A review by themissyreads
Finders Keepers: A Tale of Archaeological Plunder and Obsession by Craig Childs

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

Childs does a really fantastic job of laying out all the complexities of the issues involved with archeology, artifacts, antiquities, etc. he’s careful never to villify any one side of the equation. He brings up counterarguments but still gets his point across, and its a Good Point, one thats taken him decades to figure out. Not eveey site needs to be dug up, let some mysteries endure for the future. 

This book featured 2 of the most fucked up things I’ve ever read in my life— one in chapter 2 featuring the repatriated Hopi artifacts, and all of chapter 9 on salvage archeology. Not even something you can make a content warning for: just sheer tragic callousness, I struggle to find words to express other than to say “That is Extremely Fucked Up” and the people involved arent even evil themselves!