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Science Friday > Archives > 1997 > October > October 3, 1997


Selling Fossils:
"Sue" the T-Rex and the debate over purchasing pieces of paleontology.

Saturday, Sotheby's auction house in New York is scheduled to auction off "Sue," the largest, most complete fossilized Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton yet found. The sale has touched off a controversy over who should be able to prospect for - and own - pieces of natural history.

Seven years ago, Sue was discovered and excavated by Peter Larson and other prospectors from his Black Hills Institute of Geologic Research, a private paleontological laboratory, in a cliff in South Dakota. The cliff was located on the land of Maurice Williams, a Cheyenne River Sioux who had given the prospectors permission to dig there, and who had, they maintain, sold them the rights to their find for five thousand dollars.

The federal government, however, claimed that the land was public property, and sent federal agents to remove Sue from the Black Hills Institute in May of 1992. After a long court battle, it was determined that Williams' land was indeed private - but that it was held in trust for him by the federal government. So while on one hand, Williams had no right to sell Sue without governmental approval, on the other hand, the government, acting as a trustee of William's best interests, could not block him from profiting from the fossil find. The government then invalidated the Black Hills Institute's claim to Sue, and ordered that the T. rex be sold at auction in order to maximize Williams' benefit.

The Black Hills Institute is expected to bid at the auction, as are several museums. But anyone can bid in this public auction, as long as they have enough money, raising the possibility that a private collector could buy Sue and prevent others from viewing or studying the find. And another spectacular dinosaur find last month has heightened the debate over fossil ownership even more.

Join guest host David Baron as he takes a look at the debate over who should be allowed to look for, recover, and own fossils located on public lands, and whether priceless historical artifacts should actually have a price after all.

Listen to this program in RealAudio!

Guests:

David Redden
Executive Vice President
Sotheby's
New York, NY

Louis Jacobs
President, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
Professor of Geological Sciences
Director, Shuler Museum of Paleontology
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX

Marion Zenker
Legislative Coordinator, American Lands Access Association
Marketing Coordinator and Member, Board of Directors
Black Hills Institute of Geological Research
Hill City, South Dakota

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Related Links:

A collection of articles about the "Sue" situation, from Dinosauria On-Line
Information from the Black Hills Institute about the confiscation of "Sue"
Yahoo's index of companies selling fossils on-line

The National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian
The Fossil Halls at the American Museum of Natural History

The Paleontological Society
PaleoNet
The PaleoRing