Meet the Heritage Thief
A San Marcos man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for illegally excavating a Native American homestead in Amarillo.
The Department of Justice reports that 37-year-old Jeffrey Alan Vance pleaded guilty in February to violating the Archeological Resource Protection Act (ARPA), which strictly prohibits anyone without authorization from removing artifacts from tribal land.
He was sentenced Tuesday, June 29. Plea papers reveal that he admitted to co-conspiring with 33-year-old Dax Wheatley to illegally excavate artifacts from a site called 41PT109. The area was a homestead for the Antelope Creek Culture of Native Americans who lived in the Texas Panhandle between 1200-1500 A.D.