In locales where much of the archaeological record has been destroyed or heavily impacted by pothunting and development, engaging with collector informants—including those who legally excavated sites on private property in the 1980s—can help fill crucial information gaps. However, such collaboration can pose ethical, and potentially legal, challenges. In this article, I outline research goals and results from a survey project in southeast Arizona's York-Duncan Valley, discuss the legal and ethical implications involved in working with former pothunters, and offer a critical evaluation of project practice. Finally, I offer a set of recommendations for those considering similar collaborations. I argue that the rejection of individuals who are knowledgeable about damaged or destroyed archaeological sites effectively silences the sites forever. Data acquired from former pothunters led to the identification and recording of 25 of 87 archaeological sites in the York-Duncan Valley. These individuals also served as interlocutors with others in the local community, helping us foster the trusted relationships necessary to promote site preservation on private property. A long-term engagement strategy that incorporates an assessment determining whether collector informants are responsible or responsive and that nurtures community involvement in preserving local archaeology offers a more productive course of action.

Archaeology and private artefact collecting have complex and inextricably linked histories. Archaeologists have long drawn attention to criminal activity among collectors, but to assume that all private owners of cultural material—and any archaeologists who interact with them—have ill-intent or engage in illegal behaviour can cause as much harm to the archaeological record as the criminal actions themselves.

This interview covers life and work of Marianne Kleibrink, retired Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology at the Groningen Institute of Archaeology. For more than 25 years she conducted and published excavations at Timpone della Motta near Francavilla Marittima (northern Calabria) and at Satricum (south Lazio), documenting the indigenous roots of these proto-urban sites as well as the transformations they underwent when they became incorporated, respectively, in the colonial Greek and Roman spheres. Her experience as, first, a woman making an academic career for herself in Dutch universities, and, later, as a foreign archaeologist running long-term projects in Italy, echos those of many others.