Oops! Federal Officials Divulge Secret Info About Native American Artifacts

[riversedge]

07/17/2018 10:39 am ET
Oops! Federal Officials Divulge Secret Info About Native American Artifacts

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/federal-officials-divulge-secret-info-native-american-artifacts_us_5b4dfd8fe4b0b15aba88b055



The release of the report is the latest controversy in an intensifying debate about how to protect the nation’s heritage as development and tourism explode across the West.

Jennifer Oldham Reveal


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The best preserved of seven towers at the Mule Canyon Cave Towers site, just one of more than 100,000 archaeological sites in the Bears Ears National Monument





Federal officials mistakenly published confidential information on locations and descriptions of about 900 ancient cliff dwellings, spiritual structures, rock art panels and other Native American antiquities in Utah.

The Bureau of Land Management posted a 77-page report online that included unique identifiers for priceless artifacts as it prepared to auction the most archaeologically rich lands ever offered for industrial use. The report exposed ruins spanning 13,000 years of Native American history to vandalism and looting, and experts say the BLM violated federal regulations that prohibit publicly sharing information about antiquities.

The document appeared on a BLM web page before the March oil and gas lease of 51,482 acres in a remote desert region of southeastern Utah. The BLM removed it and then reposted it with entire pages of detailed site descriptions blacked out. The report appeared online the last weekend in February and remained there for at least a few days – long enough for a state agency in Utah to download it and realize it violated the state’s privacy restrictions.

“That’s a big screwup,” said Paul Reed, an archaeologist with Archaeology Southwest, a nonprofit science organization based in Arizona. “If you were a pot hunter wanting to work in southeastern Utah and knew about the lease process, that would have been a gold mine for you.”.....................................................

[not fooled]

1. Well, call me cynical but

if as a result of the release of this report the sites get looted, the extraction companies doesn't need to worry their pretty little heads anymore about protecting those locations.

Did anyone see zinke near the computer from which the report was published?

[MojoWrkn]

2. I share your cynicism and think this was deliberate! Especially considering

the current administration's actions toward non-whites.