Mound / Pottery Field

[Kristophb]

So, I grew up in a small parish in North Eastern Louisiana. Native Americans inhabited the whole area. I know of a State Road out in the countryside located close to a river that is basically laid directly through an apparently large sized mound. The grounds are used for farming, and there is tons of broken pottery shards strewn from the the top of the road all the way down to the river. I have personally collected around 50 pounds of nice sized pieces and most have distinct markings on them. On any given day, whether plowed or not, anybody could spend only 2 hours collecting and definitely walk away with at least 10 pounds of broken pottery pieces!! This doesn't seem like a "legal" act on the state's part to me. There's no telling what is actually under this mound, potentially some very good things to study and learn from. I have no idea how old the road is, can someone please help me out here. I feel that this is something too good to simply overlook and let slide. I am more concerned with the significance of this site for preservation, and archaeological studies more than "digging" or collecting for my personal collection. Please help me out here, any advice legal or not will be much appreciated. I also had some of the marked pieces looked at by a college archaeology professor and he stated that it was a subject worth looking into.

[Wilson]

IDK, on that, if you tell anyone, you wont be picking up any more pottery. They will though!!!  Go after they till. Sounds like the farmer has the say. Maybe he will let you check it out a little better! Cant hurt to talk to him.

[Hoss]

Every state has a Historic  Preservation office . I am sure someone there would be very interested in what you are saying.
By the way do you have permission to collect from this area?   http://www.crt.state.la.us/cultural-...ervation/index

[Hoss]

PS this is not a very good approach. In your last paragraph you ask this.  "any advice legal or not will be much appreciated."  Why would you be soliciting illegal advice? I mean what if someone told you to do something illegal and you did it and got caught? What would you do then? Say some guy said that it was OK on the internet?
Show a picture of some of the pottery. It might encourage more responses to your questions.

[Kristophb]

This is a small town, I never asked permission nor has anyone ever stopped and told me otherwise. It's a Small town, so everybody knows everybody. Obviously when I asked for any "legal" advice, I was preferring to any state laws that I don't know about that may be helpful here.

[chase]

I grew up in a small town, and the coffee shop/ breakfast cafe was where all the ranchers came too, 7 days a week,(Still Do) It was a table that everyone sat around and told all stories, both truth or pulled a little, like how big the fish the caught. Breakfast was served when the rancher wanted it, but the coffee poured freely. Men went and came but all knew one and other. In those days it was nothing to say Hey Joe I plan on walking such and such of place, are you going to be out there.  There was never A no but a naw I got this to do or hey do you want me to bring you lunch. I have seen it in many towns of such tables.
But digging or collecting On public lands is a no...no. read your state laws.
BTW welcome to AH.com  :welcome:

[CMD]

"any advice legal or not" can also mean "any legal advice or any advice of a non legal variety". Doesn't have to mean legal or illegal. But a person can't be faulted for interpreting it that way.

[CMD]

If it's a state road, and the state built it through a mound, then the state should be cited, not the citizens of the town for picking up the sherds! Even if it's a "no-no", what do we call what the state did to the very same site, meh? No biggie? Let's cite the guy picking them up out of the road? If he's supposed to know the state law, what about the state? Cite the road crew too.
A state should bear some responsibility for educating it's citizens regarding it's laws. I would not expect residents of a small town to necessarily even ask themselves "what is the relationship between this piece of pottery I'm holding on this road to nowhere and state law?" Ignorance of the law may be technically and legally no excuse, but in reality let the state put a sign up stating "It is a violation of state law to collect pottery fragments, punishable by a fine of $500".

[Kristophb]

I would never deliberately break the law or disrespect the remains of the people out of greed, just to obtain more cool artifacts. I also am not trying to take anybody's land away or redirect any roads, which would definitely piss off a farmer and a whole bunch of locals. I have a lot of Native blood in my veins, I just want to see this site be more appreciated, acknowledged, and possibly researched just so that future people who pass thru or live near will at least know to respect it. I may have committed a "no no" by collecting from there, but at least in my heart I know that I have saved that piece of history from being totally demolished. Because each piece that I pick up, I appreciate it, preserve it, and hold it dear in my world. But who couldn't feel this way about these special things? I like to think that Mother Earth allowed me to find these treasures that she unearthed for me, as a gift.

[clovisoid]

It's kind of hard to tell if you are describing a really large mound, or just a natural hill/ridge that had some campsites or middens on it.  My guess would be natural hill.  There are some mounds or earthworks where they might have cut through a portion of a mound, but not many where it would have been easier to cut right through it to make a road vs just flattening or going around it.   Not sure where you are exactly, but Poverty Point is in Northern Louisiana.  (That is one big site where they cut through the earthworks.)
Personally, I'd talk to the farmer and see if you can get permission to collect artifacts there.  When I was younger asking for permission to walk a plowed field was strange, but times change. (If the farmer came out it was because he wanted to see what you found, or tell you where to look.)

CMD wrote:

If it's a state road, and the state built it through a mound, then the state should be cited, not the citizens of the town for picking up the sherds!

  It really depends on when the road was put in.  It wasn't too long ago that the road would have had more importance than the site (unless it was a famous site already preserved in a park.)  Even with the big GE Hopewell site in Indiana, the issue wasn't that construction destroyed part of the site, it was that collectors were selling the stuff and word of the site was getting out there.  (The crime wasn't that the state contractors went onto private property and used dirt from the mound vs paying to truck in fill dirt, it was that items were collected from the dirt.)

[Mojo Mike]

I live in Louisiana and it is against the law to collect from state property.best bet is to get permission from the closest land owner to that site and hunt.Is it close to Poverty Point?I've seen killer stuff from that area!I also know that back in the day they dug up a lot of shell mounds here to use for road fill,what a shame.