looting is loathsome

Blog 12/5/09

Today I am reading about the destruction of cultural resources in the form of looting. Looting, when people take artifacts from sites for sheer monetary value or greed for having the best piece destroy cultural sites with no regard for law, property rights, ancestral burials, or archaeological significance. To research both sides of the argument I am looking to see whether Indiana’s moderate archaeology laws make it subject to many or few incidences of looting. There are relatively few incidences in Indiana of looting. This may partly be because when looters get caught they face up to ten years in jail and large fines. There have been relatively few lootings in the past decade, only one big one in which three people were caught at camp Atterbury, these people had found several artifacts worth thousands of dollars. Because of people like this, some people think that by baking it illegal to collect artifacts at all it would be easier for law enforcement and better for archaeologist. While they might be right in the short run it would take away freedoms that would promote healthy interest in the topic of archaeology. The taking away of public interest would take away volunteers, grant money, and future archaeologists.