Afarensis

Martin wrote an interesting post about Swedish protection of archaeological sites. Chris responded with a post on the situation in the US. Martin Then responded with a follow up post that raises some interesting questions. Chris mentioned in the comments that he would try to answer Martin's comments in another post (which is not up yet, but I am eagerly waiting for). In the meantime, I thought I would put my two cents in, as we have had a couple of cases in Missouri that are similar to some of the situations Martin asked about.

I should state at the outset that I have not done any salvage archaeology (or, if you prefer, cultural resource management). Back when I was a grad student I did take a class in CRM, not that that makes me an expert. I bring this up because when I took the class our instructor gave us two packets of course material. The first packet contained a large number of academic and scholarly works on CRM. The second contained all the laws regarding archaeology and preservation that the instructor could find. The packet covered both federal and state laws (mainly state laws in Tennessee and North Carolina), the federal section was the largest. At any rate, when Martin and Chris wrote their posts I started looking through the Missouri Revised Statutes for state laws regarding archaeological sites. So far what I have found is disappointing. For example, the law concerning prehistoric burials is tucked away in a larger section dealing with the disposition of human remains, anatomical donations, etc,. Another section of Missouri law gives the Department of Natural Resources the responsibility for preservation efforts and a third section discusses shipwrecks. I am still looking for other relevant Missouri laws. In the meantime, for the archaeologists in my audience, it would be interesting to hear what the state laws are in other states (say with links to the relevant laws).

So let's look at some of Martin's questions.

One of the older, rarely heard, nicknames for the city of St. Louis is "Mound City". This is because, once upon a time, St. Louis had a large mound group - only slightly smaller than Cahokia. Over the years, as the ciy of St. Louis grew, these mounds were bulldozed. Out in the county, there are also a large number of mounds relating to both Hopewell and Mississippian occupants. Some have been excavated, some have been destroyed by development, but some remain. The city of Chesterfield (a municipality in St. Louis County) was recently asked to something to protect them because:

While the city already has a law making it a crime to destroy or vandalize historic cemeteries, the law may not protect prehistoric ones, and "it's fitting to extend these protections to earlier, unmarked cemeteries,"

There are several problems in creating such a law:

Councilman Barry Flachsbart wondered whether mounds on private property could be disturbed during future development.

"Sometimes, you can," Leach said. "There are ways of relocating and reburying human remains. For instance, two such mounds in the Fenton area were excavated and removed to make way for the Gravois Bluffs (shopping center). Any law the city would consider wouldn't prohibit development but call for specific treatment of human burials."

*snip*

He told Councilman Dan Hurt the crux of any legislation would be protecting the mounds and an area around them.

"Defining 'around' will be the toughest part," Leach said. He said he has asked local universities' archaeologists to aid in that definition.

"(At one mound on land owned by a local school), the property around it was excavated in 1994 by UMSL archaeologists," Leach said. "They found some human remains within 15 feet of the mound, which was about five meters high and 40 meters long and wide. It was calculated that it took about 186,000 basket loads of soil to build it. But they also excavated a six-building mortuary complex associated with that mound that had human remains and were 132 feet from the mound. You just don't know what's under the ground."

He said the goal of legislation would be to prevent vandalism and raiding of burial grounds - not to impede development of a site.

One of the lessons from the above is that, by and large, cultural preservation is left to local government (you can see this in some of the stories I talk about, also here) which frequently do not have the resources or the know how to protect these sites (Chesterfield is an exception, they do have an ongoing survey with an eye towards preservation). Martin asked:

My post didn't say much about sites and land development. Does the US evaluation of an area in advance of e.g. a road development differ with regard to who owns the land? Can the authorities force private land owners to admit archaeologists for surveying in such a case? In Sweden, a road or gas pipeline development will usually operate with a wide corridor of potential placement in the early stages of the project, and then the final placement within the corridor will be influenced by the results of archaeological and biodiversity evaluations. Which of course cover the entire corridor regardless of who happens to own the land.

If the land is being developed commercially, i.e. shopping malls, housing tracts, etc., then they are required to do an environmental impact statement, which includes impact on archaeological sites. In the case of a developer finding archaeological material during the course of construction State law requires that the survey be done and any remedy takes place within thirty days of the discovery of an archaeological site. In other words, if you are bulldozing a site and discover a burial, archaeologists have thirty days to do something about it. In this case, to look at part of question 2, trespassing would not be an issue. However, if I'm a farmer I can do whatever I want on my property (yes, you did hear that correctly). In this latter case, trespassing would be an issue, so the land would show up as a white spot in an archaeological survey - unless the archaeologist had permission to be on the land.

Martin also asked:

What happens if a member of the public makes a clearly prehistoric find on federally owned land, without digging or damaging anything, and alerts the local authorities? For instance, a collection of lithics from the erosion slope of a stream gully or the edge of a quarry. (I'm sure he or she would not be held in error.) Who owns such finds?

Technically, NAGPRA would kick in. The cultural affiliation of the artifacts would be determined and the artifacts would be repatriated - or placed in a museum. Consider the following, however. Eric Henley and his sons were out hunting for Native American artifacts. Mr. Henley has been doing this for about 13 years. On this particular day, Mr. Henley and his sons were looking on a gravel bar on the Missouri and found a rather large fish hook. The fish hook has not been dated, but a St. Louis archaeologist estimates it could be anywhere from 300-12,000 years old (you can find the story here). The article doesn't mention whether they were on federal or state land and it doesn't sound like anybody is going to be prosecuting Mr. Henley for breaking any laws. So, who owns the fish hook?