How Modern Treasure Hunting Works

Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Max Moser
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster

References

[DiggingScience]

Fossil Hunter here! Great video, thoroughly enjoyed it. Here in Florida, we are lucky that we work with the Florida Museum of Natural History. They issue us permits to collect in public waterways, we file reports, and they get 1st dibs on anything scientifically important. We get to keep and sell anything they don't want.

In practice, it works out great. Most stuff that you'd imagine as valuable like a Mammoth jaw they don't want since it really offers little scientific value (case dependent there). But, other stuff, like a Megalodon nose and an undescribed cat jaw that my dive buddy discovered, they were escatic to recieve.

Now, you can't apply this to private property for obvious reasons. But, I wish archaelogists and more states operated like this.

Final note, I know you highlighted the financial opportunity a lot, but most fossil hunters like myself and Pete Larson too I imagine, got into fossil hunting because we love doing it, we love the activity and we love the science behind it. Although, I will admit, like anything, there are absolutely bad actors. Anyway, I appreciated the fair and informative video and I am looking forward to more from you!

[aabouncer]

In my opinion, if a government or company leaves a ship at the bottom of the ocean for over 100 years, its fair game. Even if it's insured, the insurance company should be the ones fronting the money to get it back and if they don't, they loose right to claim it. Finders keepers...

[velenteriushendeneros]

Here in Norway, a community out on the western coast was instrumental in recovering the treasure of a Dutch galleon, the Ankerendam, a ship loaded with cash that blew of course, and sunk in the 1600's. The revenue and treasure was split between the Norwergian state, the Netherlands, and the families of the local divers, who discovered the wreck, it having moved slightly over the centuries from where it was reported to have gone down. Today, if you meet some of the familiy members of the divers, they have dutch Guilders in the jewelry they wear with their traditional dress/folk costume.

[route]

Just want to point out, Sue wasn't bought by the Field Museum, I don't think they could afford it. It was bought by McDonald's, who has a great relationship with the city amd community of Chicago, and theu bought it with the intent of donating Sue to the Field Museum.

[jonathankessinger]

It is actually insane to me that treasure hunters are not, at the very least, compensated for the recovery of sunken objects by whoever is claimed to be the owner. They should absolutely be given a large percentage of whatever they bring back up, especially if its been 50-100+ years.

[luminescentlion]

Minor error correction: 14:15 you said Sue when you meant Stan.

[YoungGandalf]

In fantasy stories, dragons often guard a hoard of treasure. It turns out the real treasure is actually the dragons' bones.

[hock]

Also worth pointing out that, by immediately removing fossils from where they lay, the for-profit fossil hunters are also denying academics/researchers the ability to date and contextualize the bones using stratigraphy. This represents a massive knowledge loss regarding the finds themselves.

[edkrassenstein]

It's wild to me that you can pull something out of the middle of the ocean from the 1800s and the government can still say they own it. I guess the ocean is just like a bank vault.

[Freekneek]

Minor correction: At 7:28 you said “160 miles off the coast of North Carolina” while the map shows the distance of the shipwreck from Charleston, a city in South Carolina

[sethc]

As a life long Black Hills resident it's always a neat surprise when we are mentioned in a video, mostly because it feels like nothing ever happens here 😂

[Jonasastrophotos]

Note to self. IF you find gold bricks or jewelry on a ship, just melt the gold down to make new bricks and say nothing

[Matt-xcsp]

So the Sioux sued Sue over Sue’s skeleton?

[Croz]

This video remimded me of a discussion (really more of a passionate argument) I had with a marine archaeologist on one of Rare Earth's videos, talking about how the Azores basically banned treasure hunting in their waters, despite it having one of the highest concentrations of valuable shipwrecks in the world. They were passionate about how much they hated treasure hunters, because in their eyes they destroyed historical artifacts for financial gain. I did try to argue the approach the British took here, that a collaborative effort could be a win win for both sides, because marine archeology is so expensive it would help to have a sponsor, but they seemed unconvinced, I think they envisioned that it's better it sits undisturbed on the bottom alone for another century while they scrape together the funding themselves. I retorted that the reality would be that there majority of these wrecks would never be examined unless there was more funding available, and that wasn't going to happen through public funding, but they seemed convinced they'd get round to all of them eventually, before they were buried or crumbled away to nothing. How I'm not sure, but still. That seems to be the mindset of the most vocal opponents in academia.

[aerotheepic]

At 14:15 I think you mean Stan, not Sue. I could be wrong but you were done talking about Sue and had moved on to Stan and then out of nowhere Sue came back and got sold right when you were talking about Stan's auction 😅 I brushed it off not thinking much of it until you said, "with the sale of Stan and the subsequent explosion in the fossil industry" at 19:19 which is exactly what you were talking about with the auction where you (accidentally?) said Sue.

[iivin]

"Who owns what?" is the most imporant question in all of human history.

[earnestbrown]

My nephew is super big into Dinos. One year for his birthday I got him one of those simple dino tooth fossils. He loved it but my sister hated me because she had gotten him a new bike and was the hero for 5 mins till he opened my gift. Had a good laugh about it.

[thewhitewolf]

In the case of sunken treasures it feels like greed and lazyness at its best. They didn't put in the work to salvage a boat from sea yet they want it the second someone else does it.

[FELiPES]

I find this all ironic because it's not like any of these government entities actually care until the hard work is done.

[cubeul]

In the Canadian province of Alberta, where I live, fossils are considered Crown property(unless they were dug up before the law regarding fossils in Alberta was passed, I think in 1979, or exceptions like ammonite which can be mined with a license) and theft of fossils can result in a 50, 000 dollar fine, and up to a year in jail. This also obligates the government to collect any fossils found, and forces mining and construction companies in the area where the fossil was found to lend their resources to help researchers excavate fossils, since they can’t generally go around it, and destroying it is also illegal.