Crosscut Seattle
By Knute Berger
October 12, 2008
The artifact landscape has changed. Hunting for arrowheads, Indian tools,
and old-time treasures is not only politically incorrect but often illegal.
Time was when a fairly casual stroll along a river or on a beach or through
the forest could produce all kinds of finds which people didn't think twice
about pocketing. Back in the late 1980s, I visited the home of an old-timer
on Alki Point, and on one wall of his cabin was a museum-quality display of
Clovis spear points.
I envied the days of my father, who seemed to have a knack for running
across exciting stuff when he was young, from bones to old military buttons.
When he worked at a logging camp on the Olympic Peninsula in the 1930s, two
loggers came across a musket ball buried deep in a tree they were felling.
My father, a college boy, asked to see it and the tree where they found it.
By counting the rings, he estimated it had been fired in the late 1700s -
right around the time the Spanish established Washington's first European
settlement, Nunez Genoa, in nearby Neah Bay. My dad tried to buy it, but he
only convinced the men that it was something valuable. They apparently lost
or traded it later during a wild weekend of drinking and whoring, and a
piece of Northwest history was lost.
Such relics are not necessarily uncommon. In the old Northwest you could
literally reach out and touch history wherever you went. Everyone could be
an Indiana Jones. But now, relic hunting is pretty much a no-no. It ruins
potentially important archaeological evidence. Findings on pubic lands are
considered theft and may violate various laws designed to protect ecosystems
and Native American rights. Sometimes, it may be downright grave robbing.
Many people are simply unaware of the laws. Others are fully aware, but
artifact looting is their business. There's an active, legal trade in
artifacts, but there is also a large illegal trade that is difficult to
police. According to some law enforcement folks, one of the things that's
been driving the thefts in recent years is methamphetamine.
Meth has been an all-purpose scourge, blamed for ruining lives, dental
hygiene, and spreading crime and toxic chemicals on our wild lands. Its
popularity in rural areas around the country and on reservations has made it
a problem on public tracts and tribal lands where there is plenty of room
for mischief, from hidden drug labs to illegal timber cutting. But some in
law enforcement have seen a particular connection between meth users and the
theft of Indian and prehistoric artifacts.
In Oregon, a federal operation called Operation Bring 'Em Back, targeting
the illegal traffic in artifacts, has led to recovery of literally "hundreds
of thousands" of Indian artifacts. According to a Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) report:
In 2006, 11 suspects pleaded guilty to a variety of Federal charges,
including conspiracy, violations of the Archaeological Resources Protection
Act, and violations of the Native American Graves Protection and
Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This investigation resulted in the first criminal
conviction of NAGPRA in the Pacific Northwest. In addition, several other
significant criminal activities were uncovered, including two
methamphetamine labs, an indoor marijuana growing operation, and multiple
wildlife poaching cases.
The meth-artifact connection has also been noted by the BLM as a more
general phenomenon on lands it manages around the country:
[T]he BLM's law enforcement Agents and Rangers continued to investigate
and prosecute a wide range of cases, including the illegal digging on and
theft of artifacts from public lands. In many of the cases involving the
theft of artifacts, the possession or the manufacturing of methamphetamine
continued to be associated with arrested suspects.
There are a number of reasons why meth and artifacts might be linked. One is
proximity: Rural areas are where you tend to find meth labs and arrowheads.
Another is that some see looting as easy pickins, less risky than knocking
over a liquor store. It's also lucrative: note the scale - "hundreds of
thousands" - of artifacts. Finding a Native American grave can be like
breaking into a bank vault. According to USA Today:
Martin McAllister, a former Forest Service archaeologist whose Missoula,
Mont., company Archaeological Resource Investigations trains and consults
with federal law enforcement officials, says the theft of artifacts from
national parks and other federal land is "a huge, huge crime problem - a
multimillion-dollar-a-year industry. "In the Southwest, McAllister says,
officials are finding more looting by methamphetamine addicts. "A Native
American pot is money. It's cash in your hand," he says.
Some people estimate the global illegal art and antiquities trade at $5
billion to $6 billion dollars per year, ranking it right behind arms dealing
and drug smuggling.
Even small-time criminals find it worthwhile to be informed and systematic.
In a case involving the Umatilla tribe along the Columbia River, looters
used hoses to wash away river bank. Others sifted soil through screens. Both
techniques are like methods used by early gold miners, and the latter is
used by legit archaeologists. According to Lt. Brian White of the Benton
County, Wash., sheriff's office, in one investigation involving two suspects
in 1999 who were digging near an old tribal village site, 13,000 artifacts
were recovered and one suspect was convicted of meth possession.
Looters often know where to look for possible burial sites, using maps, the
Internet, and other sources to find good "prospecting" areas. In one case,
near Horse Thief Lake along the Columbia and adjacent to The Dalles, Ore.,
Washington State Parks ranger Andy Kallinen came across several looters and
their snarling pit bulls a few years back. They fit the "substance abuse
profile," he said. But they were more than just your usual youthful
dead-enders: They knew a lot about where to look for artifacts because, as
one later told Kallinen, he'd been paying attention in high school history
class.
One of the most interesting theories about the connection between meth and
artifacts comes from Sheriff Pat Garrett of White County, Ark. In 2005,
Garrett told The Daily Citizen in Searcy, after having executed more than
100 search warrants, he found two things at nearly every suspected meth lab
they busted: porn and arrowheads. In Georgia, an archaeological resources
trainer said, "I can't tell you how many calls I've gotten from sheriff's
departments asking why they find what they call 'Indian rocks' when they
bust meth labs."
One theory is that meth users often exhibit a kind of compulsive behavior
while they're high. As described on PBS's Frontline:
Meth, like all stimulants, causes the brain to release high doses of
adrenaline, the body's "fight or flight" mechanism, inducing anxiety,
wakefulness and intensely focused attention, called "tweaking." When users
are tweaking, they exhibit hyperactive and obsessive behavior ...
Such behavior might be self destructive - such as the incessant scratching
that causes skin sores common to meth addicts - but for an artifact hunter,
it could be just the right prescription. Obsessive compulsive activity is
kind of what archaeology and systematic looting are all about. It requires
energy and tireless focus. According to one meth user and arrowhead
collector:
"You get kind of wired on that stuff and you need to have something to
do," [Tony] Young said. It's the tedium of the search and the focus it
requires that makes it an attractive hobby to meth users, Young said ...
"[H]ead hunting" filled his need for activity when he was on meth.
It had another virtue for Young: When he was busted, he sold his collection
to help pay for a lawyer.
Meth addicts wreak more havoc than stealing native artifacts, as do many
others who visit remote public lands. And not all artifact looters are drug
users or dealers. In Utah, officials are coping with dinosaur fossil thieves
who can get up to $500,000 for an Allosaurus specimen. In Idaho, rangers
complain that people from rapidly urbanizing Boise are coming to public
lands to steal rocks and boulders for their gardens. On the Olympic
Peninsula of Washington, organized bands of migrant workers sweep public
lands harvesting native plants to sell to commercial florists. The public's
restless hands are causing all kinds of trouble.
But it's fascinating to ponder the possibly unique biochemical connection
between antiquities theft and meth. I hear they're looking for a new script
for the next Indiana Jones film. Here's an idea: call it Indiana Jones and
the Last Trip to Rehab.
Knute Berger is Mossback, Crosscut's chief Northwest native. He also writes
the monthly Gray Matters column for Seattle magazine and is a weekly Friday
guest on Weekday on KUOW-FM (94.9). You can e-mail him at
mossback@crosscut.com.