New York: artifacts

Private land: The New York Archaeological Association states it is legal to metal detect, dig and remove artifacts from private property with the landowner's written permission; no statute restricts it, subject to the unmarked burial law. (.) The landowner's permission is the baseline everywhere; New York's statute says how it must be given.

State land — Permit required: No person may appropriate, excavate, injure or destroy any object of archaeological or paleontological interest on or under lands owned by the state without the written permission of the Commissioner of Education; violation is a Class A misdemeanor and the Attorney General may seek seizure and forfeiture. Permits are administered through the State Museum under 8 NYCRR Parts 180-181. (N.Y. Educ. Law § 233; 8 NYCRR § 180.2.) 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: Section 233 covers lands owned by the state but does not expressly address lands under navigable waters; no separate underwater antiquities statute was located.

Burials: The Unmarked Burial Site Protection Act (Executive Law § 171, signed 2023) requires reporting discoveries, makes unauthorized removal of remains or funerary objects a Class A misdemeanor and knowingly defacing a burial site or possessing remains or funerary objects with intent to sell a Class E felony. Exact effective date and chapter number were not verified. (N.Y. Exec. Law § 171 (L. 2023, S.630-A/A.2029).) Funerary objects are also NAGPRA cultural items under federal law and cannot be sold at all.

Sale: Possessing human remains or funerary objects from unmarked burial sites with intent to sell is a Class E felony under the Unmarked Burial Site Protection Act; no restriction found on selling other artifacts lawfully collected from private land. (N.Y. Exec. Law § 171.)

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.

Sources

Cite this article

Stratum Study. "New York: artifacts" (Law & ethics). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-20. https://stratum.black/study/law/archaeology-us-new-york. Accessed 2026-09-21.

BibTeX · CSL-JSON

@misc{stratum-archaeology-us-new-york,
  title        = {New York: artifacts},
  author       = {{Stratum Study}},
  howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/law/archaeology-us-new-york}},
  year         = {2026},
  note         = {Law & ethics article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-20; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
}

Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.