Selling ancient artifacts, fossils or meteorites on e-bay (like this really old mushroom) should be embraced instead of reviled, archaeologist and anthropologist Charles Stanish from the University of California, Los Angeles has decided. Fake and “missing” fossils and artifacts that occasionally show up in unexpected places have caused outcry on more than one occasion (see Paper sparks fossil fury).

In an article in Archaeology, Stanish explains how the advent of online auction houses struck fear into the heart of archaeologists because it was expected that the black market for antiquities would become huge, and looting would become rife. But, says Stanish, the opposite has happened. “A very curious thing has happened. It appears that electronic buying and selling has actually hurt the antiquities trade,” Stanish says.

At the low end of the market, he says, it began to make more sense to make fake artefacts than to go looting. These fakes would sell for a fraction of the price of the real thing, but a consequence of their presence on the market was that the real things went down in value too, making looting less lucrative. “The value of real antiquities is also impacted by the increased risk that the object for sale is a fake. The likelihood of reselling an authentic artifact for more money is diminished each year as more fakes are produced,” Stanish says, “the Web has forever distorted the antiquities trafficking market in a positive way.”

When the article first came out this generated a bit of interest (New York Times blog) but has gathered more interest apace and has hit blogs and news desks elsewhere (Ars Technica , Information Week) As ever, the Register leads the headlines charge, with their Lara Croft attempt. The least catchy headline award might go to popsci.com’s Website Yields Unexpected Results in the Business of Artifacts.