Post by blackcrowheart on Jun 17, 2007 22:25:24 GMT -5
Looters pillaging Native American sites in Palm Beach County
By Joel Hood
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
West Boynton--Piece by piece, year after year, relics that tell the
history of Palm Beach County are vanishing.
Development along the coast and expanding westward has paved over
countless sites once home to Florida's earliest civilizations. The sites
that remain along the western edge of the county are being pillaged by
thieves, who've dug up centuries of unrecorded history in search of
lucrative clay pots, tools and jewelry that can be sold to collectors.
It's a practice that's illegal at the local, state and federal levels,
but one, county officials admit, they're largely powerless to stop. The
ancient sites, some thought to be burial mounds dating back thousands of
years, are too remote and too inaccessible to be patrolled every day.
Despite limited exposure, researchers have already uncovered some
artifacts -- crystal-beaded necklaces, metal figurines and gold beads --
that hint at a thriving civilization that lived off the land and traded
with early explorers around the time of Shakespeare and the Renaissance
in Europe.
Little else is known about these people who lived and died without
written record and whose stories are left out of most history books.
Because of this, officials admit it's impossible to know exactly what
other artifacts have been stolen. But they know it's happening. They see
the unmistakable signs: discarded beer cans, cigarette butts and
trampled brush around mounds of upturned dirt.
They're tantalizing clues that add up to very little in the hunt to
track down those responsible. Law enforcement officials can't recall
ever charging anyone with stealing American Indian artifacts in Palm
Beach County, a problem that has mushroomed in the Internet age as
buyers and sellers are instantly connected around the globe.
"Unless we happen to catch people in the act [of looting], it's just
about impossible," said Chris Davenport, Palm Beach County's
archaeologist. "There's no way to guarantee that a certain pot or
necklace came from a specific site. It's very frustrating."
Which doesn't mean that Davenport has thrown up his hands. He recently
visited an American Indian site west of Boynton Beach, outside the
Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge, that looters have been known to target. It
began as a long walk down a single-lane gravel road, framed by tall
cypress trees and heavy brush. It wasn't long before Davenport spotted a
man-made path to the site that was no wider than a foot across.
"Oh no, this looks bad," Davenport said, disappearing into a tangle of
Brazilian pepper trees and swamp oak. "Look out for fish hooks. Protect
your eyes."
Davenport explained that when looters find a lucrative site they
frequently try to guard it from other looters. Sometimes that means
digging large holes around the site, sometimes it means booby-trapping
areas by dangling fish hooks on fishing line from tree limbs.
There are 208 known archaeological sites in Palm Beach County, places
where civilizations were thought to have established entire communities
several thousand years before the Spanish colonized the region in the
16th century. Some of the earliest and most complex communities lived
along the coast and on the edge of the Everglades perhaps beginning as
early as 3000 B.C., said Ryan Wheeler, director of the Bureau of
Archaeological Research in Tallahassee.
What little is known about these people is culled from ancient sites
like the one west of Boynton Beach and others outside Belle Glade. Both
sites have several earthen mounds that rise a few feet above the ground
and would be almost indistinguishable to the general public. Researchers
think some of these mounds contain burial remains and decayed home
structures. Others are simply garbage dumps, like prehistoric landfills
covered by centuries of dirt and vegetation.
Unsure of whom these people were or what tribe they may have belonged
to, researchers simply call them the "Glades People."
"These were sophisticated societies for the time," said Clifford Brown,
an assistant professor of anthropology at Florida Atlantic University.
"It takes manpower and organization to build these sites, to develop
agriculture the way they must have. These sites are critically important
for us to preserve and study."
Looting of historic sites is a problem as old as exploration itself. In
South Florida by the mid-1970s, archaeologists were lamenting that every
significant American Indian site in Miami-Dade County and much of
Broward County had been dug up. It's a devastating loss for researchers,
said Broward County Archaeologist Chris Eck.
"When something is lifted from a burial site, it's removed from its
context and can never be replaced," Eck said. "That's the worst tragedy
of looting. It's not the value of the objects; it's the history that
we'll never completely understand."
Over time, Miami-Dade and Broward counties responded by adopting
stricter ordinances that supplemented existing state and federal laws,
and have served as models for other counties faced with the same
problem, including Palm Beach. These days, Eck said there's virtually no
looting in Miami-Dade or Broward because most sites have either been
paved or plundered.
"There's really not much left to loot," said Miami-Dade Archaeologist
Jeff Ransom.
That's the scenario Davenport wants to avoid. While Miami-Dade and
Broward counties have had archaeologists on the payroll since the 1980s,
Davenport, who arrived in late 2005, is the first for Palm Beach County.
His job is not only to research and catalog the county's historic sites
but also to help police them. He does that by occasionally visiting
sites in person, or tracking down leads over the phone. Sometimes he'll
surf Internet sites such as eBay to see what's on the market.
Intact arrowheads or tools of stone or bone can fetch anywhere from a
couple of dollars to several thousand depending on their rarity. Whole
clay pots, which are extremely rare in South Florida, can bring tens of
thousands from the right buyer, Davenport said.
However, online dealers are shrewd enough not to include specific
details about where the items were discovered, making it difficult to
build a case against a suspected looter. There are only a handful of
such cases a year across Florida, Wheeler said.
"These are people who are in some cases as educated as the
archaeologists," Wheeler said. "They do their homework. They find these
sites from research papers and library journals. A lot have been to
sites archaeologists haven't even discovered."
Protecting these areas is a Catch-22 for lawmakers, said Tom Pertierra,
director of the Avocational, Archaeology & Paleontology Council Inc.
outside Gainesville. As laws have become stricter, it's made intact
items more rare and, therefore, more valuable. That has helped spark a
new gold rush of sorts in many of these remote historic sites, Pertierra
said.
Which only makes Davenport's job more difficult.
"This is our history," he said. "We have so much to learn from these
native cultures. But once it's lost, it's lost forever."
By Joel Hood
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
West Boynton--Piece by piece, year after year, relics that tell the
history of Palm Beach County are vanishing.
Development along the coast and expanding westward has paved over
countless sites once home to Florida's earliest civilizations. The sites
that remain along the western edge of the county are being pillaged by
thieves, who've dug up centuries of unrecorded history in search of
lucrative clay pots, tools and jewelry that can be sold to collectors.
It's a practice that's illegal at the local, state and federal levels,
but one, county officials admit, they're largely powerless to stop. The
ancient sites, some thought to be burial mounds dating back thousands of
years, are too remote and too inaccessible to be patrolled every day.
Despite limited exposure, researchers have already uncovered some
artifacts -- crystal-beaded necklaces, metal figurines and gold beads --
that hint at a thriving civilization that lived off the land and traded
with early explorers around the time of Shakespeare and the Renaissance
in Europe.
Little else is known about these people who lived and died without
written record and whose stories are left out of most history books.
Because of this, officials admit it's impossible to know exactly what
other artifacts have been stolen. But they know it's happening. They see
the unmistakable signs: discarded beer cans, cigarette butts and
trampled brush around mounds of upturned dirt.
They're tantalizing clues that add up to very little in the hunt to
track down those responsible. Law enforcement officials can't recall
ever charging anyone with stealing American Indian artifacts in Palm
Beach County, a problem that has mushroomed in the Internet age as
buyers and sellers are instantly connected around the globe.
"Unless we happen to catch people in the act [of looting], it's just
about impossible," said Chris Davenport, Palm Beach County's
archaeologist. "There's no way to guarantee that a certain pot or
necklace came from a specific site. It's very frustrating."
Which doesn't mean that Davenport has thrown up his hands. He recently
visited an American Indian site west of Boynton Beach, outside the
Loxahatchee Wildlife Refuge, that looters have been known to target. It
began as a long walk down a single-lane gravel road, framed by tall
cypress trees and heavy brush. It wasn't long before Davenport spotted a
man-made path to the site that was no wider than a foot across.
"Oh no, this looks bad," Davenport said, disappearing into a tangle of
Brazilian pepper trees and swamp oak. "Look out for fish hooks. Protect
your eyes."
Davenport explained that when looters find a lucrative site they
frequently try to guard it from other looters. Sometimes that means
digging large holes around the site, sometimes it means booby-trapping
areas by dangling fish hooks on fishing line from tree limbs.
There are 208 known archaeological sites in Palm Beach County, places
where civilizations were thought to have established entire communities
several thousand years before the Spanish colonized the region in the
16th century. Some of the earliest and most complex communities lived
along the coast and on the edge of the Everglades perhaps beginning as
early as 3000 B.C., said Ryan Wheeler, director of the Bureau of
Archaeological Research in Tallahassee.
What little is known about these people is culled from ancient sites
like the one west of Boynton Beach and others outside Belle Glade. Both
sites have several earthen mounds that rise a few feet above the ground
and would be almost indistinguishable to the general public. Researchers
think some of these mounds contain burial remains and decayed home
structures. Others are simply garbage dumps, like prehistoric landfills
covered by centuries of dirt and vegetation.
Unsure of whom these people were or what tribe they may have belonged
to, researchers simply call them the "Glades People."
"These were sophisticated societies for the time," said Clifford Brown,
an assistant professor of anthropology at Florida Atlantic University.
"It takes manpower and organization to build these sites, to develop
agriculture the way they must have. These sites are critically important
for us to preserve and study."
Looting of historic sites is a problem as old as exploration itself. In
South Florida by the mid-1970s, archaeologists were lamenting that every
significant American Indian site in Miami-Dade County and much of
Broward County had been dug up. It's a devastating loss for researchers,
said Broward County Archaeologist Chris Eck.
"When something is lifted from a burial site, it's removed from its
context and can never be replaced," Eck said. "That's the worst tragedy
of looting. It's not the value of the objects; it's the history that
we'll never completely understand."
Over time, Miami-Dade and Broward counties responded by adopting
stricter ordinances that supplemented existing state and federal laws,
and have served as models for other counties faced with the same
problem, including Palm Beach. These days, Eck said there's virtually no
looting in Miami-Dade or Broward because most sites have either been
paved or plundered.
"There's really not much left to loot," said Miami-Dade Archaeologist
Jeff Ransom.
That's the scenario Davenport wants to avoid. While Miami-Dade and
Broward counties have had archaeologists on the payroll since the 1980s,
Davenport, who arrived in late 2005, is the first for Palm Beach County.
His job is not only to research and catalog the county's historic sites
but also to help police them. He does that by occasionally visiting
sites in person, or tracking down leads over the phone. Sometimes he'll
surf Internet sites such as eBay to see what's on the market.
Intact arrowheads or tools of stone or bone can fetch anywhere from a
couple of dollars to several thousand depending on their rarity. Whole
clay pots, which are extremely rare in South Florida, can bring tens of
thousands from the right buyer, Davenport said.
However, online dealers are shrewd enough not to include specific
details about where the items were discovered, making it difficult to
build a case against a suspected looter. There are only a handful of
such cases a year across Florida, Wheeler said.
"These are people who are in some cases as educated as the
archaeologists," Wheeler said. "They do their homework. They find these
sites from research papers and library journals. A lot have been to
sites archaeologists haven't even discovered."
Protecting these areas is a Catch-22 for lawmakers, said Tom Pertierra,
director of the Avocational, Archaeology & Paleontology Council Inc.
outside Gainesville. As laws have become stricter, it's made intact
items more rare and, therefore, more valuable. That has helped spark a
new gold rush of sorts in many of these remote historic sites, Pertierra
said.
Which only makes Davenport's job more difficult.
"This is our history," he said. "We have so much to learn from these
native cultures. But once it's lost, it's lost forever."