Show The Utah Statesman Winedy October 14 171 Prt 7 Carelessness is causing Utah artifacts to be defaced GEORGE Utah (AP)— Every hunter hikers and ytir pottery crews obliterate a little bit bor of Utah’s history of fiw unintentionally or out deface ptcd spite or ignorance they jlwTin rock carvings rummage artlessly through ruins and demolish incient artifacts of cultures long gone Although there are federal and state laws protecting ancient artifacts they mt generally considered Sometimes governments arc the biggest offenders pushing a road ST con-nKrti- unen-fbReab- through the site le of an ancient pueblo found when they arrived in the Great Basin Thompson’s was the only archaeological expedition active in Utah this summer With a team of students he excavated stone rooms built hundreds of years ago on a mesa overlooking the oddly shaped and brightly colored peaks of what is now Zion National Park Thompson’s challenge and that of every archaeologist is convincing people the past is worth protecting It's hard to get money for field work because people don’t see the applicability of archaeology Thompson says But archaeology’s aim is to find out why former civilizations grew developed and died and those lessons re relevant today he says The goal is a better understanding of human behavior - David B Madsen the state archaeologist says he's hampered by a small staff and ineffective laws He has two staff archaeologists besides himself plus one paleontologist His office has only been in existence since 1973 chaining over scrub brush and demolishing several potential digs Richard Thompson a blue-eye- d sunburned archaeology professor at Southern Utah State College has been taking crews out into the desert for yean in an attempt to piece together the record of the hunters and gatherers and the more settled peoples who once lived in the and Southwest Archaeologists study four basic cultures who inhabited Utah Hunters and gatherers roamed throughout the region from about 10000 BC to about 1 AD and 130 AD During the same period Indians belonging to the Fremont culture — a group unique to Utah — built earthen lodges grew corn and squash and hunted in the southern part of the or state AD southern replaced the other cultures They were the tnbes the early Spanish explorers After about 1500 the Paiutet Utet and Shoshone AQsB He and his colleagues are legally responsible for identifying protecting and explaining archaeological sites an state bind throughout Utah — some 30000 sites in all ranging from relatively unimportant to highly significant Because his staff is so small and the area to cover immense Madsen says the best way to protect archaeological sites is to keep them hidden from the public— exactly the opposite of what he’s supposed to do “The professional pot hunters ate really hard to police They can go through a lot of sites in a hurry says Madsen “Under state law you almost have to catch them in the act to prosecute them In one area between Natural Bridges and Lake Powell we identified 93 sites and 87 of them had been partially or wholly vandalized before we got there” What is needed Madsen says is a law that makes the sale of antiquities illegal “We tried that a couple of years ago in the Legislature but the bill got bogged down in committee We’U try again” he says since the best way to stop professional pot hunters is to remove the profit motive Another major threat to Utah’s part is its energy-ric- h present Construction of dams highways and power lines invariably results in the destruction of some archaeological sites say Madsen and Thompson The MX missile system would have wiped out numerous sites and opened uphtde- - AKJ® ITJ® VOZSCZ att van ipvouso 7fmrjriv ocigs mr 2 OT170 GtDV OvD tea cream Asorted candles Paries Dsnuts Hansmade breed with honey butter 6 Jams Loutad on |