Imagine yourself walking in thePetrified Forest National Park(PFNP ) in Arizona . Scanning the flooring your middle beguile sight of a beautiful piece of petrified Mrs. Henry Wood that would look divine on your writing desk . You pocket it , taking with you a nugget of archaeological information that can now never be returned .
While snatching up a small souvenir might seem like a small enactment , move out artefact from their authentic terminal resting place has a ruinous force on their scientific value . This is why national car park like the PFNP fall under legal protections that prohibit mass from pocketing their treasures . However , as a late article published by theNational Parks Conservation Associationdemonstrated , the threat of hefty fines and even prison house time is n’t always enough to stop people in the bit .
“ Once [ relics ] are removed from their actual location , the amount of archaeological entropy drops almost to zero , ” said ex-wife - PFNP conservator Wendy Bustard to Jacob Baynham . “ Because cradle has been lost on these items , you ca n’t just return the stuff to anywhere in the ballpark . ”
So , if the scathe is done as soon as the human action is committed , what is one to do with some steal archaeological swag ? Many choose to send artefact back to the National Parks from whence they came , for reasons ranging from remorse , equal pressure , a modification of bosom , and even thefear of being cursedorbringing about the apocalypse .
“ A important number of visitors specifically mentioned “ Indian spirits , ” prehistoric citizenry , modern American Indians , masses from the past , and/or a perceived sacredness of some of the national parks , ” indite Museum Curator for the Flagstaff Area National Monuments Gwenn Gallenstein in her report " Remorseful recurrence : What to Do With Returned Surface Collected Items From National Park Service Units " .
“ Wanting a connecter to Native Americans and/or feel a perceived sacredness of the estate itself made people take object and then return them when they felt they had upset hard liquor . ”
Gallenstein has help oneself process what she terms “ remorseful returns ” since the early nineties but it ’s thought to appointment back to at least 1935 when the PFNP recorded receiving some steal fossilized wood place from India .
You might argue that having ignominy enough to return the item is in itself a pay off factor , but at this juncture , the museum see themselves with a newfangled trouble : what to do with all the misplaced , now academically useless material without further disrupting the archeological record of the land ? The situation is more complex than merely returning it to the parkland , as by allocating it an inauthentic final resting place you once again disturb the land ’s history .
answer range from the establishment of remorseful income tax return museum at green sites ( Pompeii has a permanent expo of refund artefact ) , or less glamorous alternative such as the PNFB ’s “ conscience pile ” — a stack of stolen and returned artifacts that is added to each year by the staff who receive hundreds of items each yr , some of which admit " conscience letters " explaining the reason for the recurrence .
The takeout food here is that you should never endeavor to take anything away from sites of natural beauty and historic significance , because should you get an attack ofremorse twelvemonth after , or are attempting tobreak a trance of forged luckyou guess may be concern to your stealing , you ca n’t just hark back point to their natural environs . While we all love a sentimental souvenir , the pattern of stealing archaeological artifacts so they can adorn your keep way is a damaging one that limits our capacity to learn from the past and uphold cultural landmark for the future .
And if that ’s not enough to convince you , maybe the all right and prison time supported by the Antiquities Act of 1906 , the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 , the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act of 2009 will .
