these fellows that seem so worried about archaeologists learning from there finds,dont you think when you remove an artifact all that can be learned from their precise location and depth,etc. is lost??Archeologists dig uniform trenches and thoroughly record all this information.

 

[Pepper2004]

I never dig. All my finds are on top of the ground. To me they are "gifts" from Mother Nature. If I dug them I would feel like I would be stealing.

 

[gnewt]

I am not a collector, I have a fear of getting into sacred ground . And there are some very wise people in here that open my eyes, I understand what you mean So my thoughts on this will change. If there is a chance of grave robbers, well we don't need to take the chance. Save the Law......

 

[gnewt]

Pepper, Those are not gifts from mother nature some old barefooted ancestor of mine dropped them outa that loin cloth hip pocket. LOL hi u

 

[Cannonman17]

I keep saying to myself I am done here and I am(after I am done defending myself)but I personally think it is wrong to dig,if it is meant to be found then it will be readily made available on the surface.However I am not going to tell anybody what they can and cant do,according to me! I must ask though,these fellows that seem so worried about archaeologists learning from there finds,dont you think when you remove an artifact all that can be learned from their precise location and depth,etc. is lost??Archeologists dig uniform trenches and thoroughly record all this information.

I agree with you for the most part but there are tons of situations where digging/sifting is a good idea.. namely construction sites and places that are being built up, or in some cases in places where there is severe erosion, the whole thing is called salvage archaeology. Example, there was one place near the Wisconsin river where some people were putting up a house, there was a creek running into the river only a short distance away and when I seen the land getting cleared I stopped and talked to them.. I got the owners name and number and called and got permission to hunt the portion of land where the house was to be built. I ended up finding a few points and a lot of pottery... all of which would have been lost and if not, at the least all stratigraphy would have been lost because in this particular area nearly all the artifacts are within the top foot or so.

 

[gnewt]

Cannon
If you see something like that and get permission, you are on the job, saving that history, all I can say good for you . These new tracks are covering up the old ones if they are not saved. Hope every one caught this, thats important. Thanks,Gnewt

 

[Cannonman17]

I guess just to be fair I should also mention the other side of the coin, although this is only opinion. If you find a village site that has not been disturbed at all and is in no immediate danger of being destroyed or whatever then I personally would not dig it. Having worked on digs I realize how much information can be lost- of course if I have a village site on my own land.... well...... I might have to excavate it but I would probably do it by the books one square at a time. And already disturbed ground like farm fields and river bottoms I consider fair game

 

[Pepper2004]

Pepper, Those are not gifts from mother nature some old barefooted ancestor of mine dropped them outa that loin cloth hip pocket. LOL hi u

"boink"! They did not wear lion cloth. (no lions here at that time) buffalo, or, deer hides, or maybe nothing at all. lol...
I'm not condemning those who dig (except burial mounds). I'm just saying I don't do it. and hi u

 

[bean man]

I dug one time, only down about a foot, in my friends farm field where theres a camp. I decided after that, not to do it anymore. Afraid of bad mojo.

 

[gnewt]

Pepper , I can't spell on a computer, in fact I can't spell. My spell check takes the words I use and says allright....you cannot believe any thing it says . Gnewt

PS that should have been loyn cloth made out of burlap toe sacks.

 

[corklabus]

I find there are just too many laws and interpretive opinions about this hobby.
Also too many variations of the entire hobby itself.
Having just gotten interested in several aspects of the hobby, I also find that I'm not so sure about digging either.
It seems to me that everything is bent toward "archies" being able to hog everything for themselves and the proliferation of their personal carreer while hobbiests are the scum of the earth.
Fairness seems to have little to do with it. Fair to whom ?
I for one totally support the American Indian who believes that digging up his ancestors grave to study them is nothing more than legallized grave desecration and robbery. I also think accidental discoveries of such should be left alone or moved properly if progress require it.
Anything else should be left to the discretion of the individual. Too DIG without destructive disturbance shouldn't be considered wrong simply because it is a salvation of history that may never surface otherwise.
I personally have yet to touch anything tangible in the hobby beyond this stupid computer. I wouldn't know an arrowhead if it bounced off my head. I know nothing about coins and only know for sure that I live smack in the middle of some very serious Civil War history. I also live smack in the middle of what's known as The Midland Trail. Known for age old Indian occupation, travel and activity of all types. Therfore I have TWO topics of extremely strong interest without much more travel than walking out my front door. I have dug in my yard many times and found things not having the slightest idea what they were and covered them right back up. I know I have no qualms about deliberately digging for artifacts. Having found something, I think then it would be time for me to decide where fairness might influence it. My respect for the individual that may have been connected to that item would be my first consern.

 

[rocky]

Gnewt,

I think what you are asking is: where is the ethical boundary when you decide to collect a prehistoric relic. I am not sure what 'fair' means. It is not fair that I am not rich and handsome. It is not fair that I was not born 10,000 years ago. It is not fair that gas is less than $1/gal in the Arab countries. Societies try to decide what is ethical and it changes all the time. I know guys that had their picture in the paper back in the 1960s shovels in hand in front of a half dug mound and they were described as great adventurers like Indiana Jones. Today they would be described as looters or vandals.

There are state and federal laws dictating what can be collected and how. The laws still may not match an individual's ethical boundary either more or less stringent depending on who you are. And the laws are rarely enforced. In my area the most common fine handed out is when people try to excavate on Corp of Eng. lakes by one method or another. And I have seen huge surface collections from those same lakes from the 1960s and 70s when no one cared.

I have interacted with a few professionals over the years and most are not opposed to responsible collecting .... though you will never get a public statement to that effect. Responsible collecting means that you salvage artifacts that have lost archaeological context or might be lost forever, and you keep accurate records. I have shown them archaic camps that typically have thousands of years of changing culture mixed
into one layer where the rocks collect below the softer topsoil, and they have no interest since cultural context does not exist. Today many of these sites are being destroyed by the modern tree farming practice of plowing huge planting rows with large discs pulled behind bulldozers.

The public record from the mouths of professionals is all about preservation. The result of most news articles is to form two groups of people: preservationists and looters. Most people that I know who enjoy this hobby have a thirst for knowledge and are some of the only people who really care about the work professionals do. Sometimes it seems the professionals are more concerned about preserving their profession than about preserving artifacts. Publicly they will say they would rather artifacts wash into the silt bed of a lake than be in a private collection. One commonly heard accusation is that you are ripping pages from a history book by picking up relics. Well here is one paragraph from one page in one of my books; which could describe flakes found on any site:

The method of factoring employed was a principal-factor solution, with iterations, and an orthogonal varimax rotation was selected. Two factors representing different combinations of morphological attributes
were isolated. Although both factors are a function of flake size, Factor 1 accounted for the majority of variance (87.4%) while Factor 2 accounted for only 12.6% due to its low eigenvalue. Factor 1 is predominately a measure of bulk, with flake width, thickness, and thickness of the bulb of percussion scoring high loadings. Length, termination thickness, and maximum facet length had moderate loadings on Factor 1, which accounts for its high eigenvalue. Factor 2 scored high loadings for flake length and maximum facet length. It is quite understandable why these two variables of length would be highly intercorrelated, since long facets are not possible on short flakes. It is of some interest that flake width and
thickness seem more closely interrelated than length.

So, the next time you pick up that handful of flakes just think of the page you ripped out.

My final thought has to do with 'sacred' ground. I do not hold to that type of belief and most of history sides with me. Sacred is usually a frame of mind held for a brief time by a particular culture over a particular set of circumstances, or someone with a financial stake involved. Personally I do not care what happens to my remains after I die. We all turn to dirt eventually. The archaeological record indicates that Natives were not too particular either. I live in the area once occupied by the Caddo - until we drove them out to no mans land, and there are many examples of them digging early burials out of a mound to make way for a new body they must have felt was more important since the earlier bones were left strewn about. Human sacrifice was also part of their culture from time to time. They made trophies from the heads and mandibles of their enemies. I have seen a flute made from a human bone with elaborate engraving. It was not all 'dances with wolves' back then. Who gets to define what sacred is and what is sacred?

That's about all the philosophising I can put in one post.

Go find something, be ethical, record it, learn, and have fun.

ROCKY

 

[Cannonman17]

Rocky, VERY well spoken is all I can say..... I don't know about your page analogy and that page out of that book of yours but that's okay! LOL Is that quote from "Lithic Use-wear analysis"?

 

[rocky]

Cannonman,

That paragraph is from a book titled FANCY HILL about a site in southwest Arkansas. I could give you a thousand more such non-sensical gobbledygook from other professional site reports I have. The point is that much of what the pros do consists of micro analysis of one flake against another or one pot sherd against another, and 9,999 out of 10,000 people who pay their salary will never be able to interpret what they wrote or care. But they do not want you to pick it up even though its washed down in a gully.

I just think there is plenty of opportunity to apply some common sense with regard to letting people collect artifacts.

ROCKY

 

[Cannonman17]

No need to reiterate, I understand and agree, well put. And again your example of the flake analysis is a bit over the top as whoever wrote that was simply enjoying an exercises in writing I think... not all archaeologist put out garbage like that.

 

[gnewt]

This has become a very eye opening post, thanks again. I think Archaeology has grabbed my interest, I do not collect, I give them away. I would love to work on one of those historical sites and look for history, that is my intrest. I don't have the greed of hoarding those tracks of history for myself. I know other people do and I love to look at them. I'm kinda weird. Ya'll keep hunting and showing me what you found, I love it. Gnewt

 

[Pepper2004]

Pepper , I can't spell on a computer, in fact I can't spell. My spell check takes the words I use and says allright....you cannot believe any thing it says . Gnewt

PS that should have been loyn cloth made out of burlap toe sacks.

My spell checker is awful too and I can't spell. I was just teasing you btw.

 

[gnewt]

Bless you anyway dotter, and I love your posts, I don't care what all em uthers is a saying. Gnewt