State Archeologist Sells Artifact

[Shannon Graham]

Very few articles on the Blanding, Utah arrest mention that a state archeologist and park ranger from the area sold artifacts from public lands.

"Robert B. Knowlton, 67, originally was indicted for illegally selling three artifacts. He pleaded guilty Tuesday to two misdemeanor charges related to the sale of a Cloud Blower pipe from Blanding, Utah, to a government informant.

Knowlton obtained the pipe from the family of a Utah state archaeologist, according to court documents filed this week.

The pipe came from Bureau of Land Management land in Southeast Utah during an excavation of the Big Westwater Ruin in 1979 and 1980. Lamar W. Lindsay, an archaeologist for the Utah state government, supervised the excavation and wrote most of the report on it. Lindsay's report makes note of the pipe, but it never arrived at the Utah Museum of Natural History, which took custody of the other Big Westwater artifacts, according to the plea agreement.

Knowlton bought the pipe from a Lindsay family member after the archaeologist's death, according to the plea agreement. He sold it for $750 to Gardiner, the informant, in July 2008.

Knowlton got a second artifact, a Midland knife, from a "park ranger" who found it at Lake Miramonte, south of Norwood, according to a search warrant affidavit. The document does not reveal at which agency the ranger who allegedly broke the law worked."

Full story is found in the Durango Herald here.