I like to think of myself as an amateur archaeologist/geologist/historian - liker of lost cool things…I was wondering, I have a decent amount of land that my home is on (11 acres) and another plot of land on a lake nearby (6 acres). I have found some cool things on the land including arrow heads , large stone mortars, old cisterns, foundations and wells.
What I was wondering in my ever present search for knowledge is: If I find a significant colonial settlement/ old Pequot encampment - would the artifacts found therein be mine or the states?
I’ve collected many, many old artifacts like the arrowhead shown and old wagon wheels, tools, some colonial some much, much older. Is it finders keepers if it is on my land? Or does the date of an object corresponde to a different ownership?
The artifacts are yours. The federal laws which cover archaeological sites only have jursdiction over resources located on federal lands and/or resources impacted by projects which have a federal entailment (i.e. FERC is licensing a transmission line which runs across your property - the utility company is required to deal with the ramifications of their project to the site). However, even in the example I gave, if artifacts were collected and studied during the course of the project, they would be returned to you if you so choose.
Human remains are a slightly different case in that if you find a burial the law requires the coroner to determine whether or not it is a crime scene.
In any case, I just wanted to say (request actually) that you tread lightly over locations of known archaeological material. Sites are finite resources and many, many are destroyed every year. A site that has been dug, whether through pot-hunting or careful excavation, is destroyed in either case.
Well, there is no statute of limitations on murder, but I think any current jurisdictional charges would involve ex post facto law. Ten thousand years ago, there was no law, so any murder would be covered by the concept that the law only covers subsequent events.
I would never, EVER sell anything I have found. Ask my wife. She laments the “stuff” I have in boxes in the basement. I call them artifacts, she calls it ‘shit-in-the-boxes’. I collect old things.
Also, I have the highest respect for archaeological sites. The things in my back yard are mostly middens and the like. The arrowhead I linked too was probably a rarity.
I’m just asking if I find something ‘significant’ whose is it? Some of the people in the circles I hang in are archaeologists and some have said that they are the states, others say they belong to the tribe to which they come from, others say they are mine.
Our house is a varitable museum as it is, with all the old oak cases filled with old books and cool artifacts…What can I say, I like cool old things.
Even if the site is evaluated as “significant” under the National Register of Historic Places criteria (a formal process which requires concurrence from your State Historic Preservation Officer and the Advisory Council) you still own the property and the artifacts.
Arguably, one of the most important “discoveries” in the past 25 years is Range Creek Canyon in Utah which contains hundreds and hundreds of perfectly preserved in situ sites. The landowner, Waldo Wilcox, owned the entire canyon until he sold it to the feds around 2001. Prior to the sale and had he so chosen, he could have done whatever he wanted to with the resources.
As I said, the NHPA, ARPA, NEPA, Section 4(f) of the DTA, AIRFA, NAGPRA (with some exceptions), and many other laws, acts, and executive orders are only applicable to sites which are under some kind of federal jurisdiction, whether it be direct management or through licensing, funding, permitting, etc.
Sorry, Connecticut, southeast corner. Lot’s of old homesteads left to ruin all over. Pequots, Mohegans and Narragansetts settled the lands before the pilgrims.
Are you treating the area as an archaeological site? That is, have you recorded the locations of your finds? Have you had anything dated? Have you done any non-invasive surveys?
According to the laws of your state, you probably “own” these things–unless they are pre-Columbian grave goods. Consider contacting your state’s archaeology office. Perhaps an archaeologist and/or some amateurs could help you extract more knowledge from the site than you can, by yourself.
If by ‘non-invasive’ you mean have I grid out the property and not torn everything up? No. I have not made a grid, and I have not torn everything up. We know who the foundation belongs to, or belonged to, but we don’t know if there is anything else under it. As a weekend amateur I’ll not disturb it without going through the proper channels. I’ve covered the old cisterns so no one falls in them, but other than that…digging through old middens and the like is just a hobby.
Too lazy to look it up, but I’ve read in the Courant before that we have a State Archaeologist/Historian (from Uconn?) who is in charge of overseeing things like this. Check the website for the Connecticut Commision of Culture and Tourism. I think they might be the ones who are in charge of this stuff.
Every state has an Office of Historic Preservation and a State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO). They represent the interests of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation with regard to projects that have a federal entailment. The link that MichaelQReilly provided is to the Connecticut SHPO.
Agreed, and they do regulate quite a lot in my town. For instance, a man in Stonington a few years ago was told he could not paint his home a different color than white - against borough rules or some such - so in the middle of the night he painted it black. The historical society when bizerk and he eventually painted it ivory - not white, but off white…
I called our local historical society and they told me who lived on this land, but that they were not interested in the old middens - colonial junk heaps - and that the site must have been picked through over the years, however they did not have an accurate date or time. I dunno. I’ll wait until fall and see what I can see under the leaves.
Before I quit teaching, I was working on my master’s in Public History at Central and had a class on preservation policy. One day we had two professors from the anthropology department come talk to us about the work they were doing excavating a former farm and slave burial ground in Salem, CT. Maybe someone like that would be interested in poking around.
For those of us not living in Middle Earth, the laws vary quite a bit nation by nation and even state by state.
