“Impossible to calculate”: Prospector accused of damaging 1,000-year-old historical site in southern Utah

ST, GEORGE, Utah (ABC4) — “We couldn’t believe what we were seeing,” said Washington County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Darrell Cashin.

In November 2023, a concerned citizen called the Washington County Sheriff’s Office reporting potential vandalism and property destruction at an archaeological site near Fort Pearce in Washington County, Utah.

When officials arrived, they said they found a man, identified by the Washington County Attorney’s Office as Eduardo Humberto Seoane, digging away inside a two-foot wide and 15-foot long tunnel into a one-of-kind historical site.

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“The destruction was nothing like we’d ever seen before,” continued Cashin. “The suspect had power and hand tools out there and he’d been excavating for quite some time.”

The site is known for its rock imagery. The Utah Trust Lands Administration (TLA) said there are over 100 individual petroglyphs – or rock carvings – throughout the site. Testing excavations of the rocks showed signs that it was primarily occupied between 1440 and 1660 AD, otherwise known as the Post-Pueblo Period. However, some tests showed hints that the area may have been occupied as early as 1,000 BC, during the Archaic and Far West Pueblo periods.

Seoane reportedly told authorities he was a prospector digging for precious metals such as silver and gold. TLA Special Investigator Brent Kasza said through his investigation, he didn’t find any confirmation that the prospector was searching for silver or any kind of valuable metal. However, Kasza did uncover that the prospector belonged to several treasure-hunting groups.

The would-be treasure hunter did not reportedly have any proper mining permits or any history of business with the Trust Lands Administration. Prosecuting attorney Courtney Sinagra told ABC4 Washington County filed charges against Seoane for illegal activities on Trust Land.

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TLA Lead Archaeologist Joel Boomgarden said the amount of damage the treasure hunter caused to the historical site was “impossible to calculate.”

“It is important for people to remember that the archaeological record of Utah is a finite resource,” said Boomgarden. “Nobody is making 1,000-year-old Ancestral Puebloan sites anymore. Once they are gone, there is no going back.”

According to Sinagra, photos of the tunnel were not released to the public as they may be used as evidence in a future criminal trial.

While the prospector wasn’t able to find any physical treasure during his illegal excavation, officials with the Trust Lands Administration said there is a silver lining.

As administration officials and archaeologists attempt to repair the damage done to the site, they will be able to gather data from the newly exposed deposits. The new data, they say, could provide more insight, context, and critical information about the chronology of occupation as well as answer questions related to diet, local/regional resource use, and mobility.

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