Looters pillaging Native American sites in Palm Beach County

Submitted by coldrum on Thursday, 08 March 2007 Page Views: 4116

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."

Archaeologist Davenport tells the reporter of sites booby-trapped by looters to protect their "turf" and trolls e-bay for artifacts in this Sun-Sentinel article.

Contributor Bio for coldrum: Based in Milkyway, contributing since 2002. Favourite site: Avebury.

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