Focusing Efforts to Impact the Precolumbian Antiquities Trade

Summary

How can we as archaeologists best focus our efforts to have a positive impact upon the Precolumbian antiquities market? We will discuss some of the most important restrictions upon law enforcement investigations into antiquities smuggling, by drawing upon case experience. We will discuss how both foreign and American government departments may overestimate law enforcement’s ability to pursue legal action based on a flawed understanding of constitutional law; how antiquities smuggling is of low prosecutorial priority relative to drug, weapons, or human trafficking; and how antiquities possession, as part of a mixed market, is not a prima facie crime and therefore much harder to prosecute. While we can posit institutional changes that could positively impact these restrictions, we find them unlikely to be enacted in the current political climate. Our efforts may be better rewarded by trying to change attitudes than impacting policy, both through education and through foreign aid.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Precolumbian Antiquities Market: Reflections, Critiques, and Effecting Change   •
• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15550