Friday, Aug. 31, 2001 | 4:23 a.m.
Movies such as "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Tomb Raider" may portray relic hunting as a glamorous, globe-trotting career, but the National Park Service is trying to send a different message:
The theft of history is a serious offense.
The park service, through a course provided by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, is teaching its rangers that archaeological crimes are more likely to occur at historic sites on federal land than at an ancient jungle temple.
Relic hunters have victimized federal lands across the country: There were 327 thefts of artifacts totaling an estimated $51,000 last year, according to the park service. Sixty-nine arrests were made.
On the surface, the problem doesn't appear as pronounced at the Lake Mead National Recreational Area, where the last recorded theft was five years ago. But that doesn't mean other relics haven't disappeared, National Park Service Archaeologist Kristen Stevens said.
"It's becoming more and more rare for me to visit a site that hasn't been disturbed," Stevens said. "It happens, and we're left with a dwindling resource."
Archaeology has become more mainstream over the years, thanks to movies and television. And while Stevens approves of the interest in history, she notes that popularity increases the theft and trade of relics.
"There is this fascination with having a hands-on experience with these artifacts," Stevens said. "That interest is good, but there is a group that will go outside the law to satisfy it by looting these protected sites."
Sites are protected by the 1906 Antiquities Act and the 1979 Archaeological Resource Protection Act, which make it illegal to destroy or excavate historic sites on federal lands.
Those laws are the basis for prosecuting archaeological crimes, but once an artifact is removed or damaged, something has been lost, according to Peter Ossorio, assistant U.S. attorney in New Mexico.
"It's like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle and someone comes in and takes a piece," Ossorio said. "You can still build the puzzle, but in the end you won't have the whole picture."
Archaeological crime can range from a professional looter with the heavy equipment needed to cut petroglyphs out of stone to a hiker picking up arrowheads. The result is the same: A piece of the past is disturbed.
"These are resources that we are charged with protecting, but they belong to everyone," Greg Jablonski, a special agent for the park service, said. "They are nonrenewable resources, so once they're gone, they're gone."
A piece of Southern Nevada history was damaged five years ago when petroglyphs were taken from the southern part of the recreation area. The ancient paintings were taken from a rock face at Katherine Landing, near Lake Mohave.
It was no easy feat. Front-end loaders were needed to remove the stones from the site, according to Glen Anderson, a law enforcement specialist at the lake. Even so, rangers didn't discover theft until it was too late.
The ancient rock paintings were eventually returned to the park via a third party, but the damage was already done, park service spokesman Bert Byers said.
"They couldn't be put back into the rock, so we ended up putting them on display at the Katherine Landing ranger's station," Byers said.
Preventing destruction of historical resources is a mission that Stevens, Jablonski and Ossorio are taking on as part of a traveling task force to educate local law enforcement officials about archaeological crime.
Worldwide demand
Whether it's petroglyphs at Lake Mead or Civil War ball ammo found on a battlefield in Virginia, there is a worldwide demand for remnants of the past.
Illegal trade in antiquities ranks as the world's fourth most-lucrative outlawed industry, after drugs, guns and money laundering, according to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1998 the U.S. Information Agency reported that trade in artifacts and antiquities was a $4.5 billion-a-year industry.
"It's a lot like protecting an endangered species," Ossorio said. "These items are trafficked internationally. It's part of a worldwide problem of cultures being ravaged."
Many American Indian items wind up in Japan, where there is a strong interest in historical relics, Jablonski said.
"A pot the size of a fist could go for $5,000 in Japan," Jablonski said. "The items are worth more if the history can be traced. If it can be documented that it came from a park, a specific time period or battle, the piece is worth that much more."
National parks stand out as favored picking grounds for those wanting to sell relics on the black market because the relics are generally better preserved on federally patrolled lands, Jablonski said.
"Probably the easiest to see are the petroglyphs that dot the area," park archaeologist Steve Daron said. "These rock drawings can be found at old habitation and village sites."
Among historic treasures in the recreational area are gold, silver and salt mining sites, a railroad grade and sites where workers built the Hoover Dam, not to mention ancient tribal cultural sites, including Southern Paiute and pueblo groups, Daron said.
Looters
Archaeological criminals generally fall into one of three categories, Jablonski said.
"There are the professional relic hunters who are after the items for themselves or to sell on the black market; the tourist looking for souvenirs; and recreational visitors who don't realize they are damaging a historical site," Jablonski said.
The most destructive of the three are the professionals, who can get in and out of an area without anyone knowing they were there, Ossorio said.
The tools of the trade include basic items such as shovels, but these criminals also have specialized gadgets. Metal probes about 4 feet long are pushed into the ground to search for artifacts, Stevens said.
The probes can be made at a metal shop for about $40, and are often designed so that they can fold up and fit easily into a backpack, Stevens said. Screens to sift dirt are also commonly used.
Two men in New Mexico recently pleaded guilty to archaeological crimes. Ossorio said he was amazed at the lengths they went to obtain artifacts.
"These were two 60-year-old men who were humping around with 50-pound packs in the Gila wilderness," Ossorio said. "They had shovels with removable handles so that they looked like walking sticks. These guys were motivated and meticulous about what they were doing, and had obviously made some plans."
Sentencing is scheduled for later this year, Ossorio said.
Others breaking the law may not realize it's illegal to take objects from national parks, or they simply view it as a minor offense, Jablonski said.
"Sometimes it's just pure ignorance," Jablonski said. "I caught a kid and his dad using a metal detector right outside the window of the superintendent of the Kennesaw Mountain Park in Georgia."
The pair were looking for spent ammunition from an 1864 Civil War battle in which 67,000 Americans died.
Still others may be destroying historical sites without knowing it. Those who venture off main roads and trails, illegally driving all-terrain vehicles on federal lands, can inadvertently destroy historical sites.
"People are basically driving through a china shop, but have no clue that they're even in a china shop," Ossorio said.
Last year courts ordered that those caught inadvertently damaging archaeological sites at Lake Mead pay more than $40,000 in restitution.
Enforcement
Catching looters is easier said than done.
Nationwide, the park service has 1,587 rangers to handle law enforcement, and at Lake Mead, 46 rangers are responsible for more than 1.5 million acres and more than 9 million registered visitors each year. Some of those rangers have administrative jobs that keep them in offices, leaving about 40 in the field.
With the size of the park and everyday law-enforcement and safety duties that the rangers have, just being aware that archaeological crimes exist is a step in the right direction, Anderson said.
"This class will help put the rangers in the mindset of noticing things when they're out patrolling the back country," Anderson said. "It reminds them to look for anything out of the ordinary."
Part of last month's training included exercises in the back country designed to paint a picture of what rangers can expect from looters.
Rangers processed the mock crime scenes, complete with dig sites, holes, tools and other clues a relic hunter might leave.
"This exercise gives them a chance to come out and see things that they might encounter," Ossorio said. "It's a game of cat and mouse, and you have to put it all together to make a case."
Rangers not only look for footprints and fingerprints, but also for specialized clues such as rock chips and piles of fine sediment that have been sifted through a screen.
The dangers of approaching those stealing relics are magnified by the amount of manpower avaliable and the vast area rangers have to cover.
"A ranger out on his own in the back country may be four hours away from any backup," Ossorio said. "The case in the Gila wilderness required a group of armed rangers with Kevlar vests to make the arrests. It was good that they took those precautions because the two looters had a (.44-caliber Magnum) sitting on the lip of the hole they were digging."
One advantage that rangers at Lake Mead have is that the desert doesn't give relic hunters many places to hide, making it easy to spot tracks and cars. Rangers also count on the public to report any digging they may see or calling in if they find people hunting for items, Anderson said.
"These pieces of history have to be preserved for future generations," Jablonski said. "In a time when we are moving so fast, who knows what kind of developments and technologies we'll find to help unravel the history in these resources?
"In the end, restitution is a very poor substitute for the destruction of a site."
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