What I make of the post Possible Iindian King Burial (and the other video above as well):
First of all, in Georgia it is illegal to disturb a human burial on either public or private
land.
State Laws and American Indian Sites:
State laws prohibit digging on, disturbance to, or harm of
any archaeological, aboriginal, prehistoric, or historic site without written
permission of the landowner and notification of the Georgia Department of
Natural Resources. See OCGA
12-3-621.
State Laws and Burials:
State laws prohibit exposing, removing, or disturbing human
burials except as part of a legitimate archaeological investigation. See OCGA
31-21-44 and OCGA 31-21-6.
State laws require immediate protection of suspected human
remains and immediate reporting of them to local law enforcement. See OCGA 31-21-6.
State laws require following a strict set of procedures
before moving any grave in Georgia. If graves are thought to be those of
American Indians, the Council is to be notified as a resource for notifying
possible descendants. See OCGA 36-72-1.
State Laws and Private Property:
State laws do not prohibit landowners from surface
collecting, or digging, disturbing, or harming sites on their own property.
However, state laws require landowners to notify the Department of Natural
Resources if they are disturbing or intend to disturb the surface of an
archaeological site on their own property.
State Laws and State Property:
State laws require a permit from the Department of Natural
Resources to surface collect, metal detect, or dig on any state property. State
property includes state parks, historic sites, wildlife management areas,
recreation areas, state forests, state highway rights-of-way, navigable river
and stream bottoms, and the coast out to three miles. See OCGA 12-3-10, OCGA 12-3-52,
and OCGA
12-3-80 to 83.
State Laws and Repatriation of Museum Artifacts:
State laws apply to American Indian human remains and
artifacts found on private, local, and state lands. The laws prohibit the
knowing purchase, sale, trade, import, or export for profit of any American
Indian burial or sacred objects. See OCGA
12-3-622.
State laws prohibit the display of American Indian human
remains or bones. See OCGA
31-21-45.
The Council works with museums in Georgia to ensure their
compliance with state and federal laws regarding American Indian materials. The
Council will assist museums in preparing inventories of their holdings of human
remains and burial objects as required by law. See OCGA 44-12-261 or OCGA
44-12-262.
Archaeologist Jerald Ledbetter records stratigraphic
information to provide context for the looted artifacts and bone.
"Stiff fines for site looting handed down in Burke County" by
Tom Gresham
"...One of the latter two men was digging through a human burial
when caught. They were charged with criminal trespass, digging on an
archeological site without permission and littering, and pled guilty to all
counts.
In statements made during the sentencing, Judge Daniel said
he knew that important archeological sites in Burke County were being badly
harmed by site looters and that he wanted to put a stop to this long-standing
activity. He also emphasized that the looters were trespassing on private
property, and stealing private property, since archaeological sites (with the
exception of burials and associated artifacts) under law belong to the
landowner. In an attempt to put an end to destructive site looting the judge
levied heavy fines and penalties, which included a $1000 fine for each count, a
minimum $7384.00 fine to repair the archeological and physical damage to the
site, 12 weekends in jail, community service, three years of probation (which
requires a surcharge payment of $52/month) and a ban on attending any type of
artifact show. After hearing about this heavy sentence, the first two men then
pled guilty to avoid potential harsher sentencing in a trial. The three men who
live outside of Burke County (one is from Swainsboro and two are from Metter)
were banned from Burke County for three years."
Secondly: The language used by the H. Brothers sounds like "Treasure Hunter" language - and I easily found online misinformation about Cherokees burying treasure, Spanish Mines, and a lot of nonsense - while I couldn't eas;ily find "Chief Shoney," I did find a Cherokee Chief John "Shorey" Ross ("Shoney's"is the name of a restaurant chain). You might have heard the old saying, “No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American People.” – a quote attributed to a lot of different people. Well, “No one ever went broke supplying Treasure Seekers, looking for gold to be found free for the taking from an Indian King’s Burial Mound or a Lost Dutchman’s Mine or anything like that, with all kinds of equipment and now, these days, a wide variety of information from a monetized web site that links you up to the merchandise and books and maps and videos where these people make their "real money" preying on those Treasure Seekers' ignorance and gullibility, because after all: "There's a Seeker born every minute. ” - a quote you can attribute to me.
Secondly: The language used by the H. Brothers sounds like "Treasure Hunter" language - and I easily found online misinformation about Cherokees burying treasure, Spanish Mines, and a lot of nonsense - while I couldn't eas;ily find "Chief Shoney," I did find a Cherokee Chief John "Shorey" Ross ("Shoney's"is the name of a restaurant chain). You might have heard the old saying, “No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American People.” – a quote attributed to a lot of different people. Well, “No one ever went broke supplying Treasure Seekers, looking for gold to be found free for the taking from an Indian King’s Burial Mound or a Lost Dutchman’s Mine or anything like that, with all kinds of equipment and now, these days, a wide variety of information from a monetized web site that links you up to the merchandise and books and maps and videos where these people make their "real money" preying on those Treasure Seekers' ignorance and gullibility, because after all: "There's a Seeker born every minute. ” - a quote you can attribute to me.
A disgusting story from the H. Brothers. They should know better -- what's that statement, "A little knowledge can be dangerous thing"?. This certainly applies to them And throw away that stupid video camera, since they don't know how to use it.
ReplyDeleteIn noting the power of cairns, Interviewee 6 added that [t]he thing about cairns is, if you knock them over or if people destroy them with malicious intent . . . somehow the spirit of the place or of this person who put it there could come back on you…” The Influence of Sacred Rock Cairns and Prayer Seats on Modern Klamath and Modoc Religion and World View http://escholarship.org/uc/item/99h4b4q7#page-1
ReplyDeleteIs it the same video? There was no digging in the one I watched. There seem to be lots of treasure hunting videos around but these two people claim their "excavations" involve removing leaf and debris but no digging. Did I miss it?
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering what makes them believe that these rock piles are graves? I didn't see anything in these videos that would suggest burials. Not every rock pile in the woods is a grave. In fact, only a very small percent of rock piles are actually graves.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't mean that it's open season on rock piles for artifact hunters. As Tim pointed out, there are laws and a price to pay for that kind of behavior.
I agree with Tim. It is very bad luck to remove stones from rock piles and to desecrate such things. And thanks for sharing the video. It's a much needed reminder that some people will disturb earth works/ stone works, etc., for the sheer sake of curiosity and stupidity. Too bad, because the rock piles and cairns themselves ARE the artifacts. When they remove the stones like they did in these videos they destroy the monument that was stacked long ago in sacred reverance- they are destroying the "prayer" in stone.
ReplyDeleteIn my mind, since we are aware of these works, we need to do the mindful thing of preserving them- and even beyond that- understanding a clearer picture of the (pre) history & culture of the places where we live and the sites we visit. We're either "good guys" who honor preservation and understanding or a-holes who (knowingly) are destructive.
My impression is these kids in the video do not know what they are doing and are not mature enough to properly honor such sites and are being destructive.
As for me, it took a long time for me to start seeing the larger picture of these sites. There is an old Chinese saying, I think Menciuous said it: "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Aside from my Euro-American heritage I have always known there was some Native ancestry in my family as well- people in my family such as my Uncle who have family trees worked out know who the native ancestors are (from a different region- not New England.) I know I have a native ancestor from a village in Quebec Canada from the mid/late 19th century- this is on my mother's side. My father's line also has native heritage, my grandfather even associated himself with the American Indian Center in Chicago, but I need to get in touch with relatives in the mid-west to know the full details of that side of the family.
Anyway, before I started investigating and exploring rock piles I always had a deep appreciation for nature and would go for nature hikes and relax in nature to de-stress from my full time job at work (in a busy retail environment.) I enjoyed being pure in heart and mind and was inspired to take good care of myself (through the process of learning)- I even trained for and ran the Boston Marathon in 2009 (although my first attempt was 2007) running all 26.2 miles. I also began training in chinese kung fu (northern longfist- an old system) and tai ji quan at this same time learning from chinese doctors and martial art masters which I continue to train.
I guess what I am trying to say is that if people are clever enough to want to learn, and to know about certain things they must first learn humility, honor, respect, etc., and then, they can approach learning with a mature attitude. Otherwise we get what we saw in those videos, these kids "excavating" (ruining!) those cairns.