Travel Channel 

Recently, your show was brought to my attention and I was shocked to learn that the Travel Channel and Discovery Communications was teaching viewers how to loot artifacts from an archaeological site. While state laws regarding archaeological sites are different, every state has some type of law protecting archaeological sites. The Travel Channel and Discovery Communications is in violation of Section 6, Article (d) of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 by producing and airing an instructional program that teaches unskilled, unqualified excavation of archaeological resources without a specific disclaimer against disturbing archaeological sites on public land. The fine for this is only a maximum of one year in prison and $10,000, but in fact the Travel Channel is guilty of much more. By teaching viewers that non-renewable archaeological resources are a good way to make money out of "treasure" you are commodifying the tangible history of the people of Sacramento and discarding the invaluable scientific information contained in the soil, which was just chunked out with a backhoe. You didn't keep any records of the process and had no excavation permit or qualified archaeologist on hand. Essentially, the Travel Channel immorally destroyed some archaeological sites and broke federal law by broadcasting it.

As an archaeologist, I am appalled by this show and your activities. I am mobilizing all of my peers to be aware of this episode and program. Hopefully you will be contacted by other archaeologists in the near future. In the future, please do not destroy non-renewable resources on television. Do not show people how to do illegal activities on national television. Please have some conscious before you destroy the heritage of your viewers just to make money.

Bill White
Registered Professional Archaeologist
Seattle, WA

Your attempts to deceive the public by mixing in laws associated with public lands to private lands makes you look very bad. Not the kind of thing any true professional would do. Do you really believe everyone is stupid and is going to fall for this, nice try. Trickery will get you no where and further degrades your professions image.