A former superintendent of Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa has pleaded guilty to theft of artifacts from the site, and has agreed to pay $108,000 in restitution, according to the National Park Service.
Thomas Munson also agreed to make a public apology and has been sentenced to a year of home detention and 100 hours of community service, according to a release.
Mr. Munson came under investigation in 2011 after a former employee alerted the current superintendent to the removal of the remains, the release said. While Mr. Munson returned some of the remains that year, investigators later found others during a search of his home. Some are estimated to be more than 2,000 years old.
Area tribes found the looting particularly egregious.
"These are people," said Iowa's state archeologist John Doershuk, "and there are living peoples who care deeply about these remains, just as most modern Americans would about their ancestors."
The monument protects more than 200 prehistoric mounds that help tell the story of early inhabitants of the area. They built the mounds as burial tumuli for their dead, or for other purposes yet unknown. A number of mounds were built in the shapes of animals and birds. Members of area tribes consider the mounds sacred. Munson served as the monument's superintendent for more than two decades.
Comments
This is just the one who got caught.
Caught, prosecuted, convicted.
This is a sad report of the total failure of stewardship by a senior NPS management employee. As virtually any park service employee will attest, NPS personnel must be held to the highest standards of resource protection and public service. The parks and their resources are the property of the American public, both current and future. Park Service employees have the privilege and duty to care for these priceless treasures and must be willing to hold the line regardless of whoever may be involved. The employee who blew the whistle is to be congratulated and should be duly rewarded for his/her courage and dedication. Thank you!
Is it NPS or Justice Department?
Good Grief.....who ARE you? Of course there is more to the story. What are you, like 12 years old? Do you seriously believe every printed word? If you are so interested in this case ( enough to comment "disgusting and pathetic" ) perhaps you should read more than one source. Even just casual googling would help you discover that this retired park service official is taking the fall for the lack of NPS oversight and lack of clear directive. Wow.....throw away they key?????? For artifacts that don't even qualify for more than a misdimeanor because three archeologists including the the National Park Service Archeoligist, have clearly stated that the remains are worth no more than $500.00?
OBVIOUSLY there is more than meets the eye.
Was he also in place when the desecration of the mounts occurred?
The newspaper articles stated "what is more to this story," and that is that the Native American groups assumed that the Superintendent objected to the principles of the "Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act." AKA Public Law 101-601. Obliquely, that is what the state archaeologist is actually talking about when he says above
I don't know about you, but everyone I know has a check mark in her or his drivers license saying they happily give their body to science. If the bones of my ancestors could help understand history better or help science, no one in my family would object. In New York, African Americans were embittered when it looked like the government would build a building and ignore or sweep away the graves of the 15,000 enslaved ancestors. But when finally they made the government pay attention, they supported the complete scientific study of the graves and bones of their ancestors, to learn more about who they were and where they were from. Only THEN were the disturbed remains reburied in a highly respectful ceremony. But AFTER study. In the case of artifacts at Effigy Mounds, had they been reported the law would have required their surrender with no scientific study whatsoever.
So the outrage in the Native American community was because they assumed the Superintendent was pro-archaeology and against the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act. To an archaelogist, it is not the "$ value" of the artifacts, it is removing them before thorough study and documentation from the cultural matrix, the physical context that destroys the value of an artifact. So the "$500" may actually be accurate, if the Native American community is right about the motives of the Superintendent.
As to Ray Bane's point:
Mr. Bane, based on the accusations of the Native American community, one could conclude that the motive of the Superintendent might be that he believed that the parks and their resources are the property of the American public, rather than the property of the Native American community. One could conclude that this Superintendent believed it was his privilege and duty to care for these priceless treasurers [literally, apparently, in this case] and must be willing to hold the line regardless of whoever may be involved.
Well in this case, the Native American Community and the Congress of the US are the ones who may be involved, and according to press suggestive reports, the ones against whom the Superintendent was holding the line. Again, this speculation is informed by press reports that Native American groups assume the Superintendent was holding out against NAGPRA (Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act. That Act would require a National Park Employee, rather than care for these priceless treasures, would require that Superintendent to turn them over to the Native American community. If this speculation is well-informed, it follows the Superintendent knew the resources would be lost to the park if reported, and so he held on to them to resist NAGPRA, not make money or keep them for personal use.
But, apparently the Superintendent kept silent as to motive, and admitted what he had done without explanation.
It surprises me that none of the commenters remember the strong objections to NAGPRA by most of the professional archaeological organizations at the time, but it was muted because of the sensitive nature of the issue. No one wanted to show disrespect for Native cultures, even if they were in horror that science may never have access to crucial information about how people lived on this hemisphere, to learn about the ecological impact of Man in the Americas, to learn about the enormous loss of the species that existed prior to Man's arrival, to learn in detail about the causes for the huge population losses endured by Native Americans when Europeans first came to this continent in the 15th and 16th Centuries.
One of the primary targets of NAGPRA was people who were "trafficing" in human remains or cultural objects, something that it seems possible by leaving the materials in his garage this Superintendent might never have intended to "traffic" the remains. Not that he did not break that law, he did.
Is no one aware of the fight over whether the "Kennewik Man" was or was not considered an ancestor?
Because in that fight many cultural resource people had their jobs threatened for refusing to give up the fight to prove that this one man's remains did NOT fall under the provisions of NAGPRA.
All that for just ONE skeleton.
Imagine how fervently such archeologists might have felt about a law that would take all such cultural remains away from any of the normal provisions that would apply to Parks? Or, to keep artifacts in the Museums or Visitor Centers, for now many such museum items have been recovered by Tribal authorities and removed from public view or study.
Regardless of all their years of professional training about the value of study, and their training about the value of protecting resource on behalf of all the people, all professional land managers of course are now strictly required to obey this law, and all civilians fully responsible to comply with its provisions. NPS professionals receive training in the provisions of NAGPRA and learn that it is the policy of the Congress and the Law of the United States for all NPS employees to follow NAGPRA and repatriate all such cultural materials and remains. I would find it impossible to believe this Superintendent had not taken that NAGPRA course and understood its provisions and his responsibilities exactly. Surely this Superintendent should not have taken it for granted that a Park employee who was aware that he was removing the artifacts would agree with what he was doing; Ray Bane is right that the whistle-blower is the one following the law. He probably had the training, too. There was a time you could assume all park staff shared the same preservation values.
Hmmm. I wonder if it is possible these cultural resources issues might actually be complicated, or even contradictory . . . hmmm.
http://www.indianz.com/News/2016/01/04/usvmunsonpleaagreeement.pdf