Sins of the Shovel Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology

Free Download Rachel Morgan, "Sins of the Shovel: Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology"
English | ISBN: 0226822389 | 2023 | 328 pages | PDF | 2 MB
An incisive history of early American archaeology-from reckless looting to professional science-and the field’s unfinished efforts to make amends today, told "with passion, indignation, and a dash of suspense" (New York Times).

American archaeology was forever scarred by an 1893 business proposition between cowboy-turned-excavator Richard Wetherill and socialites-turned-antiquarians Fred and Talbot Hyde. Wetherill had stumbled upon Mesa Verde’s spectacular cliff dwellings and started selling artifacts, but with the Hydes’ money behind him, well-there’s no telling what they might discover. Thus begins the Hyde Exploring Expedition, a nine-year venture into Utah’s Grand Gulch and New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon that-coupled with other less-restrained looters-so devastates Indigenous cultural sites across the American Southwest that Congress passes first-of-their-kind regulations to stop the carnage. As the money dries up, tensions rise, and a once-profitable enterprise disintegrates, setting the stage for a tragic murder.
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