A federal informant may have spent nearly $336,000 to buy 256 artifacts allegedly looted from ancient burial sites in the Four Corners region, but their value to Utah's heritage goes beyond appraisal.
Scientists say that the suspected looters essentially erased that value when they removed relics such as an atlatl weight, turkey feather blankets, sandals and loincloths from the spots where Ancestral Puebloans left them centuries ago.
"If they are rooted out of the ground and put over the fireplace, they have limited value," said Kevin Jones, Utah's state archaeologist. "They are pretty and that's all."
Utah's ancient inhabitants left behind a striking record of clothing, pottery, rock art and tools, but no written documents to tell us how they lived and what they thought. Utah's dry climate and lack of development helped preserve the artifacts of the Puebloans (often referred to as Anasazi) and the Fremont, two distinct cultures that populated the Colorado Plateau from A.D. 700 to 1300.
In recent decades, looting has taken a terrible toll, prompting the passage of the 1979 Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA) and the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) to safeguard these treasures.
Wednesday's indictments both pleased and dismayed former Assistant U.S. Attorney Wayne Dance, who prosecuted most of Utah's ARPA cases from the early 1990s until his 2007 retirement.
"The negative is that there is still destruction of cultural resources," he said. "The plus is that Utah still leads the nation in protecting them. ... We have a stronger commitment from law enforcement to investigate."
He estimated citizen complaints prompted up to half his prosecutions, reflecting a broad appreciation of the artifacts' social value.
"This serious crime involves far more than artifacts," Dance said. "The attention is given too much to the physical artifacts themselves rather than the knowledge potential and cultural significance of these artifacts in conjunction with their context."
Unlocking artifacts' secrets requires careful documentation of where they are found -- something looters never do.
"Archaeology is a destructive thing even when it's done carefully," said Jim Allison, a Brigham Young University anthropology professor and an expert in Puebloan archaeology. "Anytime you dig a site, you destroy those relationships. Archaeologists record them as they go. We dig slowly and keep lots of notes."
Burial sites are favored locations for looting, he added, because they yield valuable objects and intact pottery that are well-preserved.
Utah's tribes find this grave desecration particularly offensive.
"It's been going on for years, and some of the same families are the same perpetrators this time," said Forrest Cuch, director of Utah's Division of Indian Affairs. "Nothing has deterred these people. They continue to do it. They belong in prison. They have no respect for the humanity of the American Indian people."
The Ancestral Puebloans (also referred to as Anasazi) and the Fremont are two distinct native cultures that occupied contiguous parts of the Colorado Plateau around the same time, between A.D. 700 and 1300.
The Fremont
Named for southern Utah's Fremont River, this group inhabited much of Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado. The Fremont grew corn, beans and squash, gathered wild plants and hunted deer and rabbits. They generally lived in small settlements, often in canyons where they built adobe structures -- such as pit houses and granaries -- and left an impressive record of rock art and pottery.
Key Utah sites » Nine Mile Canyon, Range Creek, Fremont Indian State Park (Richfield)
Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi)
This culture occupied territory south of the Fremont, in the Four Corners region including southeastern Utah. The Puebloans, like the Fremont, combined hunting and gathering with agriculture, but they tended to live in larger settlements built of rock and timbers, dubbed pueblos by the Spanish explorers. Surviving pueblos, typically built along canyon walls, are the hallmarks of the Colorado Plateau's archaeological treasures and are preserved in a network of national parks and monuments.
Key Utah sites » Grand Gulch, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Anasazi State Park (Boulder), Hovenweep National Monument, Dark Canyon Wilderness
Archaic and Basket Maker cultures
Preceding the Anasazi were nomadic hunter-gatherers occupying the Colorado Plateau as many as 10,000 years ago. Around the 12th century, archaeologists say, they began cultivating maize and squash and produced baskets. Around A.D. 750, they began building pueblo structures.
