More Fallout from the Great Raid

[Jerry Rogers]

 

I knew Forrest Fenn slightly about 1970 in Lubbock, TX where he had established a foundry to cast bronze sculptures.  He moved the business to Santa Fe where the art market was thriving, and bought a piece of land encompassing San Lazaro Pueblo.  Nowadays he hangs around archaeological meetings appearing to crave respect, but most people try not to be seen near him.  He owns what he claims to be a famous cache of Clovis-era artifacts, but its provenance is not widely accepted.  For decades he has been mining his pueblo for artifacts and selling them--legal because he owns the site and because he claims never to encounter any human remains that would require him to comply with NAGPRA or other laws protecting burials.  This, of course, makes his site unique among other pueblo sites.  I hope this case goes to trial rather than being settled.

 

In the dim recesses of memory is a long-ago story about the late NPS archaeologist Charlie Steen going out to inspect the National Historic Landmark pueblo site and being driven away by the owner who brandished a shotgun.  Not sure if that owner might have been Fenn.

 

JLR

 

 

Santa Fe/ Agents Search Home for Artifacts

By Polly Summar
ABQ Journal
June 11, 2009

Agents descended Wednesday on the Santa Fe home of former gallery owner Forrest Fenn armed with a search warrant seeking eagle feathers, ancient American Indian artifacts and sacred items, as well as a series of records dealing with sale or possible illegal possession of such items.
     
Even a mummified falcon reputed to be from King Tut's tomb, allegedly taken by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat from the Cairo Museum to give as a gift, apparently ended up in Fenn's hands — prompting searchers to include in the warrant “correspondence from the government of the Arab Republic of Egypt to Forrest Fenn.”
     
The story of the falcon, according to the affidavit, was based on taped and monitored conversations an informant had with Fenn over the last year. Fenn currently sells Indian artifacts and other items online at www.oldsantafetradingco.com.
     
Videos and audiotapes led agents to believe many items Fenn collected over the years may have come from public lands or may be sacred items that could not be legally taken from tribes, according to the affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque in support of the search warrant.
     
Fenn did not return calls from the Journal on Wednesday.
     
Vehicles surrounding Fenn's home at 1021 Old Santa Fe Trail came from a number of federal agencies, including the FBI, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Department.
     
“I can confirm that we executed a federal search warrant at that address this morning,” said Darrin Jones, spokesman for the FBI in New Mexico.
     
The search, Jones said, was part of the same case in which some two dozen people were indicted in a sweeping federal investigation into ancient artifacts stolen from public and tribal lands in the Southwest.
     
An undercover source purchased 256 artifacts in 2007 and 2008 — Anasazi pottery, an assortment of burial and ceremonial masks, a buffalo headdress, arrowheads, hair ornaments and more — totaling $335,685. Jones said the case originated in the bureau's Salt Lake City office and is being coordinated out of that office in conjunction with the BLM.
     
“Twelve indictments have charged 24 defendants, and arrest warrants were issued for 23 out of the 24,” said Melissa Schwartz, spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday.
     
Only one of the 23 people arrested was from New Mexico — David Waite in Albuquerque, according to Juan Becerra, an FBI spokesman in Salt Lake City. The others were from Utah and Colorado.
     
No charges were filed against Fenn on Wednesday.
     
The investigation is the nation's largest investigation of archaeological and cultural artifact theft, according to Melodie Rydalch, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney's office in Utah. Some 300 federal agents from the BLM were involved in the arrests.
     
The search warrant for Fenn's home outlined conversations with the informant and items displayed.
     
Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, any American Indian human remains, funerary objects, objects of cultural patrimony and sacred objects must be repatriated to Indian tribes, according to a statement from Rydalch. In regard to items seized from the four states, the BLM will consult with tribes to determine cultural affiliation and to facilitate repatriation.
       
The Four Corners area, once the center of Anasazi or ancestral Puebloan culture is a treasure trove of archaeological artifacts, said Mark Michel, president of the Archaeological Conservancy, a national group based in Albuquerque. “There are thousands of archaeological sites in that area, and I've never seen one that hasn't had some looting,” said Michel, who has worked in the areas for 30 years.
     
Regarding the overall regional operation, Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, issued a statement: “Let this case serve notice to anyone who is considering breaking these laws and trampling our nation's cultural heritage that the BLM, the Department of Justice and the federal government will track you down and bring you to justice.”
     
In the early 90s, Fenn sued, and later dropped the suit, to keep state officials from entering a prehistoric pueblo site that he owns in Galisteo. A state archaeologist reported at the time that he found a human arm bone and several finger bones atop a large pile of potsherds on the property.
     
In a counterclaim, state officials charged Fenn knowingly disturbed human burials at the site. Fenn said he accepted a settlement offer from the Attorney General's office in which both parties agreed to drop their claims.
     
In the affidavit filed Monday in connection with Wednesday's search, the BLM did say that it was legal for Fenn to have items from that privately-owned site.
     
During the search at Fenn's home at about 2:30 p.m., a BLM agent said the team leader at Fenn's home could not speak to a reporter. “They're swamped in there,” he said.
     
But the activity did attract a passer-by.
     
“Is there a sale?” the man asked. “I thought maybe Forrest was having a sale.”

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24 charged in crackdown on Native American artifact looting

By Nicholas Riccardi and Jim Tankersley
Los Angeles Times
June 11, 2009

Reporting from Washington and Denver -- Striking at a longtime practice in the Four Corners area, federal authorities Wednesday unsealed indictments against 24 people in what they called the largest investigation ever into the looting of Native American artifacts on public lands.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the charges at a Salt Lake City news conference and said in a telephone interview that many of the stolen items, valued at $335,000, came from sacred burial sites. "The message that we're sending is, we're not going to tolerate this kind of activity," he said.

The charges stem from a two-year undercover investigation into excavators and buyers of the artifacts in Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico. Federal authorities developed an antiquities dealer as a source who wore a hidden microphone to record several illicit transactions, according to court records.

The items varied: an ax, woven baskets, sandals, ceramic bowls, a rug made with turkey feathers.

"Pot hunting" for Native American treasures is a pastime in many rural communities in the history-rich region.

The high desert of the Four Corners region was home to a flourishing Native American civilization centuries before European exploration, and traces of these inhabitants are found throughout the canyons and mesas of the Southwest, preserved by the arid air inside caves, on rock faces and in towering cliff houses.

Archaeologists, Native American groups and preservationists have long argued that the government has not moved aggressively enough to stamp out the plundering of artifacts. One of President George W. Bush's final pardons was granted to the first Utah man convicted of stealing artifacts from public lands.

"State, local and federal officials have not been very forceful about this in the past," said David Nimkin of the National Parks Conservation Assn.

Many experts also say the government hasn't convinced the public of the damage done by pot hunting, which destroys the historical record that allows archaeologists to better understand the Southwest's earliest inhabitants.

"It's like burning down the library before you have a chance to read the books in it," said Barbara Pahl of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Pahl was in Blanding, Utah, last week -- the isolated town of 3,000 where most of those indicted live -- talking with city officials about how to persuade locals to refrain from disturbing ancient sites. She was dispirited at the wide range of people who authorities allege are poachers.

"It's sort of a sad day," Pahl said. "You feel like you're losing the battle."

Southwest residents have been scooping up artifacts for generations. Since the early 20th century, settlers were even encouraged to dig up arrowheads, pottery and other remains. In the 1920s the University of Utah paid Blanding residents $2 per ancient pot.

Federal authorities estimate that 90% of the 20,000 archaeological sites in San Juan County, where Blanding is located, have been plundered.

According to a search warrant affidavit, the FBI and Bureau of Land Management in October 2006 developed "a major dealer of archaeological artifacts" as a source who would help them unravel the informal network of pot hunters profiting off the land's history. Authorities wired the dealer to record the transactions.

In December 2007, for example, David Lacy, 55, and another defendant allegedly came to the dealer with a wide range of artifacts that they indicated had been found on public land. The items included the turkey feather blanket, an ancient digging stick and a knife.

"Lacy stated they had the cops after them because they had parked at the Marquee mine in Red Canyon and someone saw them," the affidavit alleges. The dealer ended up purchasing the items for $6,000 and gave Lacy a letter that would establish where the items were found, the document alleges.

Even though Lacy had acknowledged finding them on public land, he asked that they be listed as coming from private sites, the document alleges.

Those indicted include Harold Lyman, 78, who was inducted into the Utah Tourism Hall of Fame for pioneering a route through southeastern Utah showcasing ancient Indian sites; he is accused of selling the source an ancient pipe bowl.

Jeanne Redd, 59, was indicted for allegedly selling a tribal bird pendant. A woman with that name had been charged previously with desecrating Native American grave sites in southern Utah.

Lacy, Lyman and Redd, all Utah residents, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. All but one of the 24 defendants were arrested Wednesday.

As the alleged poachers were being detained, Jerry Spangler, head of the Colorado Plateau Archaeological Alliance, learned of the operation while at a dig in central Utah. He was cheered by the news.

But he was also discouraged that artifacts he and his fellow archaeologists had found at the site last fall were now gone -- apparently looted.

The charges for violating the Archaeological Resources Protection Act carry maximum penalties of one to 10 years.