Cultural Resource Damage on the Public Lands: What the Statistics Show

Todd Swain

Introduction
In 1906, finding that the nation’s cultural resources were nonrenewable and vulnerable to looting
and vandalism, Congress passed, and President Theodore Roosevelt signed, the Antiquities Act,
the first federal law to specifically protect cultural resources. The government affirmed this
finding again, in 1979, when it enacted the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA),
but this time it also sought to ascertain the scope of the looting problem, by requiring federal
land managers to develop documents to capture information about suspected violations of ARPA
which could be forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior.1 The secretary, in turn, was directed to
annually report to Congress on the activities carried out under the provisions of ARPA, including
activities to quantify and address the looting problem.2

This paper aims to truly quantify the looting problem. First, it presents hitherto unpublished
information on violations of ARPA supplied by federal land managers for the Secretary of the
Interior’s report to Congress on the federal archaeology program.3 Second, it demonstrates that
the true scope of the archaeological looting problem on the public lands of the United States is
greater than the data indicate.

How ARPA Statistics Are Gathered

Through dozens of agencies, the United States owns or manages approximately 665 million acres
of land.4 This paper focuses on four of them: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National
Park Service (NPS), U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), and the U.S. Forest Service (FS).
Together, these agencies manage approximately 95% of the public lands (632 million acres).
Based on the information they have submitted to the Secretary of the Interior over the years,
these agencies are the greatest “victims” of archaeological looting and vandalism. Not
surprisingly, they also are the most active in addressing the problem.

Figure 1 summarizes the approximate number of acres and archaeological sites that each agency
manages. It also shows the approximate percentage of land that has been systematically surveyed
for cultural resources and projects the number of cultural sites that would be counted if the land
were surveyed in its entirety. Additionally, the figure gives the approximate ratio of acres per
agency law enforcement officer. While this ratio varies within subunits of the agency, it is at
least an indication of the degree of police presence on—or absence from—the public lands.
 Agency Approximate Approximate Approximate Estimated Estimated
Total Acreage Number of Percentage of Total Law
Documented Land Surveyed Number of Enforcement
Owned Sites Sites per Acre

BLM 264 million 228,000 5% 4–4.5 1/million acres

million

NPS 84 million 92,000 5% 500,000–1.5 1/56,000 acres

million

FWS 93 million 11,000 Less than 10% Tens of 1/104,000

thousands acres

FS 191 million 277,000 20% 1–1.5 1/million acres

million

Total 632 million 608,000 10% 5.5–8.5

million

Figure 1: Acreage and Archaeological Sites by Land Managing Agency5

Issues Affecting the Discovery of Looting

Each of the four agencies employs professional cultural resources management staff, including
archaeologists, historians, and curators. Regardless of agency, most archaeologists spend the
majority of their time writing and reviewing documents to satisfy compliance with the National
Historic Preservation Act or National Environmental Policy Act, and a relatively small
percentage of time in the field visiting or monitoring archaeological sites.6 Each agency also has
law enforcement programs that include a patrol function; their agents commonly are called
refuge officer, ranger, or law enforcement officer (LEO). The majority of patrol staffs spend a
large percentage of their time dealing with issues related to visitor use, like illegal camping,
speeding, driving off road, or campground disturbances, and very little time monitoring
archaeological sites or conducting complex investigations. In addition to this normal visitor-
related workload, paucity of staff directly affects a LEO’s ability to address the looting problem.
BLM and FS, for example, manage about 72% of the public lands (455 million acres) but have
roughly only one LEO for every million acres of land. NPS, fortunately, is much better staffed,
with approximately one ranger per 56,000 acres.7

In addition to LEOs, each agency’s law enforcement program has an investigative component
staffed by special agents. These special agents are called upon to conduct a wide variety of
investigations that typically include theft, assault, drug manufacturing and distribution, employee
misconduct, and various types of accidents. The four agencies in this study employ roughly 450
special agents, of whom only about 10% have participated in an ARPA investigation leading to a
conviction. In fact, at the time of this writing, fewer than a half-dozen active federal investigators
in the entire country have obtained more than five ARPA convictions.8
Several standardized ARPA training courses are available for cultural resources and law
enforcement personnel. Typically about a week in length, they cover the various laws protecting
cultural resources, legal issues specific to cultural resources cases, the processing of a looting
crime scene, and methods of assessing the amount of damage caused by a looting event.9 The
number of courses offered around the country each year has varied due to budget and personnel
issues.10 In a number of instances, recent trainees were able to successfully pursue an ARPA
case. Unfortunately, training for federal attorneys on cultural heritage resources protection law,
which had been presented by the National Park Service and the Department of Justice annually
(from 1992 through 2003), has not been available since 2003.

Issues Affecting the Documentation of Looting

In order for an archaeological looting or vandalism incident to become a statistic that is
forwarded to the Secretary of the Interior, at least three things must happen:
1. The looting or vandalism must be discovered.
2. The looting or vandalism must be documented.
3. The agency subunit (such as the park, refuge, or forest) must find the documentation on the
looting and send it to bureau management.

If any of the three is missing, the looting incident will not be reflected in the Secretary of the
Interior’s statistics.

Lack of staff and the inability to visit archaeological sites because of other duties contribute to
limited discovery of looting, and, inevitably, limited discovery leads to limited documentation of
the looting problem. In addition to these handicaps, other infirmities likewise affect the quantity
and quality of ARPA-related information transmitted to the Secretary of the Interior. One
example reveals itself in the NPS Case Incident Reporting System (CIRS). CIRS has a report-
generating function for a number of crimes having mandated reporting requirements, such as
ARPA. CIRS also has more than a dozen codes—theft of park resources is one—that a ranger
could select in order to describe an incident involving a cultural heritage resource, yet only a
single incident code (06-01-00) is used for generating the ARPA report sent by a national park
unit to the regional office and, eventually, onward to the Secretary of the Interior. Consequently,
if a ranger happens to report an ARPA incident using any other code, no matter how appropriate,
it will not appear at all in the official ARPA statistics.

Many land management units are so short-staffed that, even if they discover looting, they do not
document it. Gila National Forest, for instance, reports only an estimated 8–10% of discovered
looting activity to the command chain for transmittal to the Secretary of the Interior. Typically,
the only incidents reported by Gila National Forest are major looting events where a suspect is
identified.11

Issues Affecting the Compilation of Data

Two more sets of facts tend to show that the Secretary of the Interior’s numbers do not reflect the
real scope of the looting problem. One of them involves communication between archaeologists
and law enforcement. Anecdotally, there are reports that cultural resources specialists have
discovered looting incidents and have documented them in site records but have not shared this
information with law enforcement personnel. As the compilation of ARPA enforcement data
typically is a law enforcement function, these incidents likely do not get incorporated into the
official statistical database.

A second set of facts deals with an understanding of the documents developed in order to report
ARPA violations. The Secretary of the Interior has a standard set of questions designed to
capture data consistently, yet each of the four agencies in this study was found to be using a
different questionnaire to record the required data. The questionnaires ask for information in
different ways, which has led to some questions being misinterpreted. Thus, for instance, four
NPS regional offices reported that, in 2005, they had used the civil penalty provisions of ARPA
to recover actual damages for injury or destruction caused to park archaeological resources. In
fact, no ARPA civil penalty actions are known to have originated with NPS in 2005.12

Agency Statistics
Pursuant to ARPA, information on archaeological resources violations during 1996–2005 has
been officially submitted by the four agencies to the Secretary of the Interior. It purportedly
includes all discovered and documented conduct prohibited by ARPA (excavate, remove,
damage, or otherwise alter or deface) involving the material remains of past human life or
activities at least 100 years old and of archaeological interest.

Bureau of Land Management (Figure 2)

BLM reported an average of about 133 looting incidents per year and has typically solved about
6% of them.

BLM

250

200

150

100

50

0
1996-2005

Figure 2: Number of Looting Incidents Reported Per Year by BLM 1996–2005

National Park Service (Figure 3)

NPS averaged 423 ARPA incidents per year, and solved, on average, approximately 16% of
them.13
 NPS

800

600

400

200

0
1996-2005

Figure 3: Number of ARPA Incidents Reported Per Year by NPS 1996–2005

Fish & Wildlife Service (Figure 4)

FWS’s National Wildlife Refuge System documented an average of six looting incidents per
year, and typically solved about 26% of them.

FWS

20

15

10

0
1996-2005

Figure 4: Number of Looting Incidents Reported Per Year by FWS 1996–2005

Forest Service (Figure 5)

FS reported an average of 275 ARPA incidents per year and, on average, solved about 14% of
them.
 USFS

1000

800

600

400

200

0
1996-2005

Figure 5: Number of ARPA Incidents Reported Per Year by FS 1996–2005

The four graphs display some interesting anomalies, and raise several questions:
A) Why were the 1997 BLM numbers so low compared to other years (see Figure 2)?
B) Why was the number of reported looting incidents for FWS lands so small (see Figure 4)?
C) What happened in 1997 and 1998 to cause such large numbers of looting incidents to be
discovered and documented on Forest Service lands (see Figure 5)?
D) Why isn’t there a clear correlation in trends between the four agencies?

Definitive answers to these questions are not known at present. What is known is that, together,
the four agencies have reported an average of approximately 838 looting incidents per year for
the past ten years, or more than two looting incidents every day since January 1, 1996.

The Effects of Looting: Some Specific Examples

Buffalo National River, in Northwest Arkansas, is a unit of the National Park System that
encompasses approximately 94,000 acres and has a long history of archaeological looting that
predates the creation of this NPS unit, in 1972. About 35% of the park has been surveyed for
cultural heritage resources, and over 900 archaeological sites have been documented, including
caves, bluff shelters, and open sites. Of the 350 caves documented in the park, 130 have cultural
components,14 90% of which show evidence of having been looted. The figures for bluff shelters
are even worse—95% or more have been looted.15

The park has conflicting documentation as to the number of looting incidents that occurred there
during the past ten years. Based on an examination of the park’s archaeological site records,
there were 43 looting incidents between 1995 and 2005. The CIRS ARPA report function
reported that the park suffered only 41 looting events during those same years. In stark contrast
to those two figures, a search of all the cultural resource damage incident codes in CIRS reveals
that the park actually documented 112 cultural resources looting incidents during 1995–2005
(see Figure 6).16
Figure 6 shows that, in 2004/2005, the number of documented violations at Buffalo River
increased substantially. This increase probably is due to three factors: (1) new staff hires have
been particularly active in addressing the looting problem; (2) rangers are now allowed to access
archaeological site maps for monitoring purposes (whereas the former park archaeologist had
refused to share site location information with them); and (3) rangers have recently received
park-specific ARPA training.17

Buffalo National River

30

25

20

15

10

0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Figure 6: Documented Looting Incidents at Buffalo National River

Not far from Buffalo River is Ozark National Scenic Riverways. This national park, located in
southeastern Missouri, encompasses approximately 134 miles of the Current and Jacks Fork
Rivers, or about 80,800 acres. Between 1994 and 1997, a wideranging survey of caves was
conducted within the park. The survey covered only about 10% of the park, yet it located and
documented 215 caves, 39 of which had prehistoric or historic components. In contrast to
Buffalo River, the Ozark survey found no evidence of systematic looting in the caves, although it
did document disturbances at 11 sites (14% of the caves with archaeology). These disturbances
included “major” digging at two sites and “minor” digging at three sites. In addition, some caves
that did not contain cultural resources nevertheless had suffered large-scale excavation,
presumably as a result of searches for cultural artifacts.18

The archaeologists at Buffalo River and Ozark attribute the difference in looting activity at the
two parks to the social behavior of the people living adjacent to them. Despite the archaeological
resources being similar at the two parks, for some as yet unknown reason, the local inhabitants
behave differently.19

Gila National Forest is located in west central New Mexico and is over three million acres in
size, the majority of it wilderness. About 11% of the forest has been surveyed, and 6,500–7,500
cultural sites have been documented.20 From an archaeological perspective, the Gila is best
known for its Mimbres cultural remains. The Mimbres, who inhabited the area roughly 800 years
ago, created some of the most aesthetically pleasing and commercially valuable ceramics in
North America. Three Forest Service LEOs and four archaeologists are assigned to the forest.
Opinions vary as to the percentage of Mimbres sites that have been affected by looting:
• A 1988 anti-looting video, Assault on Time, stated that 100% of all Mimbres sites have at least
been partially looted.
• The forest archaeologist believes 75–85% of Mimbres sites have been looted.21
• The LEOs assigned to the forest believe over 50% of the approximately 200 known Mimbres
cliff dwellings have been looted.22
• A NPS agent who served with a team of law enforcement agents and archaeologists known as
the ARPA Task Force observed that “90% of the Mimbres sites are on protected lands, 90% of
them have been looted, yet 100% of what we investigate allegedly comes from private lands.”23

Whatever their true number, the looting problem on the Gila is the worst the forest archaeologist
has seen in her career.24

In Utah, the Bureau of Land Management manages about 23 million acres containing an
estimated 500,000 archaeological sites.25 As is the case with other public lands in the western
United States, each BLM ranger covers about a million acres. According to the 1987 GAO
report, over 18,000 sites on BLM-managed land in southeast Utah were looted before they could
be recorded by professional archaeologists.26

The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, located in southeastern Oregon, is rich in archaeological
resources. For the past ten years, this 186,500-acre refuge has averaged one looting incident per
year,27 and, since early in 2004, it has not had a full-time law enforcement presence.28
Since 2000, the refuge has witnessed the following looting cases:
• 1999—arrest; 2000—conviction (defendant sentenced to incarceration with work release)
• 2001—charge (defendant committed suicide before trial)
• 2003—charge and conviction of a felony violation (defendant sentenced to a term of
imprisonment)
• 2003—arrest; 2005—conviction (defendant sentenced to probation)
• 2003—arrest; 2005—conviction (defendant sentenced to probation)
• 2003—arrest; case pending
• 2003—arrest; case pending

At least some of these looting cases at Malheur are not reflected in the yearly FWS statistics sent
to the Secretary of the Interior (Figure 4).

Just over the Oregon border, in northeast California, sits Modoc County. According to the
Modoc County Land Use Committee, approximately 70% of the county is federal land. The
majority of this land is managed by the Forest Service and BLM. Modoc National Forest is about
1.6 million acres in size and has one archaeologist and two LEOs. The BLM manages roughly
530,000 acres and has one archaeologist and one ranger on staff. There are over 7,000 recorded
archaeological sites on FS land and roughly 2,000 sites on BLM property. The two agency
archaeologists estimate they would find about 55,000 sites if all the lands for which they are
responsible were to be surveyed. Although neither agency has any type of systematic site
monitoring program, the BLM archaeologist has documented about two to five instances of illicit
digging every year since 1999. The BLM archaeologist also believes that 90–100% of the caves
on BLM land in Modoc County that contain burials have been looted. According to the forest
archaeologist, there have been about 12 cultural resource prosecutions in Modoc County in the
last 30 years. All of these prosecutions have been via misdemeanor citations.29

Attempts to Quantify the Scope of the Looting Problem

The author is aware of at least a half-dozen papers that describe and attempt to quantify the
scope of the looting problem. Most of them have focused on the American Southwest; all
conclude that the actual amount of looting likely is much higher than what is reported.30
Recently, a researcher attempted to quantify the looting problem in the Pacific Northwest by
examining a variety of data sources from Alaska, Washington, and Oregon.
Finding the information to be poor or nonexistent, she wrote, “For all three states, the proportion
of looted or vandalized sites generated by examining state office records is almost certainly an
underestimate. . . .”31 In 1988, the National Park Service commissioned a study to determine the
true amount of looting activity. The study concluded that the 1,720 incidents documented on
federal lands between 1985 and 1987 represented 25% or less of the actual total.32
Joshua Tree National Park: Providing a Glimpse at the True Scope of the Looting
Problem
Joshua Tree National Park is located in the Mojave Desert, to the east of Los Angeles. In 1936, it
was designated a national monument, and by the early 1990s reached about 500,000 acres in
size. In 1994, as part of the Desert Protection Act, Joshua Tree was elevated to national park
status, and several hundred thousand acres were added to it. As noted by the enabling legislation
when it became a monument, Joshua Tree is rich in cultural resources, although, to date, they
have undergone only limited scientific examination.

During the 1993 fiscal year (October 1, 1992–September 30, 1993), the park received special
archaeological protection funding for the systematic monitoring of cultural sites, and a long-term
volunteer with extensive knowledge of the park’s backcountry and archaeological sites was hired
to conduct this monitoring. The site monitor spent each workday visiting archaeological sites and
documenting their condition. He visited sites near front country campgrounds as well as sites
five or more miles from the nearest road. After fiscal year 1993, no further funds were ever
allocated to the park for site monitoring.

JTNP ARPA Cases

160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
1985-2005

Figure 7: Documented Looting Incidents at Joshua Tree National Park, 1985–2005

Figure 7 shows the documented looting incidents at Joshua Tree from calendar year 1985 to
2005. Excluding 1992 and 1993, on average, 9.6 looting incidents per calendar year were
documented during an 18-year period. By contrast, in 1992 and 1993, the average number of
documented incidents per year was 101. Over 200 ARPA violations were documented during the
1993 fiscal year alone (shown in Figure 7 as a combination of 1992 and 1993).

The data from Joshua Tree National Park tend to show that, during any given year, only a very
small percentage of the looting activity on the public lands is actually discovered and
documented. Should the federal government actually look, they will find that the true scope of
the looting problem is staggering, that our shared cultural heritage is disappearing before our
eyes, and that, inexorably, future generations will be deprived of the enjoyment and benefit of
this heritage unless regular, comprehensive site monitoring programs become an essential part of
archaeological resources protection on the public lands.

Investigation—the Next Step after Discovery

Whether they catch someone in the act of looting or respond to a report by land management
personnel, volunteer site monitors, or someone else, typically it is the patrol staffs who are the
first law enforcement agents on the scene. Optimally, these agents already have taken at least one
of several available archaeological resources protection training programs, in which, among
other things, they learned about the nonrenewable nature of cultural heritage resources and
received instruction on investigative procedures unique to archaeological resources crimes.

Once a violator on BLM- , NPS- , FWS- , or FS-managed lands is identified and apprehended,
there are two obvious options for criminal prosecution:
1. Law enforcement may issue a misdemeanor citation for a violation of the Code of Federal
Regulations. Upon conviction, the defendant may be sentenced to a maximum term of
imprisonment of six months (for FS- , FWS- , NPS-managed lands) or a year (for BLM-managed
lands).
2. The United States may charge—by indictment or criminal information—a violation of ARPA
or another section of the United States Code. For ARPA, the severity of the violation is
quantified by the “value” of the archaeological resources involved in the offense conduct plus
their “cost of restoration and repair,” and this quantitative element factors into determining
whether the United States charges an accused with a misdemeanor (which carries a maximum
term of one year in prison) or a felony (which carries a maximum term of two years in prison for
a first violation and a maximum term of five years in prison for a second or subsequent
violation). An ARPA felony requires that the value of the resources—either “archaeological
value” or “commercial value”—plus the cost of their restoration and repair exceeding $500. In
most looting situations, the $500 threshold is exceeded, so most incidents are potential ARPA
felonies.

In addition to the number of archaeological resources violations occurring on public lands, the
Secretary of the Interior gathers information on the number of suspects apprehended and, if they
are prosecuted, the dispositions of their cases (see Figure 8). During 1996–2005, the average
number of misdemeanor citations issued was 111 (the taller bars), while the average number of
felony cases was only seven (the shorter bars).
 Combined Agency
Citations and Felonies by Year

250

200

150

100

50

0
1996-2005

Figure 8: The Number and Type of Criminal Enforcement Actions by BLM, FS, FWS, and NPS
during 1996–2005

Solving an ARPA Case

As used in this paper, “solving” an ARPA case means that a suspect is identified, enforcement
action is taken, and the matter is referred to a prosecutor and reaches legal repose. Based on the
secretary’s statistics, only approximately 14% of discovered and documented ARPA violations
are solved (see Figures 2–5 and 8). The vast acreage covered by each law enforcement officer
and archaeologist, the overwhelming amount of other assigned duties, such as compliance work
and visitor management, and, frequently, a lack of managerial support might account for the
small percentage of resolutions. This is not to say land managers do not support the protection of
cultural resources, but rather that the simplest ARPA case costs the land manager several
thousand dollars to investigate, and the money to do so comes directly from limited park, refuge,
and forest budgets.

It is the author’s experience that prosecutors who are new to cultural resources crimes are struck
by the complexity of the cases. In a typical drug smuggling case, the government must prove the
suspected drugs are a prohibited substance and that they were in the possession of the defendant.
In a typical bank robbery case, the government at least has some video footage and eyewitness
testimony of the robbery. ARPA investigations can be as complex as murder cases. In a typical
ARPA violation, the looting event often is not witnessed. Thus, in order to tie a suspect to the
crime scene, physical evidence, such as items containing DNA, soil samples, footprints, tire
tracks, soiled clothes and shoes, tool marks, and associated documents must be identified, seized,
and analyzed. In addition, proving the damaged site or artifact is an “archaeological resource,” as
defined by ARPA, might require the assistance of specialists, such as physical scientists,
ceramicists, or forensic anthropologists.

Large federal investigative agencies, sheriff’s offices, and city police departments employ
evidence technicians and maintain crime labs that are capable of collecting evidence and
performing analyses, but the typical ranger or LEO does not have access to an evidence response
team. So, if evidence is to be collected miles from the nearest paved road, the refuge officer and
an archaeologist will do it, and, because it takes time to do it correctly, they will submit a request
for overtime to management. Then, when a suspect is identified, a search warrant, follow-up
interviews, scientific analyses, and additional reports will be required. All this work takes time,
making the staff unavailable for their compliance and visitor management duties, and time
translates into money. As a result, land managers are continually put into the position of having
to balance the pursuit of a looting case with the needs of public safety and other mandated
programs.

Misdemeanor versus Felony

The ratio of misdemeanor to felony prosecutions is an important number. The overwhelming
majority (approximately 94%) of charged ARPA violations are at the misdemeanor level (see
Figure 8). Three primary reasons appear to account for this phenomenon:
1. Patrol staffs write citations for the violation at hand rather than conduct an investigation that
might reveal the larger scope of the looter’s activities.
2. Managers look at the cost and manpower requirements of pursuing an ARPA case and feel the
cost and effort are prohibitive.
3. Prosecutors initially charge a felony but reduce the count to a misdemeanor as part of a plea
agreement.

Death Valley National Park, in California, provides an example of a significant ARPA case that
almost went nowhere. A ranger observed two individuals in an area known to contain
archaeological resources and identified by the park archaeologist as being culturally sensitive
and at risk for looting. The individuals were searching the area in a grid pattern and carrying
items back to their vehicle. When confronted, they were found to be in possession of several
artifacts. During questioning, one of the suspects admitted that, on a previous occasion, the pair
had been caught by another ranger (who seized the artifacts they had collected and gave them a
written warning) and further stated that, despite having been caught looting again, they would
continue to collect artifacts.

After seizing the artifacts, documenting the suspects, and citing them for not having paid the
park entrance fee, the ranger released the two violators. Immediately, the park archaeologist
conducted a damage assessment pursuant to ARPA and determined the damages to the
archaeological resources involved in the offense conduct to be greater than $4,300, which clearly
exceeds ARPA’s $500 felony threshold.33 A week later, no effort had been made by law
enforcement to secure search warrants, re-interview the suspects, or expand the case, even
though the suspects admitted to having artifact collections at their homes and to removing
cultural items from other public lands.

Ultimately, the apprehension at Death Valley led to one of the largest successful criminal ARPA
cases, Operation Indian Rocks.34 By the time search warrants were finally served, investigators
had uncovered a conspiracy consisting of numerous individuals who had been systematically
looting archaeological sites on public lands— managed by NPS, BLM, FWS, and the Air
Force—throughout Nevada and California.
The operation resulted in the recovery of over 11,000 artifacts, the determination of over
$560,000 in damages, and multiple felony convictions, including the longest prison sentence (37
months) imposed for a first conviction for violation of ARPA (the defendant was convicted of
additional counts of ARPA, which is why the sentence was not capped at 24 months). Had the
original incident at Death Valley been submitted alone for prosecution, the case almost certainly
would have ended with two defendants each pleading guilty to a misdemeanor violation.

Buffalo National River provides an example of the consequences of focusing solely on the
looting incident at hand by using misdemeanor citations. In 2003, rangers caught two people at a
looted archaeological site and issued them citations for $100; no further investigation was
conducted. In 2005, one of the two original suspects was caught again at a looted archaeological
site and again was issued a citation, this time for $125. In 2006, the same suspect was found at
yet another looted site. Finally, as of this writing, an ARPA prosecution is pending against this
twice-convicted looter, but, because his convictions were for violations of the Code of Federal
Regulations and not ARPA, if convicted of an ARPA violation, the defendant’s maximum term
of imprisonment will be the term prescribed for a first-time offender rather than a repeat
offender.35

Archaeologist Martin McAllister, a leading expert on ARPA, believes that “. . .there are many
good, viable cases that don’t get prosecuted. . . .”36 This dearth of prosecutions is a result of a
lack of investigation on the part of land management agencies and declinations by prosecutors.
Many declinations stem from overworked prosecutors who do not understand ARPA or the
significance of archaeological resources. Holding the violator accountable for their actions is one
goal of prosecution; another is the deterrence of looting. McAllister believes there is a “shelf
life” to deterrence, and that when the prosecutor does not effectively prosecute, the deterrent
effect is eroded.37 Lack of deterrence, in turn, breeds more looting.

Conclusion
The Secretary of the Interior’s looting statistics are not accurate. Discovery of incidents is
hampered by staffing shortages and/or a lack of emphasis on cultural heritage resources
protection, so detected looting incidents constitute but a small fraction of the actual number.
Even with respect to detected incidents, the statistics are inaccurate. Their documentation is
spotty because they are not all reported and, due to misunderstanding, some of the information
provided about them is erroneous.

What are the real numbers? Taking the average of the Gila National Forest (8–10%), Buffalo
National River (36%), and Joshua Tree National Park (10%) examples, only 18% of the actual
number of looting incidents are being reported to the Secretary of the Interior. If this percentage
can be extrapolated for all lands managed by BLM, FS, FWS, then, alone, these lands suffer
roughly 4,655 looting incidents per year, or over 12 incidents per day!

The 1987 Government Accounting Office report38 and other similar reports were right on target
with their recommendations. Unfortunately, their suggestions were never implemented on a wide
scale. Today, the data presented here on the looting problem underscore the need for the
following:
• All land management law enforcement personnel and archaeologists must attend a standardized
ARPA training course in which the need for the two disciplines to work together is emphasized.
• Better coordination between law enforcement personnel and cultural resources specialists must
occur at all levels, and secrecy must become a thing of the past. As Operation Indian Rocks
ultimately showed, coordination between the two disciplines can lead to tremendously successful
cases.
• Federal land managers at the bureau and regional levels must require their unit managers to
make the investigation of cultural heritage resources crime a higher priority.
• Public affairs and interpretation specialists must be integrated into the resource protection mix.
Publicizing the importance of cultural resources and the prosecutions of looters serves as a
deterrent. At the same time, the deterrent effect of one case has a shelf life, so a single publicized
prosecution will not be sufficient to insure long-term deterrence. Instead, public affairs and
interpreter staff must communicate all such cases to the general public and other professionals.
• Land management agencies must band together to advocate that the Department of Justice
resume archaeological and other cultural property protection law training for federal prosecutors.
For 12 years, the National Park Service spearheaded this educational effort, but since 2003 there
has been a hiatus. Meanwhile, most of the prosecutors who had been trained between 1992 and
2003 either have retired, taken other assignments, or gone into private practice, leaving a
significant void.
• The gathering of information for the Secretary of the Interior’s report to Congress on the
federal archaeology program must be standardized. This is a complicated task because it involves
different departments of the federal government, but, at a minimum, the Secretary of the Interior
should mandate the use of the exact same data-capture form and process for all bureaus within
that department.

Notes
1. 16 U.S.C. 470mm.
2. 16 U.S.C. 470ll.
3. The ARPA statistical data in this paper derives from unpublished information provided by
federal agencies to the Departmental Consulting Archaeologist of the Department of the Interior
for the secretary’s forthcoming report to Congress. 519 Departmental Manual 2.3D (6) (DoI).
Thanks to Dennis Burnett, Caven Clark, Kathy Clark, Francis P. McManamon, Karen Mudar,
Bob Reid, and Robert Still for data.
4. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Caring for the Past, Managing for the Future
(March 2001). That not all agencies within the federal government can agree on how much land
the federal government actually manages is noteworthy. The U.S. Office of Drug Control Policy,
which funds marijuana eradication efforts on public lands, states the federal government
manages 717 million acres of land; personal communication from Tommy LaNeir, U.S. Office of
Drug Control Policy (December 5, 2006).
5. Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Caring for the Past, Managing for the Future
(March 2001); personal communication from Francis P. McManamon, Chief Archaeologist,
National Park Service (August 28, 2006) (providing NPS data); personal communication from
Bonnie Spearman, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
(August 31, 2006) (providing FWS refuge officer data).
6. Personal communications from: Carla Burnside, Archaeologist, Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge (June 2006); Timothy Canaday, Archaeologist, Klamath Falls Resource Area, Bureau of
Land Management (2006); Gail Firebaugh, Archaeologist, Gila National Forest (August 29,
2006); and Gerry Gates, Archaeologist, Modoc National Forest (December 11, 2006).
7. T. Destry Jarvis, Cultural Resources on the Bureau of Land Management Public Lands: An
assessment and needs analysis (May 2006); personal communication from Billy Shott, Advanced
Law Enforcement Training Program Manager, National Park Service (March 1, 2006) (providing
NPS ranger data).
8. Personal communication from Phillip A. Young, Special Agent, ARPA Task Force, National
Park Service (retired) (September 1, 2006); and informal polling conducted by the author at
various in-service training sessions for FWS, BLM, and NPS.
9. The two entities providing the largest number of courses are Archaeological Resource
Investigations (www.arinvestigations.net) and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center
(www.fletc.dhs.gov).
10. Personal communications from: Martin E. McAllister, Archaeologist and Principal,
Archaeological Resource Investigations (2006); and Charles D. Louke, ARPA Program
Manager, Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (2006).
11. Personal communication from Gail Firebaugh, Archaeologist, Gila National Forest (August
29, 2006). This is not to say forest personnel ignore the other 90% of looting taking place in the
forest. They might document the damage in the archaeological site record, increase monitoring,
work with law enforcement to install sensors, or rehabilitate the site.
12. Personal communications from: Bob Palmer, Acting National Staff Ranger, National Park
Service (August 2006); and David Tarler, Training and Enforcement Coordinator, National
NAGPRA Program, National Park Service (August 2006).
13. It should be noted that one inconsistency in the NPS statistics is definitely known to have
occurred. For 2001, one region did not report all their incidents. Then, in 2002, that region added
the unreported 2001 numbers into their 2002 data.
14. Caven Clark, An ARPA Plan for Buffalo National River (January 5, 2006; revised June 1,
2006) (unpublished manuscript on file with the author); personal communication from Caven
Clark, Archaeologist, Buffalo National River (Summer 2006).
15. Personal communication from Caven Clark, Archaeologist, Buffalo National River (August
2006).
16. Personal communications from: Caven Clark, Archaeologist, Buffalo National River (August
2006); and Robert Still, District Ranger, Buffalo National River (August 2006).
17. Personal communications from: Caven Clark, Archaeologist, Buffalo National River (August
2006); and Robert Still, District Ranger, Buffalo National River (August 2006).
18. James E. Price & Mary Jane Hastings, An Archeological Survey of Caves and Rockshelters in
Ozark National Scenic Riverways, Carter, Shannon, and Dent Counties, Missouri (August 1999).
19. Personal communications from: James E. Price, Ozark National Scenic Riverways (Summer
2006); and Caven Clark, Archaeologist, Buffalo National River (Summer 2006).
20. Personal communication from Gaul Firebaugh, Archaeologist, Gila National Forest (August
29, 2006).
21. Personal communication from Gaul Firebaugh, Archaeologist, Gila National Forest (August
29, 2006).
22. Personal communications from: Cathy VanCamp, Law Enforcement Officer, Gila National
Forest (November 30, 2005); and Steve Edwards, Law Enforcement Officer, Gila National
Forest (November 30, 2005).
23. Personal communication from Phillip A. Young, Special Agent, ARPA Task Force, National
Park Service (retired) (September 1, 2006) (discussing an unpublished ARPA Task Force
document/operations proposal).
24. Personal communication from Gaul Firebaugh, Archaeologist, Gila National Forest (August
29, 2006).
25. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Preserving Prehistory (2002).
26. See James Duffus III, Robert E. L. Allen, Jr., Leigh E. Cowing, Frederick A. Harter, Tanya
Gofoflh, Douglas H. West, Sue E. Naiberk, Mary Ann Needham, Lois J. Curtis, Patricia
Cheeseboro, Diane L. Sanelli & Felicia A. Turner, Cultural Resources: Problems Protecting and
Preserving Federal Archaeological Resources (1987).
27. Personal communication from Carla Burnside, Archaeologist, Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge (June 22, 2006).
28. Personal communication from Carla Burnside, Archaeologist, Malheur National Wildlife
Refuge (June 22, 2006).
29. Personal communications from Gerry Gates, Archaeologist, Modoc National Forest
(December 11, 2006) and Cheryl Foster-Curley, Archaeologist, Alturas Office, Bureau of Land
Management (December 12, 2006).
30. See Paul R. Nickens, Signa L. Larralde & Gordon C. Tucker, A Survey of Vandalism to
Archaeological Resources in Southwestern Colorado (1981); Richard Ahlstrom, et al.,
Pothunting in Central Arizona: The Perry Mesa Archaeological Site Vandalism Study (1992);
and Jerry D. Spangler, Shannon Arnold, & Joel Boomgarden, Chasing Ghosts: An Analysis of
Vandalism and Site Degradation in Range Creek Canyon, Utah (2006).
31. See Barbara E. Bundy, Preventing Looting and Vandalism of Archaeological Sites in the
Pacific Northwest (June 2005) (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation on file with the author).
32. See Martin E. McAllister, Looting and Vandalism of Archaeological Resources on Federal
and Indian Lands in the United States (1991); personal communication from Martin E.
McAllister, Archaeologist and Principal, Archaeological Resource Investigations (August 21,
2006).
33. See Timothy Canaday, Archaeological Damage Assessment Report for Disturbed Sites
Documented During Investigations by the Operation Indian Rocks ARPA Task Force December
15, 2001 thru January 17, 2003 (August 2003) (unpublished manuscript on file at the Bureau of
Land Management, Klamath Falls, Oregon, and with the author).
34. See Tim Canaday & Todd Swain, Operation Indian Rocks: Conducting Interagency ARPA
Investigations, 5/4 The SAA Archaeological Record 26 (2005); and Tim Canaday & Todd
Swain, Operation Indian Rocks: Interagency ARPA Investigations in the Deserts of Nevada and
California, in PRESENTING ARCHAEOLGY IN COURT 27–37 (S. Hutt, M. Forsyth, & D. Tarler
editors, 2006).
35. Personal communication from Robert Still, District Ranger, Buffalo National River (August
2006).
36. Personal communication from Martin E. McAllister, Archaeologist and Principal,
Archaeological Resource Investigations (August 21, 2006).
37. Personal communication from Martin E. McAllister, Archaeologist and Principal,
Archaeological Resource Investigations (August 21, 2006).
38. Government Accounting Office, Cultural Resources—Problems Protecting and Preserving
Archeological Resources on Federal Lands (December 1987).
This paper was first published in the Yearbook of Cultural Property Law 2007.