Troy Turner: The cost of seeking treasure

i think the key work was "illegally". these were buried artifacts and these people had no respect for it or got permission to dig from the land owners. all they saw was the bottom line and they knew how much non-natives would pay. and for all who say its just junk then why are they paying outrageous amounts? when you buy a piece of land from natives you only buy the surface not what lays beneath like minerals, gas & oil. and about the over kill in my opinion it was by the book and they cant use the ignorance plea "i didnt know it was wrong"...do the crime and you do the time.

I didn't know natives could sell public land. If minerals gas and oil aren't specifically reserved on a sale, they go with the land. Can you state where in the law it states anything under the surface is not yours? I have never seen anything that refers to artifacts being reserved to someone. Please give me some law on this. Thank you.

Formerfalcon wrote:

I didn't know natives could sell public land. If minerals gas and oil aren't specifically reserved on a sale, they go with the land. Can you state where in the law it states anything under the surface is not yours? I have never seen anything that refers to artifacts being reserved to someone. Please give me some law on this. Thank you.

Let's say a buried artifact is on BLM land. The BLM (ie our Federal Government) owns not only the surface, but also all mineral rights which means anything subsurface basically. So grave goods or artifacts dug up on BLM, Forest or Game and Fish lands, is illegal. A private property owner can do whatever he wishes with what he finds under the ground. Private landowners frequently find Native American artifacts during construction activities, etc. and they can keep whatever they find. Morally, it's not right to prop up a 500 year-old Navajo skeleton in one's living room or display grave goods, but the private landowner can do so. I believe this even applies if the private landowner does not have his mineral rights; he just doesn't want to get caught drilling for oil or gas that the government will want to claim.

Strange OP/ed.
Relates a purchase of some valuable item with a federal raid.
Well lets see if the item was purchased with knowledge it can from land with out permission, It is unlawful goods.
It goes further to say the why of the question of the federal raid methods, yet does not even get into the aspect of the "Sheriff" of a county screaming the most being directly related to one of the suspects. A brother. This does not even get into the political family lines in the county most of this went on in. A good old boy thing.
It talks of the old age of some of the folks, which have been actively been around the artifact game for years. May be they finally got caught.
And the end part of a simple question: It is right or wrong. Well it should be in lawful or unlawful. Simple if you do not own the property and you do not have permission or permit to pick it up, it is wrong.
As for respect: there exist people that knowingly will activity hunt unlawfully these items risking career, relations, and jail to get them. Get caught they are likely to do it again.
Most do not make much money if any at doing so. That should be the question.
Why do they do it? Why do they allow that obsession to control them? Is it an addiction? They sure act like it is.
Yet "it is about the money" is what is accepted. A preconceived idea born of rational people for an irrational behavior.