BY FRANK SNELL
The 1.9 million acres proposed for the Bears Ears National Monument in Southern Utah is easily one of the most important cultural and archaeological sites in the United States. It contains a broad array of structures, such as granaries and kivas, and many petroglyphs and pictographs. There are pottery remains under foot everywhere.
These resources are terribly fragile and need to be protected. Think about a group of kids using the roof of a kiva as a trampoline or campers making a fire ring out of the blocks from a 2,000-year old dwelling. Pictographs are particularly fragile and irrecoverable if damaged. Some of this damage is unintentional, however many incidents are not. Looters target burial grounds casting human bones aside in search of valuable and irreplaceable baskets, fabrics and pots...