Law Offers Less Protection for American Indian Sites

September 3, 2009

Author: Dan Whisenhunt

Source: The Anniston Star

http://www.annistonstar.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Law+offers+less+protection+for+American+Indian+sites%20&id=3513345-Law+offers+less+protection+for+American+Indian+sites&instance=home_lead_story

In Alabama, American Indian burial sites don't have as much protection as other graves and memorials.

If someone knowingly invades a grave created in the last few hundred years it's a felony. But it isn't if you destroy a far older American Indian burial site on your property, officials with the Alabama Historical Commission say.

There have been at least two attempts to change the law to include mound structures and remove the distinction but both have failed, according to archaeologists familiar with the situation. They say the recent controversy over a stone mound in Oxford shows why the law needs revision.