NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Antiquities

The Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities, enacted on June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. L. 225), provides the legal authority for a large segment of the protection and preservation activities of the National Park Service in natural history as well as in history and archeology. Accordingly, it is a good idea for you, as an employee of the Service, to know as much as possible about the Antiquities Act and the responsibilities of enforcing and observing its provisions which may directly affect your job.

The provision of the act most directly affecting the Service is Section 2. This authorizes the President to withdraw lands from the public domain for the protection and preservation of objects or areas of historic, archeologic, or scientific importance and proclaim them as national monuments. This section also gives the Secretary of the Interior the authority to accept land relinquished to the Federal Government on the basis of its value as a part of the Nation's heritage. The effect of this provision on the growth of the National Park System has been as great as that of any other piece of legislation, except for the National Park Service Act of 1916. At this time, there are 64 national monuments which came into existence as a result of this provision. Under this section, many areas have been given interim protection until such time as Congress could establish them as national parks. Several other areas have been established as national monuments and later returned to the administration of appropriate State and local groups, when they proved to be of less than national significance.

Only slightly less important to the Service are the provisions of the act regulating archeological and paleontological research and collecting on all land administered by the Federal Government. Actually, it is this part of the act (Section 3) which is most likely to affect you in everyday job assignments, in making public contacts and in any planning function involving construction work. Most of this booklet will be devoted to these provisions of the act.

A third provision of the act, which you should know about, is the punitive clause (Section 1). It specifies that anyone who disturbs or removes objects of scientific or archeological importance upon lands owned or controlled by the Federal Government, without proper permission, shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $500, or imprisoned for not more than 90 days, or both.

It might be a good idea to turn to the Appendix at this point and read the act itself.