[MSN] Artifact Looters Have Legal Loophole. No federal or state law protects an archaeological site on private property.

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Published Sunday, January 7, 2007

Artifact Looters Have Legal Loophole
No federal or state law protects an archaeological site on private property.

By S.I. ROSENBAUM
St. Petersburg Times


The men caught digging for ancient stone tools Thursday will face charges of
trespassing and damaging private property.

But they weren't breaking any law simply by digging up antiquities.

Contrary to what law enforcement officials said initially, no federal or
state law protects an archaeological site on private property unless it
contains human remains, state Fish and Wildlife Officer Alton Still said
Friday.

Archaeologist Robert Austin, who first excavated the eastern Hillsborough
County site in 2000, said that legal gap allows looters to plunder Florida's
rich archaeological heritage.

"I don't think there's a major site in Florida that doesn't have some
evidence of looting," he said.

A spokeswoman for the landowner, KB Home, said the company would press
charges against the five men: Joe Clifton, 54, Ellis Wayne Jenkins, 42, and
Mark Andrew Rose, 51, all of Lakeland, and Randall Betts, 49, and Phillip
Swain, 19, both of Thonotosassa.

The Thonotosassa group and the Lakeland men told officers they didn't know
each other.

"We were in the wrong place at the wrong time," Rose said Friday. "We got
caught in this whirlwind."

The site of the arrests is one of the most scientifically significant in the
county, Austin said.

That's saying a lot: The region is dotted with the archaeological remains of
human habitation - some as much as 12,000 years old.

Back then, Austin said, people were drawn to Tampa Bay for the same reason
they are now: waterfront property and good job opportunities.

Thonotosassa in particular once stood at the edge of marshland rich with
game.

Flint deposits drew toolmakers, who chipped the stones into exquisitely
shaped knives and arrowheads.

Austin and his group, Southeastern Archaeological Research, first excavated
part of the site just north of Interstate 4 at the request of a firm seeking
to lay a gas pipe.

The law requires an archaeological survey whenever a company seeks a federal
or state development permit, Austin explained.

As he dug, he got excited: A geological quirk of the site had preserved
animal bones, charcoal and the traces of 4,000-year-old wooden structures.

In most parts of Hillsborough County, the acidic soil long ago dissolved
artifacts, Austin said. But the Thonotosassa site is sloped and rich with
iron, allowing bones to fossilize over the millenia.

"The exciting thing was seeing that we had so much potential to really
reconstruct the past," he said.

Even in 2000, there were signs of looters.

But it was worse when Austin returned to the 56-acre tract in 2004 to
excavate another 15 acres at KB Home's request.

This time, Austin said, looters were so brazen that they were sometimes
digging alongside his scientists.

"The first week or so we just left them alone," he said. "I'm not going to
get into being a policeman."

But more damage came after the second week, he said.

"We'd dug nice, square excavation units. We'd leave at 5 o'clock and come
back the next day and all our units had been dug into, the walls gouged out,
the floors gouged out, I mean totally destroyed. . That pretty much
infuriated me."

Security at the site will be stepped up, KB Home spokeswoman Cara Kane said.

So-called "pot hunters" or "artifact poachers" are common throughout the
state, Austin said. Some keep their trophies but others sell them to
collectors, flea markets and antiquities dealers.

Not everyone who deals in artifacts is a looter, Austin stressed.

"I know a lot of good collectors, (and) I don't have a problem with people
walking along the beach and picking up an artifact," he said.

On Friday, Rose said that was what he and his friends were after.

They're in the building business, had found arrowheads at construction sites
and were interested in finding more, he noted.

To him, he said, artifact hunting seemed like just another outdoor hobby.
And after seeing the prior damage done by others, it's a former hobby.

"As far as what I saw over there, I don't want any part of that. That place
was a mess," Rose said.

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