Who owns the artifacts?
Professional archaeologists do not keep, buy, sell or trade any artifacts. By law, artifacts recovered from federal or state lands belong to the public, and must be taken care of on behalf of the public. Artifacts discovered on public land cannot be collected or excavated without a valid permit. Artifacts from private land are the property of the landowner. Collecting or excavating at these is trespassing and/or vandalism without the express permission of the owner. The only exception is human burials. These are protected by law in the entire state. No one may knowingly disturb a grave or excavate it without a permit. The archaeologist digs in squares as part of an effort to control the progress of an excavation. Digging a site destroys it, so archaeologists are careful to keep good records of where they dig. The squares follow the reference grid for a site, allowing good horizontal and vertical control. It would also be possible to work in triangles, circles, or hexagons, but squares
