THIS IS A NON-TROLLING POST

We have some property in the Southern Sierras, and, from what I can discern, it appears that the presence of Native American artifacts is highly likely (e.g., obsidian chips are readily seen walking around, etc.).

It is of interest to my youngest daughter and I to explore and see what we can find.  However, I am also concerned as to whether we should "collect" them (i.e., take possession of them by removing them from their initial location and perhaps organize them in a frame or cabinet at our cabin there), or leave them where they may be found.  I have been going round and round on this, and can think of reasonable arguments on both sides.

I would be interested in any perspectives that those with greater experience may have that would be informative, and thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts in a hopefully constructive manner.

Good question, MTNPIPR, glad you asked.
Glad to hear you understand the significance of collecting artifacts to give them the respect they deserve.

The laws do differ from state to state, and interpretation of said laws vary depending on who you are talking to and what kind of day they are having.
And, to begin with, we have to understand the important difference between "surface collecting" and digging" when interpreting any laws.
Here in North Carolina the laws stated by Dennis above are correct. The removal of "anything" from State or Federal property is illegal, but there is an emphasis on "protection" of cultural resources.
In NC, probably CA as well, it is perfectly legal to surface collect or dig for artifacts on your own property, UNTIL, IF, you hit a burial. It is, of course, illegal to dig a grave, even if it is on your own property. Common sense. The only unfortunate part of this is that all those artifacts you've been collecting for the last 30 years before you stumbled across the eroded burial are now contraband being "associated" with a burial.

I knew this was going to be a long reply................

Anyway, while you are becoming familiar with your local Office of State Archaeology,....
The best way to start a surface collection, and no different than what the professional archaeologists would do, is get a blow-up of a USGS 7.5 minute series Quadrangle Topo map of your property. Draw a north-south oriented grid over your parcel. The block size would depend on the size of your property, but make them no bigger than an acre and the smaller the better. Give each block a number. When you get home from your fieldtrips record where the artifacts were found. As you mentioned, you may find just a bunch of "flakes". Well flakes are artifacts too and a lot can be learned from them. Over time you may start to see real "concentrations" of flakes in certain areas. And the flakes at one concentration may be mainly a different material than at another. Any nice finds like tools or projectile points you would want to locate and date.
You do not need to do this at first but keep in mind that your blocks can easily be subdivided into A,B,C,D squares if you happen to find an exceptionally busy area. If you catalog your finds you may want to go ahead and include the letter designated breakdown of blocks.

Having the opportunity and doing something like this would be fabulously fun and educational. A casual get-to-know the land surface collection and see if any patterns progress over time. There is really nothing more a professional archaeologist could do or suggest.
Sounds like a very interesting, fun project to me and no telling where it will lead!

Let us know if you have more questions. Good luck.

I greatly appreciate the constructive and thoughtful perspectives.  I can appreciate that this can be done in a way that does not insult or degrade the contributions and heritages of those who lived in harmony with this land before our cabin was built there.  I imagine a fair amount of the area was disrupted around our cabin's immediate location given the groundwork that was done, but most of the other acreage is relative untouched.  I guess we will start a grid process using GPS since I do not want to have all that stuff laid out to attract attention since we are not living there.  Something else to add to the "Daddy needs to learn list"!  Will post here as the experience moves forward.  Again, many thanks for the sage counsel.

The map program I currently use is ACME Mapper 2.1.  It's free and you can toggle from road map to topo to satellite view.  It has a very good zoom feature, and that works great with the satellite view (aerial) to see prominent features on the ground.  It does not, however, have a way to add GPS waypoints, like more sophisticated and expensive map programs.

Dennis

I forgot to mention that I never was able to print a map from the program itself.  The way I print a map that I want is to open Powerpoint, click the globe on the map box to make it go away, hit Print Screen (PRTSC) on my keypad, then copy it to the Powerpoint page.   Once I have it in Powerpoint, I go to Format and crop the map to remove anything around the map until it is the way I want it.  Go to Format again to size to where you want it. 

I use Powerpoint to draw lines, label areas, or place symbols on the map.  After to get the map the way you want it, you can save it as a .jpg or any other photo extension that suits you.

It sounds complicated, but it works for me.

I've attached a map that I've created using this technique.

Dennis