The destruction of history

As someone who loves history, and who considered becoming an archaeologist, I find looting and stealing of artifacts to be particularly reprehensible. The fact that there's a black market for artifacts and grave goods (including the inhabitants of said graves) makes me rather ill.

At the bottom of the list of reasons this makes me angry: the destruction of historical context. This is especially important in older digs, where the strata can be dated and thus the age of the artifact can then be judged. Without that context, we only have conjecture.

Somewhere around the middle of the list are people who knowingly purchase stolen goods.

At the top of the list are those who desecrate graves. It's particularly difficult to hear of incidences in America of Indian graves being looted or destroyed, of the utter disregard for both the deceased and the descendants. While the bones may not care what's happening to them, it's a matter of respect and dignity. Whether or not graves should be opened in order to extract DNA, or determine how ancient peoples lived, that's a whole other issue I won't get into here.

The problem is that people don't look at the artifacts or the bones as important. They're only seen for their monetary value by those who loot and sell. The fact that they're taking things that don't belong to them is one thing; simple theft doesn't have huge cultural ramifications (though it's not a victimless crime, of course). The historical and cultural value of an object is priceless, a window into prehistory that we might not otherwise have.

One of the hardest things for a history enthusiast to hear is that someone has taken a bulldozer or a backhoe to an archaeological site in order to quickly get at the goods. Not only does this destroy the historical context, it also destroys much of the artifacts. Of course, the looters don't care, they're just trying to get as much as possible as quickly as possible.

While authorities and volunteers have tried their best to save sites, but even then they're foiled by looters. A recent story from USA Today talked about an uptick in theft from U.S. national parks. The looters will call in false reports to lure park rangers and other authorities away, so that they have time to loot the site.

There's even a problem with "casual" looting, wherein visitors to national parks and other historical sites may come across a fossil or an artifact and decide to take it home as a souvenir. Unfortunately, because millions of people move through these places every year, it's virtually impossible to curb the loss.