Tennessee: artifacts

Private land: Excavating and removing artifacts from private land without first obtaining the owner's express permission is trespass and a Class A misdemeanor; on registered sites, digging, damage or removal requires prior landowner permission and trading in artifacts illegally removed is prohibited. Normal farming and surface collecting are exempt from the discovery-reporting rule. (Tenn. Code § 11-6-109.) The landowner's permission is the baseline everywhere; Tennessee's statute says how it must be given.

State land — Permit required: The state reserves exclusive archaeological field rights on state-owned or controlled land; the state archaeologist, through the Division of Archaeology, issues excavation permits. Unpermitted excavation is a Class A misdemeanor (Class E felony at registered sites where value plus restoration exceeds $5,000), and all excavated material becomes state property; defacing sites or artifacts on state land is a Class A misdemeanor. (Tenn. Code §§ 11-6-104, 11-6-105, 11-6-106.) ARPA §470ee(c) makes the interstate sale of anything taken against state law a federal offence, so a dealer in another state is bound by this rule too.

Navigable waters and submerged lands — Unclear: The chapter defines territorial waters (navigable waters and lands beneath them under the Abandoned Shipwreck Act) for its shipwreck provisions, but no provision specific to ordinary artifacts on riverbeds was found. (Tenn. Code §§ 11-6-102, 11-6-121.)

Burials: Discovery of human remains on any land requires stopping and notifying the coroner or medical examiner and law enforcement (Class A misdemeanor otherwise); remains and burial objects are then handled under the reburial provisions. Disinterring a buried corpse or buying, selling or offering to buy previously buried human skeletal remains is a Class E felony. (Tenn. Code §§ 11-6-107, 11-6-119; § 39-17-312.) Funerary objects are also NAGPRA cultural items under federal law and cannot be sold at all.

Sale: Trading, selling or purchasing artifacts illegally removed from registered archaeological sites on private land is prohibited; buying or selling previously buried human skeletal remains is a Class E felony. Note: the current § 11-6-116 concerns Native American remains excavations, not artifact trafficking. (Tenn. Code § 11-6-109; § 39-17-312.)

This article is generated from Stratum's state table as of 2026-09-20, from the statute pages listed below. It states the rule as written; it is not legal advice. Verify locally before relying on a permit route, and treat any penalty figure as a spot-check item.