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- Utah's Natural History Museum and BLM recovered over 100,000 stolen artifacts.
- The 'Cerberus Project' is the largest federal archaeological recovery effort to date.
- Artifacts are being preserved returned to tribal nations and appropriate repositories.
SALT LAKE CITY — The Natural History Museum of Utah and the state's Bureau of Land Management are being recognized for their work to repair the damage of a widespread looting case.
The mission was to recover, preserve, and return more than 100,000 indigenous cultural items.
The objects, once illegally taken from public land, tribal land and burial sites, are now being carefully preserved, cataloged, and returned. Largely, they're now finally going back where they belong.
The museum and BLM are being recognized for their decade-long partnership on what's known as the 'Cerberus Project,' the largest and most archaeologically significant recovery ever made by the federal government.
"The Society for American Archeology Award was for the partnership between the BLM Utah and the Natural History Museum of Utah to right some wrongs. This was a really tragic looting case, and we worked hard to return the objects to where they belong," said Lisbeth Louderback, curator of archaeology at the museum.
After the objects were recovered through a federal undercover operation, BLM partnered with the museum to inventory, research, and determine where each item should go, whether to tribal nations or appropriate repositories.
The process takes years.
"It took a lot of time to unpack, repack, making sure things were good for travel," said Annie Lawlor, anthropology collections. "It was a tremendous amount of time. You just have to make sure that you're doing really accurate work."
The collection includes stone tools, baskets, sandals, and other organic materials — items rarely found intact in archaeology today.
While much of the collection is still being processed, organizers said the work represents a shift in how archaeology serves the public, focused on responsibility, collaboration and repair.
"I'm really proud of the fact that the museum we can show the public how the museum isn't just a building full of exhibits," Lawlor said. "It's here to serve the people of Utah."
