How a California Anesthesiologist Became One of America’s La
Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2017 1:58 pm
How a California Anesthesiologist Became One of America’s Largest Antiquities Looters
On a late morning in August 2014, a scorcher in the Sierra Nevada mountains, Dr. Jonathan Bourne and a few of his hiking buddies plied the switchbacks of California’s Glacier Divide, having just bolted past two alpine lakes, not even stopping for as much as a sip. The group was competing in the annual Sierra Challenge, a 10-day quest to tag 10 of the most remote peaks in the Sierra. It took 58-year-old Bourne, an anesthesiologist in nearby Mammoth Lakes, only a few hours to reach a 12,900-foot summit, ahead of everyone but one.
For much of his adult life, Bourne had fashioned himself as something of an amateur archaeologist. His obsession with collecting began in 1991, around the time that two hikers in the...read more