Cultural Resources Protection Law - Roles of Law Enforcement Officers and Archaeologists

The sessions shown below address activities associated with the Presentation on Cultural Resources Protection Law titled "The Roles of Law Enforcement Officers and Archaeologists in Casework, Investigation, Site Damage Assessment and Archaeological Value. Also, Restoration and Repair Values, Okeefe Caves Example, Pieces of the Past, Archaeological Values, Building A Budget, Archaeological Value Examples and Questions for Archaeologist."

Defining Cultural Heritage Resources and the Scope of Loss Due to Criminal Conduct Videos

  1. Introduction ( 17:51)Description: You are about to view a presentation on Cultural Resources Protection Law titled "The Roles of Law Enforcement Officers and Archaeologists in Casework, Investigation, Site Damage Assessment and Archaeological Value." The presenters are Todd Swain and Tim Canaday. Todd Swain discusses the law enforcement investigator's role as part of the cultural resources protection team. Todd Swain is a Special Agent with the National Park Service who has investigated more than 30 archaeological looting cases. Tim Canaday discusses the archaeologist's role as part of the cultural resources protection team. Tim Canaday currently is the Forest Archaeologist at the Salmon Challis National Forest.
  • Transcript: Introduction
  2. Restoration and Repair Values  (12:47)Description: There are two different kinds of costs associated with restoration and repair, the first being emergency restoration and repair costs, and then the second are projected restoration and repair costs. We’re going to talk about both of these.

  • Transcript: Restoration and Repair Values
  3. Okeefe Caves Example ( 06:20)Description: Let's go through an example that might help bring this clear -- make this a little clearer. This is a site in Central Oregon, the O'Keefe Caves site. Two individuals were caught in this cave. They had been digging in this cave. Now, as you'll remember from Todd Swain's presentation earlier, caves and rock shelters were favored areas for Native American use, habitation, and these areas are often targeted by looters for digging artifacts. So these two individuals were caught looting this cave.

  • Transcript: OKeefe Caves Example
  4. Commercial Value (08:53)Description: Commercial value is one of those topics that it's really hard for an archaeologist to come up with a cost for an artifact, an artifact that was seized during the course of the investigation. Archaeologists look at these items, these objects, not for their monetary worth but what they can tell about the past. We look at these artifacts more for their scientific knowledge that they can give us as opposed to how much I could sell it for on the open market, which is essentially what commercial is value looking for. How much is this artifact worth from a willing buyer and a willing seller? Archaeologists have a hard time with this, but ARPA specifically requires a commercial value. So we have to do it.

  • Transcript: Commercial Value
  5. Archaeological Values (09:42)Description: Archaeological value is the projection of the cost for retrieving the scientific information which would have been obtainable prior to the violation. Now, that language comes straight out of the statute. But what's that mean? Well, not too long ago the Society of American Archaeology, the SAA, developed standards for professional determination of archaeological value. The web address is there on the screen for you. This is a really important piece of work that the Society for American Archaeology put together. The society gathered a group of experts, 15 or 20 of us, for discussions on what standards could be developed for determining archaeological value. Included in that panel was Special Agent Swain and myself, as well as Dave Tarler from the National Park Service, and a number of other experts in archaeology, law enforcement, and the law. We sat down and over the course of a number of days came up with some standards that the Society of American Archaeology endorsed as the standard for determining this cost.

  • Transcript: Archaeological Value
  6. Building A Budget (05:45)Description: Some of the things that you should be watching for when these budgets are put together... archaeologists in the federal government, when we're doing a data recovery excavation, a scientific investigation, we don't just go out and start digging for the sake of digging. There's a reason behind the field work, and that has to do with a well thought out research design. Why is it that this site is important? What are we trying to gain from excavating the site? Because archaeology by its very nature is a destructive science. Once archaeologists excavate a site, that site's gone. What we do have is all the notes which makes us different from that looter. We're going to be taking careful notes. We're mapping everything in. We're doing it scientifically. We're writing our reports and contributing to that knowledge base.

  • Transcript: Building A Budget
  7. Archaeological Value Examples (11:54)Description: Let's talk about a specific example of archaeological value, and perhaps this will help bring the process into a little clearer focus. Agent Swain and I worked together on Operation Indian Rocks. One of those -- the sites that we documented as part of this site was called Petroglyph Corral. This particular site had two components to it. There was an historic component, which included a stacked rock wall, which was built in probably the 1880s, 1890s or so and was used by settlers as a stock pen.

  • Transcript: Archaeological Value Examples
  8. Questions for Archaeologist (06:39)Description: Now, the last thing I want to talk about today are some of the questions you as prosecutors should be asking your archaeologist. We already talked about the fact that if your archaeologist is not aware of the SAA standards for determining archaeological value, they better be. So make sure that your archaeologist performs their archaeological value determinations following those procedures set forth by the Society for American Archaeologists.

  • Transcript: Questions for Archaeologists

Click Below to Return to the Home Page