From the Farmington Daily Times —
More than 430 Indian artifacts estimated to be between 300 and 8,000 years old were seized from a Bloomfield home by the Bureau of Land Management this week.
Hundreds of stone tools, such as arrow points and cutting edges, as well as trade items and cookware were recovered from the County Road 5109 residence of David Major, 38.
“In terms of sheer numbers, this is the single largest recovery in my career,” said BLM Federal Officer R. Tracy, who has worked as a federal investigator for almost 10 years. “Right now we’ve counted 438 artifacts and we’re still working our way through the evidence.”
Among the objects recovered was a slightly damaged Dinétah Grey pot and lid, partially covered in mulch. With it were blue and purple Spanish trade beads believed to be from the 1700s, a raven effigy and decorative ocean shells. One of the older items discovered was a Folsom point arrow head that Tracy said was fashioned by early man to hunt bison and other large animals roughly 7,000 years ago.
Most of the items appear to have been taken from federal or Native American lands, which is a violation of the United States Archeological Resource Protection Act, Tracy said.