Rachel Morgan has written a thought-provoking book about the history of archeological fieldwork in the Four Corners region of southwestern North America, and the development of a legal infrastructure that governs who can collect prehistoric artifacts in the United States. Based on solid research, Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology synthesizes a wealth of information and should be of interest to historians of science, practicing archeologists, and anyone eager to learn more about the deep history of the Four Corners region.

This book is divided into two parts. The first is a narrative history that focuses on the Wetherill family. They developed an interest in archeology during the late 1880s, when Richard Wetherill came across Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde, near his parents’ ranch southwest of Mancos, Colorado. Over the next several years, Richard and his family collected artifacts and led tours of Mesa Verde. They also sold a portion of their collection to the Colorado Historical Society. Then, during the early 1890s, the Wetherills worked with a Scandinavian explorer named Gustaf Nordenskiöld. His excavations aroused considerable resentment among local people, especially when Nordenskiöld shipped a large collection of artifacts to the National Museum of Finland. He was arrested, but there were no laws to prohibit the looting of archeological sites at the time, so he was eventually released. In 1893, publication of Nordenskiöld’s book, The Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde, re-ignited the controversy. Apparently, Americans bristled at the idea that a foreigner could export antiquities from the United States and use them to write about its deep history. They did not reflect nearly as much on the recency of their own arrival, nor did they think to ask Native people how they felt about American scientists extracting specimens, including human remains, from sacred sites.

Shortly after they finished working for Nordenskiöld, the Wetherills met a New York physician named Frederick E. Hyde. Together, they formed the Hyde Exploring Expedition, which began conducting excavations at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in 1896. In part through their research, Chaco revealed itself as one of the most significant pre-Columbian sites in North America. However, despite their success, the Wetherills struggled to make ends meet. They continued to supply artifacts to Nordenskiöld and others, including the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, but were never satisfied by what scientists were willing to pay. Thus, Richard Wetherill decided to try a somewhat different tack. Starting in the late 1890s, he used wooden beams from Ancestral Puebloan dwellings to begin building a three-story “trading post” at Chaco, where visitors could book a guided tour, purchase ancient artifacts, and acquire Diné blankets and other traditional artwork. In addition, the Wetherills also supplied much of the material for the anthropological exhibits at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis.

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the discipline of archeology professionalized, and commercial collectors such as the Wetherills encountered increasing derision and disdain. As a result, professional archeologists and their allies began to lobby the U.S. federal government to pass legislation that would protect ancient sites from so-called “pot hunters.” After a series of setbacks, their efforts culminated in passage of the Antiquities Act, which Theodore Roosevelt formally signed into law on June 8, 1906. This law’s complex legislative history, as well as legal challenges that led to the passage of subsequent laws such as the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, comprises the second, shorter section of Morgan’s book.

This book raises some difficult but important questions. Perhaps none of these is more pressing that regarding who owns the deep past. Who has the authority to determine what happens to ancient sites, archeological artifacts, and human remains? As Morgan describes it, her research shows how people “invaded precious sites from antiquity and grabbed as much as they could carry.” “There was nothing scientific about their endeavors,” she insists. Most often, “they had monetary incentives” (238). But this assertion assumes a clear demarcation between scientists and commercial collectors that simply did not exist for most of the nineteenth century. In fact, there was nothing unscientific about the work of late nineteenth-century pot hunters who looted ancient sites to make a profit. That was standard practice at the time. It is only with hindsight, after reforms were enacted around the turn of the twentieth century, that the pursuit of knowledge came to be seen as conflicting with the desire to make money.

This knowledge hints at a much more unsettling story than the one Morgan tells in Sins of the Shovel. What if the Antiquities Act was not just laudatory attempt to protect ancient sites from unscrupulous looters? What if, instead, scientists used it to acquire a monopoly on the antiquities trade, insisting that they alone had the right to decide what should be done with prehistoric artifacts and ancient sites? Morgan quotes the Choctaw archeologist Joe Watkins, who contends that “archeologists (perhaps unintentionally) began to co-opt the American Indian’s unwritten history and material culture.” “The United States government deemed archeological and historical sites worthy of protection,” Watkins continues, “but it ultimately developed a permit system that centered protection of the past within the scientific community rather than in the hands of those whose ancestors were responsible for its creation” (144). The past is contested territory. To the extent that professional scientists succeeded in asserting sovereign control over prehistory, they played an integral role in the political project of imperial expansion.