Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

[ScubaFinder]

Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Ivan Salis had a great post about two men on a mountain, one on top looking down, the other at the bottom looking up. One sees a tall mountain, the other sees a deep valley, but they are both looking at the same ground. Both are "correct" on what they see from their standpoint, but both are wrong when viewed from the others standpoint....sound like anything we discuss here much? This story is a great analogy for archaeologists and treasure hunters.

I want this to be a CIVIL thread, no name calling or finger pointing. Leave the past out of it, and lets talk about the future and how we can make it better for both sides. I believe that there are good salvors (because I am one) who want to (or already do) use archaeological best practices from the initial search to the conservation of the last artifact. I also believe there are archaeologists who have an open enough mind to see that private companies can help them more than they hurt them. The great divide as I call it stems from the sale of artifacts. The archaeological community feels that artifacts should never, ever, under any circumstances be sold to an individual collector. The Treasure hunters for the most part believe in finders, keepers. There is another group, the one I claim...known as ethical, private archaeologists as coined by Doug Pope from Amelia Research.

I believe there IS common ground...maybe I'm an idiot, but I do believe it. :-) Here are my other beliefs, and I'd like to hear yours too, whichever side of the fence you stand on.

I believe archaeological standards should be followed on EVERY excavation. And they ARE being followed on the 1715 fleet, 1733 fleet, 1622 wrecks, everything I touched in the Dominican Republic and Belize, and most private salvage projects I have read about post 1980. There are pirates, there are unethical salvors too. These folks should never be granted permission from anyone to touch any part of history, and they should be arrested and fined heavily for doing so.

I believe that EVERYTHING pulled off of a shipwreck should be viewed, studied, photographed, and cataloged by the most qualified historian, specialist, or archaeologist available.

I believe EVERY artifact that is unique should find its way to a public venue like a museum, special collection, etc.

I believe that once a representative collection of "redundant artifacts" is assembled, including study collections sent to other universities and whatever else the archaeological community NEEDS, even if it's a large pile of many thousands of coins for a display....that the rest should NOT become a fiscal liability to the state or the tax payers. Storing, preserving, and securing 500,000 coins is a costly endeavor, and not a good use of the limited funding received by the archaeological community. Furthermore, there is no argument ever given by any archaeologist that convinces me that we need that many identical coins from a given shipwreck for study, education, display, or any other venue.

By "redundant Artifacts" I of course mean things where you find more of one exact item than archaeologists could ever need. The Pipe Wreck in Monte Cristi is a great example, over 30,000 clay pipes from one wreck...do the archaeologists really need 30,000 virtually identical clay pipes to get a good understanding of pipe-making procedures? Of course they don't, so what's wrong with a private collector owning one or two? I know for a FACT that every archaeologist who's worked on the wreck has a few of them in HIS personal collection, so why can't they be in mine? To avoid any future problems, there are 5 of them in my personal collection, and in Robert Stenuit's, and Simon Spooners, and Dr. E Lee Spence's, and Peter Throckmorton's, etc. etc. etc.

I believe that once the above conditions are satisfied, the additional coins, musket balls, pottery shards, etc. should be made available for sale, provided that the proceeds go towards funding further research and excavation of other shipwrecks. Think what the state of Florida could do if they kept their incredibly complete collection of Spanish Colonial Coins and all of their other unique and wonderful artifacts...but sold a few hundred thousand of the redundant coins in the vault in Tallahassee. They would have the funding that they lack now to go out and do some exploring of their own. Currently they are stuck at their desks while we do all the work, it's not hard to understand why they spend their time trying to regulate us to death. We would too if the tables were turned!

To break my question down...every archaeologist that I know has hundreds if not thousands of artifacts in his "personal collection". So why then do these same archaeologists condemn me for allowing others to have them in their personal collection. I don't want to sell artifacts to become rich, I want to sell them to fund more research, exploration, and discovery, and conservation of MORE artifacts.

The old argument that no artifact should ever be sold no matter what just doesn't hold up in today's economy. Government funding for historical operations is vanishing, and archaeology students are going to find a very challenging job market as they come out of schools. The wrecks are not in a state of equilibrium (one of the most absurd arguments I've ever heard) they are being destroyed by weather, looters, and the slow oxidation or consumption that occurs with everything laying in the ocean.

By selling a few of the artifacts that we don't need for study, we can save thousands more artifacts that we do need. Someone kindly explain to me the problem with that.

 

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[FISHEYE]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Its called hoarding.Its a sickness.Some people hoard everything,even things they dont need.Some hoard coins.cars,electronics and parts even food and fuel.The hoarders will never ever sell anything.Even when they are totally broke.Then when they die everything they hoarded either ends up in the land fill or sold real cheap at a garage sale or auction.

 

[Mackaydon]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

The discussion of 'redundant artifacts' off Spanish wrecks seems moot if Spain's confiscation policy remains legal.
Don.......

 

[ScubaFinder]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

John (Fisheye)...I have seen your backyard, so I understand hoarding. Not that i wouldn't like some of things I saw there, but I don't think it's a good way to start the thread by accusing the archaeologists of having a mental disorder. Some of them do, for sure, but most of the ones i know are not bad people at all, and are quite reasonable. We recently discussed how us calling them all ivory tower elitists and them calling us all grave-robbing looters will accomplish nothing, again I'm looking for CONSTRUCTIVE input.

Don, while i agree that there is Spanish greed in action...it was OUR government who let them get away with it. This is why I'm looking into moving to the Bahamas or back to the Dominican Republic. If I can't rely on my own judicial system, why am I here?

 

[Twisted One]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

I think there should be a middle ground perhaps a rating scale for historical significance. Those that meet a certain thresh hold on that scale are property of "The people" given to the local, and national museums depending on their rating on that scale. Anything below that thresh hold belong to the finder to do as he/she feels like doing with them, private collection, selling, whatever. The problem is going to be setting a scale.
The archaeologist tend to believe everything is important, and every item is part of a story to any other item, therefore they would never agree to it.

I feel the same way about locations, some sort of rating scale to determine whether it should require professional archaeologist. if it meets the thresh hold on the scale requiring an archaeologist then it should receive funding and get dug by archaeologist, if it is below that thresh hold then it should be open to treasure hunters.

If it is state or federal property maybe there should be some sort of selection system for the treasure hunters and tags handed out, much like deer hunting or fishing.

The problem with my theory, is two fold, one it will require everyone agreeing on a scale system, and setting of that thresh hold, and two it would most likely end up in requiring licensing and permits for the treasure hunters in order to accommodate the selection system.

 

[Twisted One]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

John (Fisheye)...I have seen your backyard, so I understand hoarding. Not that i wouldn't like some of things I saw there, but I don't think it's a good way to start the thread by accusing the archaeologists of having a mental disorder. Some of them do, for sure, but most of the ones i know are not bad people at all, and are quite reasonable. We recently discussed how us calling them all ivory tower elitists and them calling us all grave-robbing looters will accomplish nothing, again I'm looking for CONSTRUCTIVE input.

Don, while i agree that there is Spanish greed in action...it was OUR government who let them get away with it. This is why I'm looking into moving to the Bahamas or back to the Dominican Republic. If I can't rely on my own judicial system, why am I here?

ScubaFinder you are so very right, there are elitist attitudes on both sides, and then there is the majority on both sides being much more civil, and much more relaxed on the entire situation. The problem is everyone only hears the elitist, the others are not willing to post their opinions because they will be shot down by their colleges.
I have seen a very published, and well known computer scientist write an opinion paper on computer security and nobody would publish his works again. No reason other than they disagreed with what he put in his opinion paper.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

The scale system is an interesting idea. I do agree that getting together on the scale would be a tough sell. I have no problems with a permitting or licensing system, so long as the permits or licenses are actually available to those who can and will do the work. I see a very definite need to weed out a certain portion of the people who want to salvage a wreck, but I also see a good number of people who would do great work with little resources and would gladly ADD to the archaeological record, on their own dime. We should think more on your scale idea, it may have some merit to the archaeologists...who knows. A few will weigh in shortly.

Jason

 

[Twisted One]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Even if that licensing system required educational attributes, and perhaps some ethical training? Much like getting a hunting licenses, or drivers license? Classes teaching the legal aspects, ethical aspects, proper recovering techniques, etc... Almost like a crash course in archaeology?

 

[Mackaydon]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Jason,
I made no mention of 'Spanish greed'. To me it's the misconception of Spanish sovereignty over these artifacts and US courts buying into that argument is what irks me.
Don........

 

[Jon Phillips]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

In a perfect scenario...there should be a committee formed, with representatives from both sides of the issue, in order to go over the subject and set guidelines on what is proper in respect to artifact recovery and collecting/sales.

I would like for any state or federal archaeologist present there to be held just as accountable for their actions as anyone in the private sector would be. They like to call amatuer collectors "looters" and "grave robbers"....but I wonder how many graves the professionals have opened? How many human remains they have held in their hands? I would bet about 100% more than any amatuer that wasn't a criminal tresspasser and illegal collector (which is a crime anyway, and punishable by existing laws).

I would like for the professional archaeologists to be accountable for what they have done to further any knowledge of our past during their time in their state/federal (tax payer funded) position.

Have they found any sites that weren't already found by amatuers?
Have they published any books or articles that the average person can aquire and understand?
Have they learned anything new from any artifact that THEY have found in the field?
Have they made available the artifacts in their possession for public (taxpayer) viewing?

They work for us right?
What have they done on their "watch"?

I've said this before on here.....I have read and heard from multiple sources about the state park service actually renting metal detectors out at the Olustee Battlefield Park in the 1970's for visitors to recover bullets and whatever. There was nothing else to learn from that battle...it's all been documented since it happened. What a shift in perspective huh?!!!!

You can buy Civil War bullets at most museums in other states....

Some might also be aware of a certain history center in Florida that, upon one of it's moves, had a curator throw away bullets and buttons from their collection because it was just "junk", and there was nothing exciting about them! A fellow employee had to dig what he could out of the dumpster!

Or how about the new boat ramp at the fort site at St. Marks that went right through the soldiers graveyard. I understand that they put it in even with objections by the "amatuer historians". The dirt was hauled off and luckily...some "amatuer collectors" were able to metal detect the dirt and guess what? Handfulls of "U.S." coat buttons, strongly suggesting the presence of soldiers remains. Divers in the area have reported skeletal remains in the water in that area for years but who listens to amatuers?? The graveyard has been washing out for years, but was never desecrated until the state workers got ahold of it....but hey....now it's a lot nicer when you put your jetskis' in the water.

I can't think of one historical site on public land that wasn't discovered by an amatuer. (I'm talking about lost sites not obvious sites like St. Augustine and the like)

I believe the federal artifact regulation makes an exception for bullets and buttons...maybe coins...I can't remember...That is because they are unimportant to most archaeologists once a site is dated/studied, or is previously documented.

I believe much more can be learned from fossils than from historic artifacts on know sites.....but you can get an inexpensive fossil permit and collect all you want on state property that is not otherwise off limits.

You can hunt on public land...that means taking a gun in there and killing whatever is in season and removing it for your own use/enjoyment/or even profit.

The state sells logging rights to it's (our) land....logging companys come in, tear up the land, and remove trees for their own profit.

But if you remove an arrowhead from state land, you go to jail?

Things need to be put BACK into perspective, and elitist state employees need to relese their stranglehold on Florida's history.

A good example of private sector, historical preservation, can be seen in the Seminole Wars Foundation. On site study, preservation of historic sites, books published on a regular basis, archaeologists that are open-minded and accessible, willing to listen to other viewpoints, and friendly to the average layman.

If state archaeologist spent half as much time in the field as they do worrying about what amatuers are up to, who knows what we could learn about our history!

We as taxpayers and voters need to demand accountability from these public employees!

(Maybe have their own offices and homes searched for illeagally possesed state property!)

I know that there are rational, approachable, professional archaeologists that are probably embarassed by the more "extreme" ones...just like there are rational, ethical, amatuer collectors and historians, that are embarrased by the unethical ones.

We just need to find that common ground.

 

[FISHEYE]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Jason,

I didnt post anything about archaeologists.Also im not a hoarder.I am a collector.If i cant use what i collect,i sell it.Besides i cleaned up my yard to make room for better things that i can useAn no you cant have my submarine or my cannon.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Well, since our good friend Alexandre hasn't posted his thoughts here, I thought maybe I would post his thoughts that he posted on sub-arch a few days ago. To be honest I was hoping to get a good explanation of his standpoint, maybe even learn to understand his view better. This pretty much explains it:

"If I had to boil it down to one single thing, I would have to say that it were the cockroaches that finally did it for me.

Let me go back a bit. In 1995, I was 22 and had just been SCUBA certified. A high school biology teacher in Terceira Island, Azores, I was enjoying my third dive when I happened upon two iron cannons, 12 meters deep, in a cove off Angra bay.

Back then, my only background in Archaeology was the many books I had read on the theme. Books like the 1978 "The greatest archaeological discoveries of all times”, that featured Dilmun, En-Gedi, Ussuri and even Yassi Ada and a diver named Georges Bass – but that was all.

So, what would I do with my finding? Sunken cannons meant a sunken ship, a sunken ship meant treasure. Would I return the next day, with crowbar, and start turning cannons around, looking for silver? Or should I knock at the local museum’s door?

I chose the second option. I then learnt that there was a “bunch” of shipwrecks around the island, because a team of English divers had done treasure hunting there in 1972 and a team of American guys had raised a lot of cannons some years ago. Unfortunately, there was no archaeologist in the Museum and the country had even passed a law that would open the waters to more treasure hunters.

I asked “how many wrecks and where” and no one knew. So, the next day I went to the Island library. And there, on a shelf, sat the two volumes by Bart Arnold on the Padre Island 1554 Shipwrecks, both the archaeological report and the documentary sources.

I took them home and read them until dawn. When I found that they had managed to excavate cockroach eggs, I was thunderstruck. When I found that, by using that data, they had managed to find that once there was a New World and an Old World species of cockroaches, and that those species had merged into another when the Spanish ships had came, I then and unwittingly, made my mind: I was going to be an archaeologist, not a treasure hunter (and I know I would have been a great treasure hunter. I know my way around the archives, I know where the sites are to be found and, best of all, I could go after them, one by one, not bothering with archaeological recording, timber labeling, finds registration, post-excavation research, paper writing, grant asking, fund raising, you know all those long, tedious, non-sexy chores that turns pretty soon every flamboyant nautical archaeologist into a couch potato).


I have been on Sub-Arch since, at least, 1998 (at least, that’s the oldest message I could find).

14 years later, I have changed a lot: from an Hotmail account to a Gmail one, I got married, I had a baby boy, then a baby girl, then got myself an undergraduate degree in Archaeology, moved on to a graduate degree - and am doing now a PhD, with Filipe Castro, under the auspices of Jeremy Green (yes, it’s about a Portuguese boat sunk in Australia).

During these years I did stuff that would have seemed impossible to me, back in 1978, while I was a badly swimming kid that used to re-read "The Greatest Archaeological Discoveries of All Times”: Imet Georges Bass in Texas, dove with INA in the Azores, found an English frigate with Kevin Crisman, saw Brett Phaneuf magging the Azorean sea floor, discovered gold, raised silver, elevated an early 16th century culverin from 40 meters deep, found and excavated the most complete Iberian 16th century “galleon de la plata”, located a treasure carrying Portuguese East Indiaman, helped to drive the treasure hunters out of Portugal, been cursed, spited upon and bodily threatened by Bob Marx himself, got hired as an archaeologist, got sacked as an archaeologist, got featured on National Geographic, got interviewed for several local newspapers, wrote articles on how to identify a wreck underwater in Diving magazines and had research papers on a 1509 caravelão on a small forgotten Portuguese castle in Mauritania, spoke at an UNESCO symposium and at several primary schools, was taught land archaeology at college and I now teach nautical archaeology at the same college. I have researched in the Persian Gulf, in South East Asia, in Brazil, in South West Africa, in the Caribbean, in Australia and everywhere in the Portuguese coast. I truly went high and low.

And I, and my country, we have come a long way! With a lot of mistakes and a lot of stupid things done in the mean time, but all lessons acquired. And, even after all those blunders, we are still better off.
Because, back in 1995, we did not have the UNESCO Convention. We had people that couldn’t care less about wrecks and that would put a pier on top of an archaeological site. We had divers that would go on a souvenir hunting dive every weekend. We didn’t even had any inkling on how many shipwrecks there were in the Azores (c. 600) and how many of these were carrying treasure (255).

We knew how Portuguese ships of the Discoveries looked like by looking at ships painted by Flemish painters. All Portuguese built ships discovered so far had all been looted. Now, we have Filipe and his papers and his books. It will get better, because it can’t get worse – we have already been there at point zero of knowledge. Look at Cape Verde - no money, no artifacts, no more wrecks, after the treasure hunters have left the country and have moved to the greener pastures of Mozambique.


Only one thing never changed: the eternal bickering between treasure hunters and archaeologists, here, in Sub-Arch and how, some people, somehow, want desperately to have a little bit of archaeological credibility spread upon their projects.

Well, I have learnt several things in all these years:

1) They need us; we don’t need them. They are losing public support and will lose it even more, as soon as France and other oceanic heavyweights weigh in on the Unesco Convention;

2) There is a bottom line in this issue – you don’t sell the artifacts and you do your archaeology as per state of the art (and yes, that has to work both with the TH and the archie communities);

3) More than half of my productive time is spent in petty power games within academia, in fighting treasure hunting and in dealing with general and spread mediocrity (also, truth to be told, in playing Angry Birds).

So, with these lessons learned, should I refrain myself from commenting once more on the same old, same old? God knows that I try, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak…

Anyhow, I live my archaeological life under three mottos. The first one is from Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who stated that “archaeologists don’t dig artifacts; they dig people”.

The second one is from Felipe Criado Boado, a Spanish archaeologist, that once wrote that “if a society has the right to remember, it also has the right to forget”.

And the last one is from Filipe: “politicians and society at large will not spend money or fight corporations and taxpayers to protect something that does not have a clear public value. Perception is everything!"

So, things have changed, yes, but they have changed because WE – me, Filipe, you, him – decided to make a change. If enough people hear us and feel like we do, if we manage to imprint passion in what we do and in how we communicate what we do to the outside world, then we all win. Our heritage wins. Archaeology means nothing if we don’t get it to the public - it is impossible to protect any country’s cultural heritage if the people don’t understand its importance and why it should be preserved.

That’s why talk here, in Sub-Arch, with the same old arguments being forked back and forth - is sterile and wasted: everybody here has their stance and they will not be cajoled, convinced or bought into moving their feet from the dark to the light side, or vice versa.

What you have to do is go forth and spread the word. And when I say you, I mean you, archaeologists - treasure hunters and people that believe they can be both at the same time (yes, I do think that no one can serve two masters) – do it all too well.

Go forth and speak to the public. To the kids in elementary school. To the local divers of the local diving club. To the guy that writes you asking you for your help in identifying a coin or a ship’s nail. By going to the media – archaeologists tell much better stories than treasure hunters. By writing books on shipwrecks and cockroaches. You need to go out and help people help you in doing archaeology. You need to empower people.

And, if you don’t believe in people empowerment, just take a look at me."

 

[Alexandre]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Well, since our good friend Alexandre hasn't posted his thoughts here

I want to, but right now and until Sunday, I am out of time for an informed reply. I will be back, though.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Looking forward to it! I really am.

 

[JT]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

This is a good topic.

It's sad, but it seems like every month or so a story hits the news about a museum worker stumbling onto an interesting, dust covered find that's been stored away and forgotten on a shelf or in a box for the last 50 or 100 years. It's sad how many museums (and there are plenty of them) that have unique artifacts stuck in a corner of a warehouse that will never see the light of day.

Alexandre and Ossy gloated over Spain's "cultural heritage" being returned. What "cultural heritage"? Pottery? Navigational instruments? Nope...the picture posted showed plastic containers filled with coins. That's not heritage...it's coinage. And what exactly is to happen with those thousands and thousands of coins? They're not all going top be put on exhibit, museums don't have the room or the resources to show what they already have. Those buckets of coins (Spain's cultural heritage) will either be stuck in the back room of a warehouse, be sold by the Spanish Government (either as is, or melted down), or pilfered by museum staff.

South Carolina has an interesting program, where sport divers can buy a permit to collect fossils, artifacts, etc., and in return the diver's required to send in reports on what they find. Anything unique, the state would like to see it, study it, etc, but the item still belongs to the finder. I believe Florida used to have a similar program. However, people using metal detectors for land hunting are treated much differently, with many regulations against metal detecting.

Why? Developers get a green light to bulldoze plantations or lay pavement over artifact rich areas, but someone's concerned that a metal detectorist will find a button. We routinely have state archeologists do survey digs at construction projects. Do the artifacts found wind up in the State Museum, or the Charleston Museum? No...they admit they don't have the money to process, catalog, and store the common artifacts found. So what happens to them? Your guess is as good as mine, but every archeologist I'm familiar with has an extensive personal collection of "goodies". The items like broken china or pottery either get dumped back in the hole or thrown away.

In 2007, when the South was in a drought, Santee Cooper Reservoir dropped to the lowest level it had been at in years. People came out to walk on the now dry lake bottom, and of course began finding arrowheads, pottery shards, etc. The State archeologists were incensed, and were pushing for criminal charges against someone picking up a coke bottle from the '50's or an arrowhead. Why? They said things like that were part of our "cultural heritage". Never mind that our museums are bursting at the seams with arrowheads and pottery shards that the general public will never see..they just didn't want anyone to collect anything.

My daughter was 6 at the time. I knew that she'd be learning in school about different Indian tribes that lived in SC, so I walked the lake, and picked up several bags full of broken pottery shards. Sure enough, last year her class did reports on those tribes. I made a bag up for each kid with different types of pottery shards, and had her hand them out in class. Those kids were amazed that they got to have and hold a little piece of history in their hands. Some of those kids may one day forget all about it, but some of them undoubtedly had a spark lit inside of them about history, simply because they got to keep a piece of broken pottery that someone fashioned by hand centuries ago. That didn't cost a penny, except for the time it took for me to pick them up, sort them, and bag them...but the impact on some of those kids is priceless.

Shipwreck artifacts are no different. Whether it's a coin, a piece of broken china, or a pipe bowl that's been recovered from a long ago sunken ship or land site, to me that piece has a mystique, an aura about it...when I hold it, it makes me think about who may have used that item. The monetary value of that item may be small, but it strikes a romantic chord for those that think about the past. My wife always gets on me when we walk by a pile of dirt at a construction site, because I just have to peek and see if there's a broken piece of 1700's or 1800's plate or bottle lying on the pile.

Think of all of the items gathering dust in museums, many of which the curator isn't even aware of their existence. Wouldn't that museum (and the federal, state or local government that's funding it) benefit by having a "garage sale"? It would spark interest in history, make them aware of what they really have in storage, and produce funding to find other wrecks or archeological sites.

 

[bigscoop]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

I've read most of these replies, and going back to your original personal summary, seems to me part of the problem is getting everyone from both sides of the fence to agree on; at what point, "exactly", does something become a redundant item/discovery?

You also make a great point about the personal collection issue, why are these same beliefs and laws not applied with equal force to "everyone"? This would be another great place to start soothing things out because until it is it will always be deemed/seen as an issue of extreme hypocrisy. In the recent bill that was shot down I would liked to have seen the term "gifts" stricken from that bill and all others for this same reason.

Personally, (aside from maritime law), I think the UK system is a fantastic system as it virtually provides a built-in incentive and mutually beneficial playing field for both/all parties. And I would like to see "a new" American system that is fashioned after this same concept. I have no problem with the saving of history, but I do believe it should only be done when that history is truly unique beyond what is already out there, and if not, then let it go to market and to private collectors, or let those who found it do whatever they wish with it.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Great Post JT, and excellent job sparking the minds of those children with a few artifacts. Sure some archaeologists will scoff when they read that, but they are the minority. There will soon be a shift in archaeology, because the 20% that hold fast to the idea that EVERY artifact is somehow their property, and no-one else on the planet should ever be allowed to touch it, are going by the way side. I speak with MANY archaeologists from MANY disciplines, and I can tell you that 20% see it that way, and the other 80% just want to work, even with treasure hunters and relic hunters, but are afraid to voice their opinions because the 20% with ridiculous views are in control. Times are changing, and soon common sense will prevail, I hope!

I'm not for looting and grave robbing, I'm for actually getting something done! Archaeology doesn't receive the funding that it used to enjoy, and therefore rarely does much of anything, at least in this country. Why not let the ETHICAL folks, come in and do what they love to do, for free! My only sin in this matter is getting the wrong degree....everything else is equal (except that I likely have way more field experience than most academic archaeologists).

Don't think of me as solely a shipwreck salvor either, my last find was a washed out indian midden with bone tools, arrowheads, pottery shards, etc. I collected everything visible from the surface, and it is all soaking in fresh water to stabilize it (it was found on the shore of a saltwater environment). An archaeologist buddy of mine will be coming with me when we remove the rubble and look deeper into the area. We will try to deduce the age of the objects, the tribe of Native Floridian that left them, and the boundaries of the site. He will turn in a report to the state, along with a sampling of the artifacts, and a request for permission to continue the dig. History teaches us that we likely will not even receive a reply, and if we do it will thank us for our information, and urge us to not disturb the site any further. That will be the end of it, they wont come investigate or finish the excavation. If not for me, we would never know the first thing about the site...and I WILL finish the dig, just to make sure there isn't something more important there. You never know what lies at the bottom, maybe they salvaged a Spanish Galleon, maybe Montezuma's mask landed there, who knows....you never will if you don't investigate it.

I WILL investigate, and I will KNOW. Then, I will donate most of the artifacts to a local museum or historical society who will actually appreciate them. I say MOST of the artifacts, because like any good archaeologist, a few of them will stay in my personal collection. Sorry to rob humanity of a busted up bone net gauge and some broken pottery shards, but I feel I should get something for my troubles. The whole idea that only archaeologists can dig a historical site is preposterous. Looters should not be allowed to, but guys like me and JT should!

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Scuba: yer off to a bad start. Calling these second generation pirates Gentlemen?? Sheesh

Don Jose de La Mancha

p.s. Why can't one be both self employed (salvage ) and an archaeologist, amature or otherwise, combined ? Why is the thought of making a living by salvage so disturbing ? By recycling materiel it is eco friendly, no?

Why can't Archaeology be self supporting?

 

[ScubaFinder]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

at what point, "exactly", does something become a redundant item/discovery?

Good point! In my opinion, it starts when the artifacts get stored. I'm all for study collections being available to everyone. I'm all for representative examples being sent to every college with an underwater archaeology program. I'm even all for the project archaeologist having a few in his own home. Any museum who will display them can have as many as they want. BUT, once they start getting "stored" at the taxpayer's expense...they are redundant, or not needed by academia, or however you want to spin it. At this point, you can SPEND money to store them, even though they are doing no good to the academic community or you can MAKE money and save space/funding by allowing private collectors to own and appreciate them.

Jason

 

[ScubaFinder]

Re: Lets Discuss (like gentlemen) "The Great Divide" - Artifact Sales

Don Jose, guilty as charged....there are few "gentlemen" on either side unfortunately....and I am just as fanatical about my views as they are about theirs.

I don't think the archaeologists truly understand what happens after an artifact is sold to an individual. The coins we sold from the San Miguel de Archangel were mostly sold around my home beach. The people who bought them wear them everyday, and if anyone asks a simple question like "what's that around your neck?" they get a 15 minute dissertation on Spanish shipping, colonial coinage, the illegally opened Lima Mint and the Lima star coins produced there. These people not only read their certificate of authenticity, they memorize it and gladly tell anyone who will listen. THIS is my idea of disseminating information to the public. These things don't sit around collecting dust like the artifacts in the state vaults and museum back rooms, they see the public, and the public sees them, and everyone gets a little more educated on Florida history.