Some of Florida’s top scientists and academics are sounding the alarm as the Legislature considers allowing collectors to keep the historic artifacts they pull from rivers and streams.
The bill passed the House Economic Development and Tourism Subcommittee on Tuesday.
In its simplest form, the bill by Republican Representative Charlie Stone of Ocala is a legal definition for finders keepers.
“We’re just trying to give the citizens an opportunity to discover artifacts where we all can learn about our history.”
Anyone who pays 100 dollars for a permit, and agrees to let the state examine what he finds on a river or stream bottom, can keep the so-called “isolated artifact.”
But on its deepest level, the bill raises a fundamental question -- who owns Florida’s history?
All of us, says Susan de France, who chairs the archaeology department at the University of Florida. She says the bill would rob the public of evidence that can’t be replaced.
“Most of us feel it is a disastrous bit of legislation that would, in large part, allow any private individual to get a permit and excavate archaeological material and in doing so, destroy a lot of the archeological context.”
Experts say taking an artifact from an historic site can be like trampling a crime scene. They say an object is worthless as a clue unless a scientific investigator knows where the object was in relation to all the other clues.
And the crime scene analogy stretches even further, says opponent Willet Boyer III. Boyer says amateur treasure hunters could stumble over a submerged burial site, and suddenly find themselves breaking federal antiquities law.
“You’re in a situation where you are putting the people who are doing this at risk, and you are putting the state at risk, of devastating legal, economic and financial consequences.”
And when it comes to amateur archaeology in Florida, the legal consequences have already been severe. In 2012, agents with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission conducted “Operation Timucua,” (Tim-MUCK-Uah,) a sting that netted 14 arrests in South Georgia and Florida.
The suspects included a military veteran and a retired university professor. Reputations were ruined and one suspect committed suicide.
Teben (TEE-ben) Pyles, a member of the Tri-State Archaeological Society, says the bill would not only free amateurs to indulge their passion, it would discourage looting by putting more eyes and ears in the field.
“This bill does more to protect and preserve the archaeological record than it does to negate it. You will never be able to out police the public in this area of conservation with laws that are based on zero tolerance.”
Florida had a similar “isolated artifacts” program for about a decade. But it was shut down in 2005 when the Florida Historical Commission reported that it was providing cover for illegal looting.
Fred Gaske, the former head of the Division of Historic Resources, urged lawmakers not to let that history repeat itself.
“As the saying goes, been there, done that. The isolated finds program did not work as intended.”
The bill passed the subcommittee with only a single “no” vote.
