What should I do if I find an artifact?

What should I do if I find an artifact?

Leave the artifact where you found it. Please don’t pick it up, move it, throw it, put it in your pocket or your bag, or bury it. Note where you are. Snap a picture of the artifact where you found it.

Who are the people who look for artifacts?

Question: What are ancient artifacts? Answer: Archaeologists are scientists who look for and study the evidence left behind by people who lived in the past.

Who do you call if you find an ancient artifact?

An archaeologist is a scientist who studies human history by digging up human remains and artifacts. Lucy, the oldest human known to man — nearly 3.2 million years old — was dug up in Ethiopia by archaeologist.

Do you get paid if you find an artifact?

Archaeologists do not keep anything they find, nor can they get any money for finding ‘treasure’. The past belongs to everyone, and archaeologists exist to protect access to the past for future generations.

What happens if you find an ancient artifact?

If it’s on your property, it’s yours to keep. Unless you sign a contract with a government agency, archaeologists, or educational institution which allows the other party to excavate on your property and keep the artifacts that are found, the artifacts are your property.

How do you authenticate ancient artifacts?

Authentication deals with determination of the genuine nature of the object. In archaeology and art history, this generally involves verifying the antiquity of a piece. Authentication can sometimes be done using archaeological dating methods such as radiocarbon.

How do archeologists know where to dig?

To determine where a site might be, archaeologists conduct a survey, which can include walking through a site and digging holes of similar depths at an equal distance apart from each other, known as shovel test pits, as well as GPS, resistivity meters, and ground penetrating radars.

How do archaeologists find artifacts?

A surface survey is a systematic examination of the land. A team of archaeologists will walk in straight lines back and forth across the study area. As they walk, they look for evidence of past human activity, including walls or foundations, artifacts, or color changes in the soil that may indicate features.

What happens if you find artifacts on your property?

Is it legal to own artifacts?

While it’s legal to own artifacts, it’s illegal to buy, sell, trade, import, or export burial, sacred or cultural objects, and other historical artifacts that were obtained by violating laws against digging on sites, collecting on public lands without a permit, or disturbing graves.

Is it illegal to keep found artifacts?

All artifacts found on public lands are protected by state and federal laws*. It is illegal and unethical to collect artifacts on public lands. You may sketch or photograph artifacts, but never dig in an archaeological site or collect artifacts from the ground surface.

Who is the best person to identify an artifact?

Someone who teaches or works in archaeology, history, or geology will likely recognize what category the object falls into, and they may also have an idea on who you could contact next. If you pick somebody local, you might also find a new friend.

What should you do if you find an artifact in your backyard?

What should you do, ethically, you might ask. You’ve got 4 options as I see it. You can: Keep the artifact. Sell it. Donate it to a museum or nearby university. Attempt to repatriate it to the proper descendants.

Is it possible to tell how much an artifact is worth?

How much is it worth? It’s really hard for a professional to determine the age or characteristics of an artifact with even the best picture—harder still to determine if it’s real or not, so eventually you may just need to take the object to an archaeologist and ask them.

Where can I find artifacts from the past?

Artifacts—remnants of ancient past cultures—can be seen in museums all over the world. But since the past is all around us, just about anybody anywhere can stumble across something that looks old—an arrowhead , a potsherd, a worked shell, a fossil, a bone—and sometimes, just something strange.