Looted Site in Texas

This year’s drought in Texas has caused water levels to drop significantly at many lakes, including Lake Whitney near Hillsboro in East Texas.  This drop in water level has exposed prehistoric sites along the lake, some of which are as old as 6,000 B.C.  Unfortunately, these sites have become the target of looters who are causing significant damage and destroying archaeological provenience while stealing cultural remains- some from burials.

Fortunately, some of the looters have been arrested and are now facing fines and probation.  Whatever fines and sentencing they face, it will be nowhere near enough.  These people are purposefully destroying the cultural and archaeological history of the Americas, and they should be judged and prosecuted harshly.

To view the video from kcentv.com or to read the accompanying news article click on the image above.

So Much Happening

So much happening, no time to post.  Lithic analysis, photo scanning, database building, site maintenance, artifact donations, collections photography, tracking down un-returned loans, writing papers…

Our apologies for not posting regularly but our intentions are to put out more and better information.  Probably our most useful and used information on this site is the bibliography page.  Maybe we’re doing people’s homework for them but with so many articles about this site, it seemed best to list all we can free for all to use.

It seems that much of the information in the Paleoindian field is held as proprietary and not widely shared.  I intend to make all of our work open and useful to the general community; academic and otherwise.  I hope that others will reciprocate by sharing information about our site that has been collected over the eighty year history of excavations.  So far, all requests made in the previous few years to our fellow institutions for the return of artifacts, inventories of collections taken from the site, and even requests for basic data gathered from Landmark have been refused outright.  It is clear that possession is taken as ownership even when it involves artifacts removed from a National Landmark.  The most common response is no response at all.

Any thoughts or advice from others in this position are appreciated.

GTC