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Canadian Couple Charged $5k For Finding 400-Year-Old Skeleton
First time accepted submitter Rebecka Schumann writes "Ontario couple Ken Campbell and Nicole Sauve said a recent fence installation led them to discover what is being labeled a historical find. Sauve, who said the duo originally believed the skeleton to be from bones of an animal, called the Ontario Provincial Police to investigate; Forensic Anthropologist Michael Spence confirmed the bones were that of an aboriginal woman who died at age 24 between the late 1500s to the early 1600s. In spite of reporting their find and Spence's evaluation, Suave and Campbell were told they were required to hire an archeologist to assess their property at their own expense under Ontario's Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act. The act, which requires evaluation for all properties found to house human remains, has the Canadian couple stuck with a big bill."
Don't do the dig if you can't cover the vig.
Think you found the bones of someone who was murdered in Canada? Better be safe: Help the original killer by reburying the bones somewhere else. Thank you for your cooperation, Citizen.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Throw the bones away in the trash.
Likewise, property owners frustrated with the US's endangered species act find it's easier to hunt and kill such species on their property, rather than lose access to that property.
Isn't it wonderful, how well all this legislation to protect historical or ecological treasure works?
The law as written was meant to ensure companies are responsible for the archaeological costs incurred from digging up their land instead of saddling the taxpayer.
The Star is just ginning this up as their usual "GOVERNMENT BAD" drivel.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
The next such skeleton found will just go into the trash...
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Ethics and injustice tend to be topics geeks like, especially when it pertains to unusual subject matter.
Real estate, the only field where it's still acceptable to blame the victim. I mean they were asking for it, just look at how they painted that house...
Mostly random stuff.
True, however, one can research the recent history of a property and have an environmental assessment done before purchasing. There's no equivalent for that when it comes to 400 year old unmarked burial sites.
"an aboriginal woman who died at age 24 ;
How did an Aboriginal woman manage to travel all the way from Australia to Canada 400 years ago ?
The issue is that they are required to also have an archeological survey done to ensure there aren't other artifacts buried there too.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
I see one pretty significant difference that underscores the abuse of government power supposedly in the name of the Public Good.
Toxic waste on land is inherently dangerous to all in the area. It leaches into surrounding water, etc., people get sick. As a property owner, your in-action in not cleaning it up has a high likelihood of causing harm to others. It's reasonable that the government would use its power to force the owner to clean it up.
History and artifacts are nice, but if they're destroyed, nobody is poisoned or gets cancer. If The People believe that preserving them and learning about the past is an important goal, The People should pay for it, not drop the entire cost on the hapless sot who bought the property where someone happened to have dropped dead a long time ago.
In the former case, the Public Good is protected. A dangerous situation which can harm others who have no control over the problem (IE I can't go on your land to clean up your mess) is rectified. In the latter case, individual property rights are trampled with at best weak justification. It seems unlikely that this find will unearth great and valuable truths about the indigenous population. If the owners wish to allow an archeologist to examine the dig at his own (or perhaps a university's) expense, that's very nice of them. They shouldn't be required to do so, and it's completely unreasonable to expect them to pay for it.
In their place, I'd be calling a lawyer to see whether the potential fines from an "accident" destroying the entire find exceed the potential cost of hiring someone to dig it up. Then I'd proceed in the most fiscally responsible manner.
Yup. File a lawsuit. That's the answer for everything today. How DARE that surveyor not notice that something was buried on the property 400 years ago? The sad fact is that people like you think of solutions like that, and would have no trouble whatsoever in finding a sleazbag lawyer willing to take the case (for a percentage).
But the reason most of this works the way it does in most governments is that originally, the state or university system covers the cost of the evaluation as part of the law because it's of national importance. Also, digging up the graves of people's ancestors and then throwing the remains in the trash deeply offends a majority of people, especially tribes or such that may claim that person as one of their ancestors.
Then politicians (usually on the conservative side, or the "moderate middle") decide that the government can't be "burdened" with what amounts to a trifle of spending every year (seriously, it's like the equivalent of maybe a buck in your pocket in government budget terms). A reasonable majority of average citizens can't wrap their heads around the average government budget in perspective to their own so they cheer it on, vote it through. Mostly they don't even remember or understand why their parents or grandparents passed such a law in the first place, but not unlike the politicians, feel that they need to "make their mark". So, they turn the cost over to individuals. But the law stays on the books because a lobby or two makes a really sharp point about how the end result is that individuals would end up digging up corpses of their ancestors to install swimming pools and not, you know, properly care for those remains afterward. (aka trash bin coffins)
Then years later, a story gets posted on Slashdot, and the readers are outraged that the government, with it's "highly repressive laws" would dare to impose such a cost on individual property owners without understanding the full history of said law. That their parents or they themselves may have actually been in favor of causing in the first place but they "forgot" because it was "boring".
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/04/19/bc-diggingbill.html
One family on Vancouver Island got charged $35,000 for archeologists to check for arrowheads. I've heard of archeologists in BC (same firm as the $35k one) who registered a site near where I live onto the archeology registry without the owner's knowledge, because they thought they found arrowheads. Later on, when the local First Nations archeologist looked at them, she said "They're just rocks", and tossed them.
The adage for ranchers when it comes to endangered species used to be (and still may be) "shoot, shovel, and shut up". Same with artifacts in Canada, if you're smart.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
It is by no means clear that anyone has a fundamental right to own land. Indeed, few individuals own land outright — in common law states, real property is typically held fee simple.
If all land were owned and its use restricted to private individuals, how could one live without being a property owner, or being beholden to one? Land exists independently of human art, and our literal existence demands that we at the very least reside in it, breathe the air on it, and so forth. Morally, the private, exclusive use of land must come with an obligation that that ownership benefits our society more than a lack of ownership would — there is an obligation of stewardship, if nothing else.
The system whereby our governments enforce property ownership is almost certainly better than one where individuals maintain the exclusive use and benefit of land by force. Yet it is by no means a natural system, and those who benefit by it to the exclusion of their fellows should not be divorced from the obligations associated with it.
It is his property. It's certainly more his responsibility than some guy who spent a few hours surveying the property once upon a time. If the land owner found treasure buried in the back yard would he share it with the surveyor?
This is another classic example of how strict liability laws cause grave injustices.
Please tell me that pun was intentional...
Wait a tick, did you budget for an archeological survey the last time you dug a hole to plant a tree in your backyard? It's fine for the law to require a survey of finds of historical value, but the law must recognize that it can be a tremendous burden on the people that find it and provide support for those tasks. If you're offended at the idea of people covering up potentially significant finds, you should probably work to incentivise reporting these finds. At the moment, it sounds like you're saying "Oh, that belongs to all of humanity, but you need to pay to dig it up. Reality bites, doesn't it?"
+1 Disagree
Maybe some insurance company would be willing to offer insurance to cover the costs of an archaeological survey should one be needed. Since it seems to be a rare yet costly problem, it would seem to be along the lines of exactly the kind of thing somebody would buy insurance for. Same as car, house, or medical insurance, one should be able purchase insurance in the event that some ancient remains are found, and cause the project to the held up
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Why should this be on the insurance company. The intent of the law is the artifact is culturally important and belongs to "all", so why should its recovery only be subsidized by a small portion of the "all" (i.e. the customers of that particular insurance company)? The only thing this article has taught me to do is if I dig and find remains on my property, fill them back in and forget it ever happened. I don't have 5K lying around for this shit.
One thing that everyone here who is making some variant of this argument is conveniently forgetting is the opposite end of what can happen. What if instead of bones his shovel had turned up gold lumps? Would the public get a cut if it was standing by with a check because of what might turn up? Is this the one man version of "socialize the cost, privatize the profit"?
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.