Section 4190.101  Purpose of Rules

This Part implements the provisions and intent of the Archeological and Paleontological Resources Protection Act [20 ILCS 3435].  The State reserves to itself the exclusive right to control archaeological and significant paleontological resources on public lands in order to protect and preserve scientific and cultural information, artifacts, and materials.  As part of that process, this Part mandates the maintenance of a State site file containing all known archaeological and significant paleontological resource locations and set standards for professional archaeologists and paleontologists working on public lands within the State of Illinois.  Furthermore, it is the purpose of this Part to encourage the preservation and protection of archaeological and paleontological resources on both private and public lands and to discourage their exploitation and destruction by vandalism, looting, commercial development, and construction.  Publicly-owned resources should be considered as scientific and educational preserves that are held in trust for future generations and will be given the highest level of preservation and protection from both planned and unplanned disturbances.  This Part is not intended to discourage collection of common invertebrate and/or plant fossils by educational groups, the scientific community, and the public where not otherwise prohibited. Invertebrate fossils are very common in the rocks of Illinois. This Part is intended for archaeological resources, significant paleontological resources, and extremely significant invertebrate and plant fossil localities on public lands.