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MISSOULA, Mont. - A pitted and rusty Civil War bayonet and an 800-year-old stone ax head with a fine haft lay on Martin McAllister's coffee table near a small pile of stone arrowheads. The array of objects had been seized from grave robbers and looters.
''This ax was more than likely placed with a burial. You can see it's had very little wear,'' McAllister said, picking it up and turning it on his palm.
The items themselves aren't worth all that much to collectors - the stone ax might bring $800, the bayonet as much as $1,000. But the damage done by those who plunder historic sites is far greater. Assessing that damage, as well as training law enforcement groups and federal agencies, is McAllister's business. He owns Archaeological Resource Investigations, a one-man company ready to grow, he said.
He hopes interest in enforcing anti-looting laws in Southeast Asia and Central America will push the company, which had gross revenues of about $100,000 last year, into a growth mode.
Two longtime colleagues might join the company soon, allowing Archaeological Resource to do more work with the looting of underwater sites and also to do more sleuthing, McAllister said.
On a national scale, the field of cultural-resource protection has blossomed in recent years, said Scott Stull, a senior historic archaeologist with Hartgen Archaeological Associates in upstate New York. Stull is also executive secretary of the 10-year-old American Cultural Resources Association, a trade association with 157 member companies.
Construction and real estate development generate a large piece of the $1 billion cultural-resource economy, Stull said.
''Whenever development accelerates, so do we. We're part of the development industry, just like home building,'' Stull said.
In general, most cultural-resource-protection firms help developers follow state and federal laws. Archaeological Resource Investigations has a slightly different niche. McAllister helps federal agencies such as the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management keep track of cultural resources and prosecute the criminals who despoil them.
McAllister, an archaeologist who began his career on Mayan sites in Guatemala, spent 10 years with the Forest Service on the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. He helped investigators on about 100 cases, about 20 of which resulted in criminal charges. He also developed courses for the Archaeological Resources Protection Training Program run by the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers and has taught there since 1983.
In 1985, McAllister went solo with his contracting firm, but the work has remained essentially similar. He trains law enforcement, assesses damage to sites and offers expert testimony in court cases.
Law enforcement officials aren't concerned with the opportunistic collectors who, for instance, collect the random arrowhead or Civil War uniform button.
Rather, the looters whom McAllister helps investigate are involved in major destruction of cultural sites, and the stakes are high. Investigators and arresting officers often find caches of illegal weapons and illicit drugs. The three underground economies are closely linked, McAllister said.
He has three ways to put a dollar figure on the damage.
He considers the commercial value of the looted objects. Next, he tallies the cost it would have taken for archaeologists to study and catalog the ruined site. Finally, he estimates the cost of restoring the site and repairing the damage as much as possible.
Public awareness of the damage done by looters is growing, McAllister said, and that's good.
''These guys are ripping off our collective heritage,'' he said.
The worst offenders rob both ancient and modern graves - the age makes no difference to them, he said.
''You wouldn't want someone in the dark of night stripping the wedding ring from your grandmother's finger,'' he said.
In decades past, archaeologists played a morally ambiguous role, he said. For the most part, that's no longer the case. Most archaeology happens when developers stumble upon previously unknown sites - their task becomes one of cataloging the history that would otherwise be destroyed and lost.
Still, notions that American Indian grave sites are somehow OK sources for collectibles linger, he said.
''That's the wrong moral standpoint,'' he said.
He has a photograph of a grinning looter posing with three human skulls, his hands full of femurs. In another, a looter is kissing a human skull.
''These people have no respect for the dead,'' McAllister said.
The looters in the photos pleaded guilty to federal charges, he said.