SPEAKING OUT ON VALUES AND VIEWS OF ARCHAEOLOGY IN NORTH AMERICA.

 

Dear friends, colleagues, art collectors, and moderates,

 

    My name is Fred Van Ronk, Professional Archaeologist/Anthropologist with a degree from Washington State University.  I currently reside in Kalama, Washington overlooking the beautiful and mighty Columbia River.  Kalama is a small town with a population of 2500 people in southwest Washington State.  Kalama’s county seat is in Kelso WA, located in Cowlitz County roughly 10 miles north of my residence.

 

   At age 9 some 55 years ago I found my first arrowhead. That initial find turned out to be the catalyst of my life, carrying me forward in the pursuit of a deep cultural understanding of the Columbia River peoples and their art. As my passion grew, so did my extensive collection of Columbia River art and artifacts to the current volume of over 14,000 catalogued, site specific, museum quality pieces which I still own to the present day. Early on I began documenting each and every find, including stratum data, lithic chronology, and site location specific data which has now yielded one of the most extensive documented collections of Columbia River art in existence. The artifacts collected range from sites near the small town of Bridgeport, Washington to the estuary of the Columbia River below Longview Washington.

 

    Recently, I have been besieged with e-mails, letters, and phone calls from anti-private collection advocates, expressing their distaste and dismay for people who retain and curate private collections of Columbia River lithic material, who also sell art and artifacts, and the legal issues pertaining to the federal and state seizure of private collections. At this point we wish to make it very clear that we are not attorneys, but have a reasonable knowledge and understanding of the laws governing the acquisition and retention of Native American artifacts from Washington and Oregon.  It’s our duty to report that both states DO NOT HAVE LAWS FORBIDDING PRIVATE COLLECTIONS that were found before 1979 and 1984.

 

   We will state in the following editorial what we at Columbia River Ancient Resources, Columbiariverman.com, and Fred & Janet Van Ronk believe are the issues.  We ask everyone to dedicate the necessary time to carefully read and examine the facts, and base their judgment on the correlation thereof. (“Minds are like parachutes they only work when they’re open”)  Some of our views will be very critical of both sides relating to the field and study of archaeology/anthropology.

 

  The bare bones distinction between one philosophical viewpoint and another center simply around one group believing it unethical to privately own, possess, sell, market, curate, and or view privately Native American Artifacts and art, and one side that clearly disagrees with this assessment.  There are however, numerous individuals who believe the opposite, and believe that privately owned art and artifacts is ethical and works toward a balance and a critique of the publicly owned and possessed art and artifacts. Yet, we only support legal acquisition and ownership of artifacts according to Federal and State laws and the acquisition and ownership before 1979 by private collectors and others is indeed legal.

 

   The history of the human race centers around our ability to decipher the past and gain knowledge from the lithic debitage and art left from ALL of our ancestors.  We disagree with the notion that Native American tribal peoples should be exempt from public and or private scientific analysis. Other great cultures of the earth including ancient Greece, Babylon, Rome, China, Egypt, Celts etc. etc. have all allowed the exploration of their cultural heritage. In many cases private scientific advocates have funded, explored and shared with the world their findings.  Likewise some of the most extravagant discoveries in the history of world archaeology have stemmed from the dreams of the amateur embarking on the epic quests that lead to the discovery of Troy and Mediterranean discoveries on Crete buried by the Santorini Volcano. One of the highest calling of man is the public and private right to study the human experience in all the aspects.  The study cannot be limited or divided by ethnic back ground, religion or race, just as the rights of this great nation are rights applied to all peoples.

 

The passionate views of this forum are born from a clear understanding of the absolute critical importance to understand the cultural contributions Pacific Northwest archaeology and anthropology provide.  The truly sad thing is many lobby groups and tribal affiliates have painted a tainted picture of what it means to truly understand the culture existing in this area for a minimum of the last 13,000 years.  Left wing lobbyists have now conveyed a message through the political forum clearly stating “privately owning culturally affiliated materials from these ancestral tribal lands constitutes infringement of Native American Rights.”  I say to the contrary that is completely un-true, and only through the clear understanding of in-dept scientific analysis by the public and private sectors of this material and art may we truly fill the gaps of our understanding of early and late entry migration strategies and population growth relating to the true understanding of the archaeological, anthropological, and ethnographic record.

 

   The key factor in obtaining this record is correctly conducting the gathering, cataloguing, analysis, and possession of this lithic material.  At Columbia River Ancient Resources we have gone to great lengths to also expose the public sectors mismanagement of the “resources entrusted in the care” of the Universities and other governmental agencies. In the last 20-50 years many of these Universities and agencies have created an agenda around satisfying certain left wing affiliate groups. They have received lobbying monies to set a certain agenda prohibiting the study through the private sector of the human experience.

 

   We have also documented the countless examples of mismanagement of archaeological and anthropological resources in the public sector and universities.  There have literally been thousands of excavations by these well known universities and governmental agencies claiming to have specific tribe’s best interests in mind. These agencies have lost hundreds of thousands of hours of archaeological data and cultural remains due to the miss-management of the process as well as the lack of funding to support and manage Cultural Resources.  If you don’t believe what I’m saying please research the processes and practices that occurred during the installation of the dams and reservoirs within the Columbia River system. Then please, ask for a concise inventory and reportage of the materials discovered during that process.  You will find countless examples of artifacts and data being lost to the wind. In some cases items now 20-50 years in storage boxes from excavation within the Pacific Northwest  are being rediscovered with provenience all but lost or the best artifacts removed by someone within the agencies for personal gain.  Again, we point out that our public sector has failed, failed in management, inventory, and publishing of archaeological data for all to share.

 

   In closing our message is simply this:  All who curate in the public and private sectors first must have the right to do so, but they must also be responsible for the cultural resources entrusted in their care.  ALL must retain the provenience of site specific materials, and it is our recommendation to retain site specific materials. It is our recommendation to retain site specific materials in a manner conductive to future learning and cultural understanding. Dealing artifacts simply for financial gain is against the best interest of human kind and our personal beliefs.  However, where provenience has been lost, to promote better understanding marketing this non-provenance material to the public should continue to be legal.  

 

  Many an artifact, fossil, mineral, and other related geo-archaeological art in the possession of a young student public or private has started many quests leading to the greatest discoveries of the human experience. It must not be limited to public agencies or just private groups any more than to one geographic area or another. We ALL need to acknowledge the vital works and contributions done by private amateurs and amateur groups such as the Mid-Columbia Archaeological Society, Oregon Archaeological Society, Washington Archaeological Society and others.  The Pacific Northwest holds many of the most critical keys to understanding “how we all arrived here” and as we continue to discover, possess, learn, and share we will all be one step closer to un-locking the true secrets of mankind.

 

  Fred Van Ronk

  Archaeologist/Anthropologist

  Columbia River Ancient Resources Curator, of Ancient History

  Charter Member Mid-Columbia Archaeological Society and Co-Fonder of such Group

  Member of Oregon Archaeological Society

  Member of American Amateur Archaeologist Society 

  Member of Authentic Artifact Collectors of America

  Member of  ArrowPack

  Member of  ACA of N.W.

  Member of  AS of America

  Another’s Societies of Anthropology and Archaeology of The World. 

 

 Kalama, Washington, 98625

  P.O.Box 1009

 

 

 

 

YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME. 

PLEASE SEND TO:

 

Please e-mail us for more information: columbiariverman@msn.com or write us:

COLUMBIA RIVER ANCIENT RESOURCES (TM.)