Treasure Hunting

I’ve never really been into the arrowhead craze so I know little about collecting them.  However, I was told by someone the other day that it was illegal to do so.  That made me want to do some research on the matter.

Through an internet search, I found this information on the subject.  To summarize the information, it’s not illegal to collect arrowheads as long as you (a) just pick them up off the ground (no digging for them) and (b) don’t take them from Federal lands or Indian lands.  Well, that’s pretty much saying that it’s illegal to me.  Where else are you going to find arrowheads?  Out in the open in your background, maybe?  Maybe I’m not understanding the definition of “public lands” properly.  But I always thought that anything that wasn’t “private land” would be considered as public land.  And you certainly can’t go looking for arrowheads on someone else’s property because of that little thing called trespassing.  So, unless I’ve got my definitions wrong here, you’re stuck looking on your own property and, even then, you’re not allowed to dig with the intent of looking for arrowheads.  I’ll have to do some more research on this, because this just doesn’t sound right.  There are a lot of arrowhead collectors out there.  This provision makes it sound like they all must be breaking the law unless they’re Native American.

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