By
The Associated Press
PHOENIX - Tomb robbers and development are destroying historical sites in northeastern Arizona, where about 400 ancient Anasazi graves were dug up and ruins annihilated in recent months.
The graves on the huge Maxwell Ranch were excavated by people looking for intact pots to sell. Some of them fetch upward of $20,000 on the black market or on the Internet.
Backhoes and bulldozers have also rolled over entire ancient towns, now on private land, along the prehistoric trail that connected the Hopi and Zuni areas, said John Madsen, historic permit administrator for the Arizona State Museum in Tucson.
Madsen said one pueblo of about 300 rooms northeast of St. Johns, called the Garcia Ruin, is "just gone."
"It's just appalling what's happening in that part of northeast Arizona," Madsen said. "There are three main groups of people doing this digging big time, and two Apache County deputies spent the better part of a year putting a case together. But prosecution of the case was denied because the diggers weren't caught in the act."
Apache County Attorney Steve Udall said he's "prosecuted more people for pot digging than anyone in Arizona."
But Udall said problems had arisen in the latest case because a web of people had been involved in digging on both state and private land in that area and "it wasn't determined who was where."
In 1992, the Arizona Legislature passed a law that makes the disturbance of "human remains and funerary objects" a Class 5 felony, much like its federal counterpart, the Archaeological Resource and Protection Act of 1979.
"In our neck of the woods, I can think of six different people who are 'legally' digging," Udall said. "And 'legally' means as long as they don't hit bones digging."
Madsen said the state law has worked well near urban areas where archaeological research has been mandated before land can be cleared for large housing developments.
But in many outback areas of the state the grave robbers still rule.
J.D. Sphar, natural resources director for New Mexico's NZ Corp., which owns the Maxwell Ranch, said the pot-digging problems began last year.
Mounds of fresh dirt litter at least 17 dig sites around the 50,000-acre ranch, most notably at the Stone Axe Ruin site, where an Anasazi kiva ceremonial site also has been vandalized.
Some of the vandalism has been so recent that shovel marks and indentations where people have sat in the dirt can be seen.
