View Full Version : What would YOU do??
buddha small b
01-13-2004, 20:33
I'm new to the "White Blaze" community so first I'd like to say 'how 'do to my fellow A.T. enthusiasts!
I have what I think is an interesting question since it actually happened to me. But first a little background....It concerns "Leave No Trace" principles.
Principal #4, according to the A.T.C. manual entitled Step By Step, is "Leave What You Find" - "Don't take flowers and other sensitive natural resources. Don't disturb historical artifacts such as cellar holes and arrowheads".
Believe it or not, I was day hiking the A.T. around Hawk Mountain Preserve in stony Penns Woods, and happened to look down at the trail and there amongst the stones was a real honest to goodness arrowhead! It brought to mind ol' rule #4 and since I'm a firm believer of L.N.T. well... me and my conscience had one hell of a debate I'll tell you!
What I won't tell you, yet, is who won that debate! Right now I'd be interested in what you folks would do! This might make a good poll question.....
(and, by the way, it was not "planted" and I'll tell you how I know later)
Anyway... thanx for havin' me and, oh yeah, I'm tryin' real hard to thru-hike with the class of '04, but more on that later....
buddha small b
bladefreak
01-13-2004, 21:20
Here's one way to look at it:
LNT principles say that if you find trash in the wilderness, you ought to pack it out, even if it isn’t yours. So, assuming that that arrowhead was made and left by a native-American, [I]your[/] packing out [I]their[/] trash, right?
smokymtnsteve
01-13-2004, 21:24
don't feel real gulity if you took the arrowhead,,
trust me..I'm a LNT trainer
but I would have probably took it and had it placed in a museum.
i would take it, if you don't someone else will. if you feel guilty, report it to the CO and do what they recommend such as donating to a museam. its not an old spanish explorers helmet or sword or musket, its an arrowhead.
besides, one of the barefoot sisters my step on it and cut their feet.
I would have used Bladefreak's excuse. Because I would have taken it.
Uncle Wayne
01-14-2004, 03:41
Yep, I'd picked it up.
Kerosene
01-14-2004, 11:40
Pick it up and have a museum curator assess if it's worth displaying. I think the intent here is to not disturb a historical site since an archeologist can tell a lot about the situation from where artifacts are found. This would be the case if the site is in the middle of the woods, in a cave, or underneath a building foundation.
TJ aka Teej
01-14-2004, 14:23
I'm tryin' real hard to thru-hike with the class of '04, but more on that later....
buddha small b
Good luck, and welcome, small b
I'd take it, and give it back to a local tribe member.
Earl Shaffer found many arrowheads on his first hike, he kept and photographed them.
I'm new to the "White Blaze" community so first I'd like to say 'how 'do to my fellow A.T. enthusiasts!
Principal #4, according to the A.T.C. manual entitled Step By Step, is "Leave What You Find" - "Don't take flowers and other sensitive natural resources. Don't disturb historical artifacts such as cellar holes and arrowheads".
buddha small b
If you are on NPS land (which a large fraction of the trail is), then federal law stipulates than anything of man-made origin older than 50 years is classified an an antiquity. A rather ridiculous rule. A rusty old tin can or an old box spring within the trail corridor is not trash, it's an antiquity :confused:
i would take it, if you don't someone else will. if you feel guilty, report it to the CO and do what they recommend such as donating to a museam. its not an old spanish explorers helmet or sword or musket, its an arrowhead.
besides, one of the barefoot sisters my step on it and cut their feet.
Yeah, I'm right here. A Conquistidor's (?) helmet I'd stash nearby, to keep the location relevant, and then I'd report it. Common arrowheads are just that: common. As common as the Civil War slugs they used to dig out of trees and sell for $2.00 when I was a kid. (Come to think of it, they were big and lead and obviously used, but who's to say there wasn't a water bucket out back that they were firing Granddad's old black powder piece into???) As another noted, one man's trash is, a hunnert year' later, another man's historical artifact.
buddha small b
01-15-2004, 18:05
I mentioned earlier that I would reveal what I did about that arrowhead. I picked it up and brought it to a local fella' who collects arrowheads so I could learn something from it. It turned out to be a fairly common 'head which turns up throughout the area occasionally and he guessed it to be about 2,000 years old. Nope, you didn't read that wrong and I double checked my zeroes. 2,000 years old! I didn't realize the A.T. was that old!:p
So now I come to what I'm going to do with it. If things work out according to plan I will have it with me when I begin my thru-hike in March. When I get to that spot near Hawk Mountain Preserve where I found it, I will put it back where it belongs as a kind of tribute to the soul who lost it. Perhaps that karma will carry me the rest of the way to Kathadin.:-?
buddha-small b
great idea! bury it so no one else finds it.
Lone Wolf
01-16-2004, 01:30
ME? I'd give to Warren so he could sell it on the black market. Offset those gate fees don't ya know!
ga>me>ak
01-16-2004, 09:50
I mentioned earlier that I would reveal what I did about that arrowhead. I picked it up and brought it to a local fella' who collects arrowheads so I could learn something from it. It turned out to be a fairly common 'head which turns up throughout the area occasionally and he guessed it to be about 2,000 years old. Nope, you didn't read that wrong and I double checked my zeroes. 2,000 years old! I didn't realize the A.T. was that old!:p
buddha-small b
The A.T. itself may not be 2,000 yrs old, but the Appalachian mountains are the oldest mountains on earth. Just an FYI :D
A friend of mine has an old Indian site on his land and finds incredable stuff all the time. After collecting for along time, he donated some of the really nice pieces( Peace pipes-intact, spear heads, tools, etc) to a couple of museums. He went to see them on display but didn't see them. Come to find out, they have so much "stuff" donated that they just put it in boxes and store it in the basement, where it sits forever and no one enjoys it.
buddha small b
01-16-2004, 12:49
The A.T. itself may not be 2,000 yrs old, but the Appalachian mountains are the oldest mountains on earth. Just an FYI :D
Not only that but... "back in the day" they were higher than the Himalayas!
There is an excellent book called Written In Stone by Chet and Maureen Raymo which is a geological history of the northeastern United States. Must reading for anybody interested in what was going on way before that arrowhead was made!
The, what was to become the future A.T., is actually about 250 million years old and was the result of a collision between North America and Africa.
While this information is not necesarrily profound, it is interesting as you pass some of the geological remains while on the trail.
buddha-small b