by Craig Childs
“Never mind that, the snake is the snake. It will kill, eat, unwind against warm sand under the sun and twine through the stones of an Anasazi ruin to rid itself of old skin. I slipped the ex-snake back into place.
“While we hiked back, racing the combination of dark and rain, a bat fluttered into the sky. It had gray tips on its hairs, probably a fringe-tailed myotis back from its migrational exploits in Central America. It was diving and swerving, putting a proper end to the orgiastic lives of newborn insects. First bat of the year.
“Tonight, I write from beneath the hand painting. The rain has let up and I can hear the many waterfalls of this minor tributary break free in celebration of spring.”
“No stone is harder. The sandstone of oceans and shores stands around it, unloading sand, which cradles hundreds of flakes of this stone. The flakes cluster in only certain places: beneath south-facing walls, under alcoves where hunting parties gathered. They broke the hard stone, chipping pieces apart. One heavy piece was used at first. This piece is always easy to find: about the size to fit in a fist, worn on both ends from impact. Flakes broke away and they were sorted through carefully; rolled in a palm by an expert thumb. Shapes were to become thumb scrapers, drills, spear points, arrowheads, and bird points. Some were abandoned midway through. Perhaps the stone was not uniform enough or a strike was made in the wrong direction and it was discarded. However these pieces were formed, it was not by unskilled hands. The symmetry of a found knife butt or a sharp edge is too perfect. The flakes are sheared at such a precise angle that no mark is left other than a near-surgical shell shape.
“The colors are difficult to understand, though. It is not simply a matter of pink chert or bloodred jasper. That is all I find naturally, but here at these chipping sites are black, orange, purple, infusions of gray within opal, white, chocolate brown, and dappled rust. Were they traded, or did people travel so far to find the sources of these colored hard stones? Either way, great effort was made to obtain them. Why? Do color and quality have a connection? My sense is that it was something else. This was an art. The art was not only mastered in shape, sharpness, and precision, but image.
“The sculptor chooses the proper piece of stone to work with by color, consistency, and structure. It seems no different for the makers of arrowheads. The stone scattered beneath these alcoves did not come by convenience. It was gathered, brought from great distances for the purpose of creating these pieces of art necessary for the survival of these people.”
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Were you surprised by the extreme measures collectors and archaeologists took to obtain the artifacts they desired? What do you think drives them to such lengths?
2. What kinds of choices have you made that have affected the physical history of the world around you? Did reading this book change the way you thought or felt about those choices?
3. Was the desert guide whom the author works with in chapter 1 wrong to take the bone beads they found? Why or why not? What’s the source of Childs’s moral ambiguity about taking them?
4. The author refers to a widespread assumption that removing an artifact from the area where it was discovered is preferred. Do you agree that this assumption exists? Where does this idea come from? Does it have anything to do with protecting the item?
5. Do you agree with the author’s philosophy of leaving his finds behind for others to appreciate in their original state of discovery? Why or why not?
6. How much responsibility does Childs bear for Ugly Man stealing one of the hunting bows at the end of chapter 1?
7. In chapter 5, the author discusses the right of ancestry as it relates to a group of residents digging up historical artifacts on their native St. Lawrence Island and selling them. Is this cultural cannibalism, or a means of survival for a poor people? Both? How far should the right of ancestry extend?
8. How does the idea of information being treasure fit into the framework of the digital age? Is it right for companies that use your personal information (such as Facebook) to remove your information completely from the site after you die? Or is it right for them not to remove the information?
9. What are some of the objects and pieces of history you’ve collected over the years? Can you tell stories about them the way Forrest Fenn does in chapter 14?
10. At the end of chapter 14, the author steps back to consider his larger place in history as he holds Sitting Bull’s pipe. Do you ever experience this feeling? At what moments and in what ways do you connect to this larger sense of history?
About the Author
Craig Childs—naturalist, adventurer, and desert ecologist—is a commentator for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, and his work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Men’s Journal, Outside, Orion, and High Country News. His previous books include The Animal Dialogues, House of Rain, The Way Out, Soul of Nowhere, and The Secret Knowledge of Water. He lives off the grid with his wife and two sons at the foot of the West Elk Mountains in Colorado.
houseofrain.com
twitter.com/journalizard
facebook.com/craig.childs.31
also by CRAIG CHILDS
The Animal Dialogues
House of Rain
The Way Out
The Desert Cries
Soul of Nowhere
The Secret Knowledge of Water
Apocalyptic Planet
Praise for CRAIG CHILDS’S
FINDERS KEEPERS
“A fascinating book, full of swashbuckling pothunters, FBI raids, greasy museum curators who don’t really care, and many, many other characters…. Childs looks at moral issues from varied angles. He doubts others as he doubts himself, a beautiful inverse of the Golden Rule.”
—Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
“Craig Childs understands archaeological epiphanies, and he beautifully captures them… along with the moral ambiguities that come from exposing a long-hidden world.”
—George Johnson, New York Times Book Review
“Finders Keepers may be Childs’s most tender and ferocious dissection…. If you have ever ached to possess—or lost what you believed you possessed to change, time, or someone else—you may find yourself equally possessed by Childs’s razor-edge analysis and compassion.”
—Mary Sojourner, Psychology Today
“Reads almost like a thriller, chock-full of vendettas, suicides, and large-scale criminal enterprises dedicated to the multimillion-dollar trade in antiquities.”
—NPR
“Childs is a superb storyteller…. A cross between Indiana Jones and a parliamentary debate…. As Childs makes clear in this engrossing book, how people grapple with the past is as varied as history itself.”
—Jonathon Keats, New Scientist
“Childs is the love child of Indiana Jones and George Hayduke…. In his passionate and outspoken new book, he expands his scope to a global scale to look at the ethical dilemmas archaeology poses. His topic is the past, and particularly its material remains. Who owns the past? And what, if anything, do we owe it?”
—Anita Guerrini, The Oregonian
“Even Indiana Jones would be scared by some of the plunderers Childs uncovers.”
—Billy Heller, New York Post
“This is a delightful account of the complicated world of archaeology by an author who loves (one might say is borderline obsessed with) the past…. This nicely wrought, even poetic book about archaeological excavation and the variety of people who are passionate about the past and its artifacts will fascinate everyone from high school students to professional archaeologists digging in the field. Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal
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CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
WELCOME
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
AUTHOR’S NOTE
INTRODUCTION
PART ONE: IN THE COUNTRY OF THE DEAD
CHAPTER 1: AMATEURS
CHAPTER 2: THE DESTINY JAR
CHAPTER 3: TREASURE HUNTERS
CHAPTER 4: UNSEEN THINGS
PART TWO: VANDALISM AND OTHER ACTS OF REMOVAL
CHAPTER 5: DIGGERS
CHAPTER 6: GOING TO MARKET
CHAPTER 7: A HISTORY OF URGES
CHAPTER 8: THE CHOSEN ONES
CHAPTER 9: SALVAGE ARCHAEOLOGY
PART THREE: WHERE ARTIFACTS END UP
CHAPTER 10: THE GOLDEN JAR
CHAPTER 11: HOUSES OF OBSESSION
CHAPTER 12: PUBLIC TRUST
PART FOUR: IN SITU
CHAPTER 13: NO PLACE LIKE HOME
CHAPTER 14: HOLDING ON
CHAPTER 15: LETTING GO
CODA
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
READING GROUP GUIDE
A CONVERSATION WITH CRAIG CHILDS
FROM THE JOURNALS OF CRAIG CHILDS
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY CRAIG CHILDS
PRAISE FOR CRAIG CHILDS’S FINDERS KEEPERS
NEWSLETTERS
COPYRIGHT
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by Craig Childs
Reading group guide copyright © 2013 by Craig Childs and Little, Brown and Company
Cover design by Karen Horton, cover photograph © Visions of America, LLC/Alamy
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: August 2010
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ISBN 978-0-316-05249-8
