LAKEPORT, Lake County — For centuries, the black obsidian spear points and other Native American artifacts remained near the shore of Clear Lake, where their creators had left or buried them.

Then, a few weeks ago, a 41-year-old man dug them up, stashed them in a satchel and carried them away, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office said. While the man kept detailed notes on his finds, he was no archaeologist, officials said, but a drifter high on methamphetamine and living in a van.

Such looting of Native American artifacts is not unusual in Lake County and across the state — an act that spans the decades, driven by opportunism and a disregard for cultural relics and their spiritual connection to the land. Plunderers and their black-market buyers are difficult to stop.

But in Lake County and some other places, there’s a new effort to attack the problem before it gets worse. The four-year drought that has ravaged California, as well as the wildfires feasting on dry forests, have exposed prehistoric sites as water levels drop and thick brush and poison oak are burned away, according to authorities and experts.

In addition, they said, the Internet and social media have become a key research and communication tool for artifact thieves looking to score.

Around Clear Lake, the signs of drought are unmistakable, such as bone-dry grass and creeks and streams well below where they should be. The lake itself is low, exposing shoreline that hasn’t seen the light of day for as long as anyone can remember.

Vulnerable after fires

Lake County has been hit especially hard by fire. With the drought came fiercer blazes this summer — the Rocky Fire, the Jerusalem Fire and, last week, the Elk Fire. Handmade signs are everywhere in Lakeport, Clearlake and other communities, thanking firefighters for beating back the flames.

But for the artifact looters, the drought and the wildfires have been a boon for business.

“We see, in fires throughout California, these sites are coming up,” said Bill Salata, the state parks superintendent in Lake County. “Drought brings the water down. Much of the lake (normally) hides cultural sites and villages.”

The looters know this, flocking to the water’s newly exposed edge. Or they traverse the scorched earth looking for signs of Native American sites.

Taking the artifacts is illegal, in some cases a felony. Still, it’s typically an under-the-radar crime, and the the fact that the drifter in the van was busted was unusual.

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But in mid-August, several members of the sheriff’s office had attended a training on illegal looting of artifacts, a gathering co-sponsored by the Koi Nation and hosted by the Habematolel Pomo at the Running Creek Casino in Upper Lake, with state parks officials there as well.

“The American public tends to think of these people as the mom and pop out there picking up arrowheads,” said archaeologist Martin McAllister of Archaeological Damage Investigation and Assessment, one of the trainers. “It’s a much more serious problem than that.”

Link to other crimes

And it’s a crime frequently connected with other criminal activities — especially drugs, McAllister said.

“When you have an artifact in your hand you might as well have a packet of cash in your hand,” he said. “The message we take to (law enforcement) is to just be aware that if you see drugs, you often are going to see artifacts. If you see artifacts, you’re often going to see drugs.”

In addition, McAllister said, the bandits are known to fastidiously document their finds so they can provide buyers with pertinent details.

Lake County Deputy Richard Kreutzer went through the training — and two days later, on Aug. 22, he got called to the back of a business in Lower Lake after witnesses reported that a man had left a romantic note on a fence for a 14-year-old girl.

The deputy found the suspect, Brian Gene Smith, standing next to his van. Smith explained that he had seen the girl only from a distance and didn’t know her age, but Kreutzer reported that he smelled marijuana, soon located the pot and the meth, and then came upon the few dozen artifacts.

Carefully documented

The satchel full of spear points, serrated hand tools and obsidian flakes might have looked like a bag of rocks to the untrained eye. But some were attached to index cards noting where and when the items were found, sheriff’s officials said. They said Smith — his hands unable to remain still — said he was writing a book and was going to return the items to the tribes.

Everything from the artifact training was playing out in front of him, Kreutzer said: the drugs. The documentation. Photos of finds on a digital camera.

Smith was jailed on suspicion of crimes including possession of Native American artifacts and removing objects of archaeological or historical interest.

“For me,” Lake County Sheriff Brian Martin said, “what it boils down to is the definition of theft: taking something that doesn’t belong to you.”

The arrest was a milestone in efforts to get law enforcement to recognize such crimes, said Dino Beltran, treasurer of the Tribal Council for the Koi Nation, one of the Pomo tribes in the region. He said Lake County tribes had banded together in recent years to create Ancestors 1, an organization focused on preventing the destruction of historic sites, but didn’t always have much official support.

“The whole Native American community up here in Northern California is absolutely elated, rejoicing that there is a feeling of respect,” Beltran said.

Such respect, he said, is a long time coming.

Human artifacts in the region date back more than 14,000 years, when humans settled around what is believed to be the oldest lake in North America. Anderson Marsh State Historic Park, comprising 1,700 acres south of Clear Lake, was created in 1985 to preserve archaeological interests. The area has, on average, one historical Native American site every 25 acres.

Protected land

At one point in the 1970s and ’80s, the land was slated for a 2,000-unit subdivision, but archaeologist John Parker, a college student at the time, fought against it, convincing elected officials and the community that the historic value was too important to plow under.

“I can die,” he said last week as he looked out at acres of summer-dried brush and trees. “I’ve done what I need.”

And yet, on just one small Anderson Marsh site, 100 looter holes were found last year in an inspection.

“They’ll dig up the bones and throw them aside,” Beltran said. “The sacrifice of our elders is still in the ground. That means everything to us. And they deserve respect.”

To Salata, the state parks superintendent, educating cops and the community is a key part of showing respect. The pillagers, he said, often have more knowledge than the authorities.

“Looters know when there’s a fire. They’re looking,” he said. “There’s even a blue book on black market artifacts.”

Thieves’ tools

The problem isn’t limited to Lake County. Every public landholding agency in the state faces a challenge in protecting native treasures, said Beverly Ortiz, cultural services coordinator for the East Bay Regional Park District.

“Looting has always been an issue,” she said, “but it’s an increasingly complex issue because private persons are now using the Internet and social media to basically to put targets on isolated, unprotected sites.”

While the drought and fires have made the job harder, projected El Niño rains could also expose sites, she said. In other words, it’s an ongoing battle against the elements.

Public officials in Lake County and elsewhere are urging people to report looting and to leave artifacts where they are. Hikers can take a picture, note the location and contact park rangers or other authorities so an item can be documented appropriately.

To some people, such relics represent a curiosity or a quick buck. But to Native Americans, Ortiz said, “that’s one more taking of their heritage.”

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker