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Sins of the Shovel

Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology

Sins of the Shovel

Looting, Murder, and the Evolution of American Archaeology

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.

Sins of the Shovel is a story of adventure and business gone wrong and how archaeologists today grapple with this complex heritage. Through the story of the Hyde Exploring Expedition, practicing archaeologist Rachel Morgan uncovers the uncomfortable links between commodity culture, contemporary ethics, and the broader political forces that perpetuate destructive behavior today. The result is an unsparing and even-handed assessment of American archaeology’s sins, past and present, and how the field is working toward atonement.

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Archaeology

History: American History, Discoveries and Exploration

Native American Studies

Reviews
Table of contents
Excerpt
Gallery
Awards
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Reviews

"Morgan focuses on the final days of America’s Wild West, when pockets of the country remained unmapped—and regulations for protecting historical sites didn’t exist. A colorful cast of archaeologists, anthropologists, crackpot scientists and hustlers descended into this vacuum, motivated in some cases by greed, in others by genuine—if misguided—curiosity about other civilizations. Friction between intruders and locals culminated in violence, which in turn led to renewed efforts to impose order on the chaos. Morgan tells the story with passion, indignation, and a dash of suspense."

New York Times

“Morgan takes readers into the chaotic, controversial, and sometimes dark world of American archaeology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The quasi-scientific work of amateur archaeologist Richard Wetherill, who spent his career excavating sites in the American Southwest, forms the core of her narrative. . . [But] her tour of the legal side of archaeology is informative and provides a good counterbalance to the drama of the Wetherill saga. This section also includes an excellent discussion of Indigenous archaeologists and the critical perspectives they bring to the field to help ensure that the days of wanton looting and pothunting never return.”

Science

"An insightful examination of the colorful and controversial history of American archaeology. . . This animated account combines the saga of hardscrabble cowboy archaeologists with serious reflection on the incalculable damage of their activities. It’s an entertaining and informative study."

Publishers Weekly

"A timely consideration of the long, ugly relationship between scientists and Indigenous Americans—and how atonement informs the way archaeology operates today."

Chicago Tribune

"Morgan skillfully moves among the personalities and politics that led to the professionalization of archaeology in the US. From the shameless pillaging of abandoned sites to the enactment of federal laws regulating access to these remarkable places, it is a complex story filled with good guys, bad guys, and many in between, and it continues today."

Library Journal

“An edifying examination of the early days of the science, as well as a look at its current state . . . [and] an incisive look at the birth of a field of study that continues to evolve.”

Washington Independent Review of Books

“[In] archaeologist Rachel Morgan’s lively account of excavations in the Southwest during the late 1800s and early 1900s . . . Wetherhill is a fitting protagonist, for he was a transitional figure in the development of modern archaeology.”

Natural History

"The Wild West, buried treasure, hostile Native Americans, rugged men and strong ranch women, and a murdered white man are all elements of this remarkable page-turner, which masks a solid, thoughtful history of American archaeology and its involvements with American First Nations, from disdain to legal protection. . . . Morgan, a working archaeologist, weaves in the contentious development of federal heritage laws and of archaeological practices from the lawless early settler days to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and today's mandated collaborations with First Nations. Serving also as a study of settler colonialism, spanning itinerant singing Quaker families to Boston aesthetes in cowboy ranches, this book grabs readers."

Choice

"This bold new Wild West story—complete with ranchers, sheriffs, and Indigenous inhabitants—offers a suspenseful account of how the hunt for artifacts in the American Southwest sparked a long and sometimes violent struggle over who would control the region's rich past. It's a story not so much about how the West was won as how it was lost—and it is a struggle that is far from over."

Andrew Lawler, author of 'The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke'

“This captivating book introduces readers to the drama of American archaeology. The story includes fascinating characters, shady dealings, and significant discoveries connected to the discipline since the nineteenth century."

Samuel J. Redman, author of 'Prophets and Ghosts: The Story of Salvage Anthropology'

Table of Contents

Prologue
1 A Palace in the Sky
2 The Robber Baron
3 All the World’s a Fair
4 Toward the Grand Gulch
5 Whence and Whither
6 Bonito, 1895
7 Cacao and Turquoise
8 Return to the Grand Gulch
9 The Trade
10 Digging Deeper
11 Death by Committee
12 Anni Horribiles
13 All’s Fair . . . St. Louis, 1904
14 An Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities
15 The Race for Rainbow Bridge
16 “On the Borderland of Hell”
17 Where the Red Rocks Run Under
18 Back to the Gulch, Again
19 New Deal, New Archaeology
20 From Potsherds to Process
21 The Grand Gulch under Fire
22 People without Names
23 Repatriation
24 The Past
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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Excerpt

It was cold and the cattle were nowhere to be seen. As the branches and brambles cut into the legs of both the men and the horses, they had to ask themselves: where are we?

Terra incognita would be the optimistic, adventurous response. But others had been there before. Richard’s little brother Al traversed the area a year or so earlier, and he was not the first.

Beginning in 1882, Virginia Donaghe, a New York journalist, explored the region. A wealthy woman in her early twenties, she had accepted a job with the New York Daily Graphic to report on “buried cities.” Her hair often fell in a fashionable pile of tight curls, her sharp features reflecting a seriousness and drive that few underestimated. She discovered no buried cities on her first venture, but she did spot the cliff dwellings of the Mesa Verde region.

During a later visit, she had to hide in the canyons of Colorado for days. She was hungry, thirsty, and weary. A fall from a cliff had nearly ended her life, but Virginia was not deterred. She stood in view of the cliff dwellings. The red towers and rooms that rose out of the past mesmerized her and fortified her against the elements and her enemies.

Pictures of the cliff dwellings had circulated since William Henry Jackson photographed the ruins in the 1870s, but with the railroad in its infancy and no roads nearby, few got to enter the monuments as Virginia did.

Few who looked like Virginia, that is. The “hostile” Indigenous peoples she hid from and their ancestors had known of Mesa Verde for centuries, but they were no longer welcome in Colorado. In 1876, Colorado’s first governor rode to electoral victory on the slogan: “Get the Utes out of Colorado.” Three years later, a sheriff ’s posse killed a young Ute named Tabernash. In return, some Ute inflicted a series of bloody reprisals on White settlers and agents. The entire Ute Tribe did not commit the crimes, but the entire tribe paid. They were driven out of Colorado to new reservations, leaving their much- coveted lands to settlers, railroads, and miners.

In their absence, the local papers declared that “the Utes are gone, and the white man is here. . . . The wigwam of the savage has passed away, and the cabin of the pale face marks the beginning of a new era and a new history.”

Virginia admired the antiquity and beauty of the cliff houses, but she also saw their vulnerability. She wrote of Colorado, “To mighty multitudes her wealth she yields, As shifting seasons pass and years increase.” Trains and legislation favorable to homesteading threw Colorado wide open. It was only a matter of time before the new arrivals laid siege to the ancient cliff dwellings. Virginia felt the artifacts and architecture of Mesa Verde were one type of resource that should never be tapped. The cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde needed to be preserved and protected. Come hell or high water, Virginia Donaghe was going to see that they were.