Assorted Dangers of the not so very Dangerous Variety

[pinksonia]

    We had looters.  I've never had looters before, probably because I was never really on a project before with anything worth looting.  We were surveying a 1000m access road with a lithic scatter across pretty much the whole thing.  About halfway through, where the artifacts on the ground were at their heaviest, we came across a series of holes that no one on the crew had dug.  They were much more frequent than general shovel tests, smaller in size, and in the center of the road while we usually dig along the sides.  Apparently one of the Civil Survey people was showing Jill pictures of his "arrowhead collection" a couple of weeks ago, so we think it may have been him.  But either way, looters!  It's almost like being Indiana Jones (which usually not so much). 

Also this news makes me not want to go on our Florida project.  I've finally accustomed myself to the cottonmouths, rattlers, copperheads, and assorted  non-threatening snakes.  Adding a new 20ft one = not cool!

Comments

[mcgarrygirl78.livejournal.com]

Your job sounds really cool. I can't believe someone came and stole things, that really sucks. Hope it doesnt set you guys too far back in your work.

[pinksonia.livejournal.com]

The job has its good and bad points, but most of the time I think it's pretty cool too.

Luckily, while collector only want pristine specimens, we can do research and identification on broken points or even early staged ones. We should be fine.

[(Anonymous)]

Ha ha, points! It's a pun, you see. Because points are another word for arrowheads. Which you are excavating.

[(Anonymous)]

Also, I can break some knees if you want.

[pinksonia.livejournal.com]

That's okay, I'll save the violence for later.

[ohthisstar.livejournal.com]

Wow that's crazy! I'd be pretty mad. People need some morals and need to not steal!

[pinksonia.livejournal.com]

Yes. Unfortunately, it's often difficult to convince these people that it is stealing, since they say they are just picking fancy rocks up off the ground.

[polyksena.livejournal.com]

Dang! I've definitely heard of the civil guys picking up stuff . . . but digging for them? That's certainly new. Oooh it's gonna be one ebay isn't it?

[pinksonia.livejournal.com]

Well we don't know if they got anything. We didn't find any points there only partials. If it is the guy Jill was thinking of, he's probably keeping anything he found for himself.

[zooropababy.livejournal.com]

That sounds like 1010 for us - a local community college has a "professor" (you'll see what I use that term loosely for him) who has been teaching 'arrowhead collecting and identification' (can't remember the exact class name) for about 20 years.
He's been telling his students to go to the same site for 20 years for field collection.
When we were there excavating we kept getting students coming up, telling us about all the awesome things they had found over the years.
We found diddly squat in comparison.
GROWWWLLL!
ANother snake that's bigger? EEP.

[pinksonia.livejournal.com]

I love it when the "professionals" are breaking the law. I can't imagine what degree he has that taught him to identify points yet says it okay not to document and record them.

I know. Bigger snakes are not what I needed to deal with.

[aquietmess.livejournal.com]

Being me, I would have gone to the police or complained about it somewhere.

Isn't there anything you can do?

[pinksonia.livejournal.com]

We probably could have if we had actually caught someone there, but since there were just holes in the ground there wasn't really anything to do.