CPAC Testimony: Honduras
January 16, 2002
Dr. Martin Sullivan
Chair, U.S. Cultural Property
Advisory Committee
U.S. Department of State
301 4th Street, S.W.
Room 247
Washington, D.C. 20547
Dear Dr. Sullivan:
I am writing to you as President of the Society for American
Archaeology (SAA). With more than 7000 members, SAA is an
international organization dedicated to research, interpreting,
and protecting archaeological heritage of the Americas. Since
its inception in 1934, SAA has endeavored to stimulate interest
and research in American archaeology; advocate and aid in the
conservation of archaeological resources; encourage public
access to and appreciation of archaeology; oppose all looting of
sites and the purchase and sale of looted archaeological
materials; and serve as a bond among those interested in the
archaeology of the Americas.
In light of our mission and purpose, SAA encourages the U.S.
Cultural Property Advisory Committee to recommend granting the
request from the Government of the Republic of Honduras to the
Government of the United States of America to impose import
restrictions on Pre-Columbian archaeological material.
Many of our members, U.S. nationals as well as members from
South America, Europe, and Asia, have long-term research
interests and fieldwork experience in Honduras. They have
observed first hand the destruction of the archaeological record
in Honduras as a result of the flourishing and enlarging global
market for illegally excavated antiquities. Honduras and the
world as a whole are losing a rich and diverse cultural
heritage, and action is necessary in order to prevent further
plundering of its past.
In particular, two SAA members, Dr. Patricia Urban and Edward A.
Schortman, who are both Professors at Kenyon College, have
worked in Honduras since 1977. The following comments reflect
their personal experience in Honduras since that time.
Since the late 1970's, we have conducted investigations
together over an extensive area of western Honduras,
including the Naco, middle Ulua, and, currently, the
lower Cacaulapa valleys. Though we have never gotten to
know any looters or collectors in all these years, we
have seen the results of their degradation.
Site destruction in Honduras results from several
processes of which the most common are: plowing
attendant on commercial cultivation of sugar cane,
bananas, and rice; construction; and looting. The
latter is widespread and varies in intensity from
recreational digging (sporadic and involving relatively
few people) to industrial excavations (systematic and
drawing on the labor of fairly large work gangs). The
former comprises a hobby, the latter a livelihood.
Examples of recreational looting that we have witnessed
include probes dug deep within ancient platforms in
search of valuables, such as painted pottery vessels and
jade jewelry, intended to grace the excavator's private
collection. Such work has resulted in the gutting of
monumental architecture at such sites as La Sierra in
the Naco valley, Gualjoquito in the middle Ulua
drainage, and El Coyote in the lower Cacaulapa valley.
As destructive as these practices are, they pale in
comparison to the affects of professional looting. In
this case, entire sites are systematically pillaged in
search of objects for sale, resulting in the
obliteration of structures of all sizes. Illicit
digging on this scale is most pronounced in the Sula
Plain where the major center of Travesia has all but
disappeared from the map under the looter's shovel.
Archaeology, as we know, is an inherently destructive
activity. Once items are removed from the ground they
can not be returned to their find spots nor can their
associations with other artifacts and architectural
features be restored. Since these associations provide
the essential clues that allow us to date sites and
infer the activities pursued within them, every effort
must be made to record these contexts during the
excavation process. Looters, of course, focus on the
object and ignore the context, stripping the items they
retrieve of that which we most desperately need to
reconstruct past cultures. Once looted, this
information is lost forever.
At La Sierra, for example, there are at least five major
platforms that have been so thoroughly gutted that there
is nothing left from which we could date their
construction or infer their uses. The buildings in
question are concentrated in the center of this
political capital and would have yielded invaluable
information concerning how this ancient realm (ca. AD
600-800) was ruled and how its people lived. Similarly,
at El Coyote, illicit excavations have destroyed at
least six large edifices in the site core. We will
never know what happened on these buildings and, as a
result, major gaps will forever remain in our knowledge
of this center and its inhabitants.
Prehistoric Hondurans, outside the major lowland Maya
capital of Copan, left no written accounts of their
lives. All that we can know about them comes from the
study of their surviving materials, including artifacts,
floral and faunal remains, as well as architecture.
Looting rips these valuable sources of information from
our grasp, denying us the opportunity to help bring
these forgotten cultures into the discourse of history.
In the process, everybody loses; Hondurans are denied
knowledge about their past, local residents are left in
doubt concerning the nature and history of their
ancestors, and humanity, in general, loses the chance to
remember an important element of our shared and diverse
past. Archaeological sites and their contents are truly
non renewable resources and anything that can be done to
protect them through restricting looting will go a long
way towards making the past accessible to a variety of
interested audiences.
Based on these first hand statements from two SAA members with
approximately 25 years of experience, SAA asks the Committee to
recommend granting the request from the Government of Honduras
to impose restrictions on certain types of Honduran
archaeological materials. SAA stands prepared to assist the
Committee in preventing the looting of Honduras' national
heritage and in protecting archaeological sites worldwide.
Thank you for considering our comments.
Sincerely,
Robert L. Kelly, Ph.D.
President
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