Just don't disturb anything "sacred".

See Blanding folks, this is how it's done.

So it's perfectly all right for students and archeologists to dig up Indian graves and loot artifacts for the Feds while private citizens are going to jail for distrubing "sensitive areas" that hold "sacred" Indian artifacts?

You know where some of these artifacts will end up don't you? In museums where people have to pay to view them; not unlike digging them up an selling them for a profit.

I would like someone to spin this one for us and justify the hypocricy of "the law" that is self-evident here.

If Indian artifacts are so sacred, what are these people doing digging them up and what do the Indians think about it?

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Just because something is called "legal" doesn't make it right---does it?

The difference, Ranger, is that the students are actually accountable for what they're doing. They're not out there, solo, deciding what they can take and what they can't take. Locations of where the items were found are documented contributing to what we know about the cultures being studied.

So yeah, in this case, because something is legal, it is right.

If the people of southern utah had documented and cataloged what they found, and left the bones where they be, it wouldn't be an intrusion, and should be legal cause they would be contributing to what we know about the cultures being studied. Because you can remove the artifacts, and the people doing the digs can sell the artifacts to other schools and museums.

You do realize that now it is against the law to pickup old shell casings and old beer bottles. Because my culture holds this trash to be sacred. As they say one mans trash is another mans treasure.

An arrowhead sitting out in the dirt is the same as a spent bullet. A broken beer bottle is the same as a shard of pottery. The only difference is the age of the trash. To think one day the land fill will be sacred ground.

Whoa how not politically correct I've been.

Not politically correct and also pretty ignorant, but I've come to expect that from most folks.

to reformed Utahn- What's proper about slandering an entire community? How does, that, as you proclaim, make you a superior human being?

The question I posed wasn't "what is the difference" between student archeologists digging up Indian artifacts vs. private citizens digging up artifacts. The question was, "is it right" to do so if the artifacts are considered "sacred" by Indians and did the student archeologists obtain permission to do so from the Indians?

You did, however, spin your answer to "justify" the Feds permission in digging up artifacts for profit. Yeah, that's all right because they call it legal---huh?

The fine points of the law are justice and mercy; something needs to be done to correct the law if it's not covering all the bases.