Introduction to Archaeology: Class 18

ã Copyright Bruce Owen 2002

• Who are Native Americans in the US?
• when Europeans arrived, there were thousands of separate groups of Native Americans in the US
• speaking hundreds (thousands?) of languages and dialects
• extremely diverse, most mutually unintelligible
• these were people like any others, neither subhuman as some Europeans viewed them, nor "noble savages"
• some very large groups with complex and organized politics
• some built monumental architecture or large, permanent towns
• some had very sophisticated art and iconography
• some took and kept slaves
• many of the groups were at war within themselves or with other groups
• some stayed in the same region for many thousands of years, others moved around, captured territory from existing groups, etc.
• this was all terribly disrupted by plagues of European diseases
• then by Europeans taking over virtually all the land
• leaving some Native Americans on reservations
• and others to live among the Europeans and integrate, or not.
• through all this, lots of Native Americans married or had children with Europeans
• Most people who consider themselves Native Americans today have a lot of European (especially but not only hispanic) ancestors
• Most Native Americans today do not live on reservations
• Highly variable ethnic and political identification and activism
• but some are very serious about their ethnicity and culture
• and some (sometimes but not always the same ones) are very politically active
• demanding restitution and rights of various kinds
• like freedom from prohibitions against casinos on reservations in California
• so some Native American issues are not just cultural and religious, but have strong political and economic implications, too
• legal definition
• "Blood quotient": must be able to show 1/16 Native American ancestry to have legal standing
• Federally recognized tribes
• an imperfect procedure
• some groups claim descent from real historical tribes but have not been federally recognized
• due to not doing the paperwork long ago
• due to complex and slow bureaucracy today
• due to inability to convince officials of the legal criteria
• in at least one case (in Canada, but the same idea), it is now clear that a legally represented tribe was basically invented
• based on modern people's misunderstanding of history
• there apparently never was such a tribe in that location
• was this a well-meaning mistake, or an intentional manipulation?
• US government does not impose any form of organization or governance within tribes
• so it is often unclear who actually can represent a tribe legally
• often factions, dissident groups, etc.
• Gabrieleño example in Southern California
• two main subgroups claim to represent the tribe
• they often have different stands on things, in part because of their internal rivalry for power within the tribe
• so archaeologists and others dealing with them, who have to negotiate with and satisfy the tribe by law, are stuck
• if you work with one faction and come to an agreement, the other will reject it
• What is their relationship to archaeology?
• Highly variable, depends on the group (and the archaeologists!)
• General concerns:
• disturbance of things that should be left alone for religious reasons or out of general respect
• disturbance of burials
• treatment of buried human remains once excavated
• complaints that it shows insufficient respect to display them
• or store them in boxes for study
• disturbance and treatment of objects that have religious significance
• from graves and from other contexts
• disturbance of places like abandoned residential areas, etc.
• more generally, cultural imperialism
• archaeologists claiming to have a more accurate understanding of prehistory than current Native American's traditions
• "who owns the past"?
• whose view of the past is more "true", and how do you know?
• stories devised by archaeologists?
• oral traditions of Native Americans?
• stories recounted in the Bible about the creation of the earth and people?
• stories revealed to Joseph Smith by the Angel Moroni?
• stories proposed for fun and profit by Erich von Daniken?
• our culture tends to give weight to "science", but is that necessarily fair?
• is that necessarily even always true in the land of New Age religion, miracle weight loss, ignoring global warming, etc.?
• archaeologists representing the established European power structure, with law and government slanted to support their desires
• archaeologists advancing their careers and making a living by using Native American culture, objects, and sites
• while the Native Americans themselves remain disadvantaged
• NAGPRA
• Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
• passed in 1990
• Protection: Reduction of disturbance of remaining graves
• 1. Legal protection for Native American graves on federal and tribal land
• this was relatively easy, since the government and tribes own the land
• 2. Legal standing of federally recognized tribes to object to development projects, etc. if they might disturb burials, regardless of who owns the land
• or to demand action if burials turn up during a project
• action will be negotiated, much as in Adrian's talk last time
• but may involve avoiding the area, halting the project, salvage archaeology, etc
• in general for the developer: expensive delays, legal hassles and costs, etc.
• One form of implementation of this has been hiring Native American observers on earthmoving projects, archaeological excavations, etc to sound the alarm if human bones are found
• 3. Prohibition of commercial sale of Native American human remains
• enough said!
• Has been somewhat effective, in that planners and developers now want to avoid the legal nightmares of dealing with burials
• they have a strong incentive to avoid disturbing any
• compared to before, when they might be very sorry, but certainly would not lose a lot of profit over them
• unfortunately, they also have a strong incentive to hide or destroy any evidence of burials that does turn up
• Repatriation
• 4. required an inventory and reporting on existing stored collections of human remains and other objects, particularly those that would have been "communally owned", that is, ritual or sacred objects.
• in any institution that receives federal money: museums, university collections, medical collections, CalTrans storage from salvage projects, etc.
• by archaeologists and especially osteology experts or bioarchaeologists
• documentation of bones and associated goods
• attempt to associate with a known archaeological and/or historical culture
• attempt to connect those to existing Federally recognized tribes
• 5. Negotiation of acceptable treatment with relevant tribe, initially imagined to be return of the material to them, but not necessarily
• do nothing, leave in storage
• store differently
• restorative ritual
• study, then return to tribe
• for them to handle as they see fit
• often reburial, but not necessarily
• return to tribe with no further study
• for them to handle as they see fit
• the basic issues:
• archaeologists generally want the material available for study, now and in the future
• because they think it may help the advancement of science and knowledge of the past
• because their jobs and reputations depend in part on such collections and an active archaeology field
• Native Americans often have other claims and priorities
• these are remains of their ancestors, and they feel a connection to them and that they deserve some respect
• the frequent point is that we are not allowed to dig up European burials, so why are we allowed to dig up Native American ones?
• this is not actually true, but it does illustrate the attitudes
• They vary widely on how they want the remains treated
• some are not interested at all
• some have no problem with archaeology, and are willing to have bones and artifacts remain in museums and be studied
• some actually encourage archaeology, appreciating its results
• some are OK with archaeology, but want it done with more respect
• like not displaying their ancestors' bones to the public
• some are OK with study, but want the material returned eventually for reburial, often with some sort of corrective ritual
• some are against study, and want the bones and artifacts returned immediately
• some care mostly about the bones; others include certain kinds of objects that they consider sacred; others feel strongly about all remains, sometimes even down to household garbage
• some catches
• tribes may think museums or archaeologists are not coming forward with all the information, or are not recognizing their claim to the material
• archaeologists determine which tribe is associated, if any
• at least initially
• tribes may disagree
• what if the tribe currently in the region is thought by archaeologists to have moved there some time after the date of the burial?
• what if the burial is extremely old (as we will see below), so that the connection of it to the current local tribe seems tenuous?
• what if the identifiable group of the burial has no corresponding modern federally recognized tribe?
• what about bones and objects that archaeologists cannot assign to specific cultures?
• when tribes are divided into factions, who do the archaeologists or museum representatives negotiate with?
• if the factions disagree, what does the collection holder do?
• political implications
• most people understand reverence for graves
• this has been a politically useful issue to unite Native Americans and create the impression that they are a single, powerful, wronged interest group
• so some loud disputes may have had motivations other than purely religious ones
• political issues
• useful for creating and presenting a unified "Native American" front on a national level
• for advancing the power and prestige of some individuals associated with this (as with any political organization)
• in some cases, archaeological study legitimizes and popularizes the claim of local tribes to the region, land, etc.
• in some cases, it might undermine it
• Kennewick Man
• the story: see the two links on the class web page
• around 9400 BP
• fewer than 20 skeletons known from the New World with dates that old
• But non-skeletal evidence that people were here definitely back to 12,500 BP at Monte Verde, maybe further in other, more debatable sites
• plus just this month, a cranium from near Mexico city was dated to 13,000 BP
• archaeological importance
• James Chatters: the cranium looks "Caucasoid"
• but see some of his other statements in the online readings!
• competing claims on the remains
• archaeologists
• such remains belong to humanity, not a specific tribe
• the information in them should be shared, not monopolized
• Native Americans
• Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
• Yakima
• Nez Perce
• Colville
• Wanapum
• US Army Corps of Engineers
• Neo-druids!
• political issues
• if Kennewick Man is "Caucasoid", different from Native Americans,
• that may reduce the broad claim Native Americans can make to the land, archaeological remains, etc.
• that is, maybe they are not descendants of the "first" Americans
• ironic, given the Canadian term "First Peoples" for Native Americans
• may reduce the weight of their own origin beliefs in being the original people, created here
• may not help in unifying disparate tribes and individuals into a single Native American political interest group if those origin stories are cast into doubt
• a rallying point for pulling Native Americans together on an "easy" issue
• current standing of the issue
• control awarded to archaeologists, but case will be appealed