Untitled Document

29 August 2003

The Ethics of Collecting (or should it be The Collecting of Ethics?)

First of a series by Susan Campbell

My good friend Lana, her husband Alex and I are all "museum people". Alex is still with an institution, while Lana and I have many fond memories of our time working together as mp’s. Perhaps because of their specialty--archaeology--or perhaps because they were/are mp’s, Lana and Alex are very aware of the importance of context. Which reminds me of one of my favorite stories.

Imagine this: It’s 1926. You’re riding the ranch on horseback, maybe ridin’ fence, maybe just felt like riding. You’re outside of Folsom, NM You’re probably used to the sights in this arid land. You’ve seen a jillion mammal skeletons — just a fact of life. You see one now. Wonder what killed that cow? You ride up. It’s too big to be a cow. Could it have been a leftover from the great buffalo days? Now you can see it up close. It’s really big. Whoa…there’s something in amongst those big ol’ rib bones…you pop your head back quick…snake? No. You lean a bit closer. It’s a great, big arrowhead. No, it must’ve been for a spear. You pick it up. It’s long, has these channels cut into it that nearly go from top to bottom. What’s weird is that the buffalo bones are heavier and harder than any cow or buffalo skeleton you’ve seen. Hmmm. You button that spear point into your shirt pocket and ride on.

Back at the ranch house, you clean that spear point, give it a good spit shine. You stick it in that mateless sock, back behind your other stuff and you close the drawer.

Now it’s 2003, and that old chest of drawers is sitting on a driveway with a $20 sign on it. In the trash bag nearby is a bunch of old, dusty stuff — including one old sock with some old, probably fake, arrowhead or something in it. It’ll be 20 feet under tomorrow, at the city dump.

Wait a minute. Back up.

Back at the ranch house, you show that spear point, give everybody a good look-see. You go to your dresser, remembering you’ve got that mateless sock. Carefully, you wrap that worked piece of stone in that sock and put it behind everything in the drawer. Next day you show it to that man who knows that man who studies fossils. A paleontologist. He comes to visit and seems pretty excited. He tells some other scientists about it, and next thing you know, there’s a bunch of them crouched around those bones, sweating, out on the ranch.

They’re measuring and drawing pictures of those bones, putting up stakes and strings and asking you to put the spear point back EXACTLY as it was when you found it. The fossil man says he’s not positive, but he thinks the bones are from a bison, but from a kind that died out about 10,000 years ago! One of the other scientists just sits there with an amazed look on his face. Your friend’s friend tells you that the dazed guy is an archaeologist. He studies people from the past. He keeps asking you if you’re SURE the spear point was IN the ribcage of that animal. You keep telling him YES! You tell him that OBVIOUSLY some Indian killed that bison.

Then he tells you that as far as scientists know, there were no humans here at all before 4000 or 5000 years ago. He jumps up and starts jerking you around by your collar. "Don’t you get it? Your spear point had to have killed that bison, and he says that bison must’ve died around 10,000 years ago! That bison didn’t make that spear and then jump on it. This means there were humans here…10,000 years ago!" It was a week until you could move your head right after that. This style of spear point is now referred to as Folsom, and so is the culture of the people who manufactured it.

Ten years later, near Clovis, NM, someone found some mammoth bones. Guess what was found in ’em. A great, big spear point. But this one was different. The experts who study these things had never seen one like it — it had a channel going just part way down the middle. Guess what else. The mammoth was estimated to have become extinct over 10,000 years ago. Years later, soil analysis techniques revealed that these points were more like 11,000 years old. They are called Clovis points, and the culture is the Clovis people.

OK. I sort of fictionalized the story, and I led you astray a bit, too. I made up the mateless sock and the drawer business. But, just imagine if that cowboy had put that spear point in his underwear drawer. We might not have found out about the Folsom and Clovis people.

Context matters a lot. It is not ethical, and is usually illegal, to remove artifacts from their resting places. The reasons are obvious and sound. Call a scientist instead. Don’t tell a soul until after you show the expert. Who knows, maybe they’ll name it after you, or show your picture in the museum so all the 3^rd-graders who see the exhibit will wish they were as lucky as you!

If you covet ancient things, do the right thing. Become an archaeologist or paleontologist. Volunteer at a museum or university. Then you get to have a fascinating job, play pretty terrific show and tell, and pretend all you want to that these wonderful evidences of time gone by are yours! Learn more. Search "Clovis" and "Folsom" on the Internet, or visit a natural history museum.