Note – We are currently beta testing this textbook. If you are a student who has been assigned this reading, we would appreciate any feedback you may have. After finishing the chapter, please go to https://forms.gle/3QDm5QYi4ft4wbnXA to complete a short survey.

Kristina Casper-Denman, Ph.D., American River College

Why should we protect the human past?

As discussed in the chapter ‘Cultural Resource Management and Archaeology,” Cultural Resource Management (CRM) relies on an understanding of what makes culture important and distinct from one human community to another. Archaeology relies on excavation and other scientific methods to understand the culture of ancient societies and answer questions about contemporary societies. As technology advances, archaeologists are not relying as much on excavation as we can also use less invasive methods to study sites and reduce site destruction. The National Park Service uses a term known as Traditional Cultural Properties (TCP), indicating areas that are places of great cultural importance such as village or burial sites. (See Traditional Cultural Places and Indian Sacred Sites to learn more about TCP.) When we know the location of these TCP, we can avoid them out of respect. That is, archaeologists can decide not to excavate an area  to protect ancestral remains and culturally significant artifacts (objects used and made by humans) from destructive forces. Unfortunately, not everyone shares this belief in the importance of preservations and some sites are destroyed intentionally through looting (illegally removing objects from sites) by people hoping to find economically valuable artifacts.  This is in addition to natural forces that cause damage to these sites, for instance, erosion due to wind and rain. In this chapter, we will examine some of the major techniques of Cultural Resource Management and archaeology so you can understand how science works to preserve ancient cultures in contemporary times and, more importantly, why we should protect the human past.

Back in the mid-1990s, archaeologists at the national Society for American Archaeology (SAA) created and adopted a series of “9 Principles of Archaeological Ethics” that guide our actions throughout our research, including at field sites. This 7-page document is updated periodically and reminds us of our responsibilities as scientists and as protectors of land and culture. (Here is the document if you would like to learn all the details of these principles – Principles of Archaeological Ethics.) For this chapter, we will focus on the first three principles from this document. Principle 1 is about stewardship and helps us focus on preservation and protection of the human past, remembering that the accurate interpretation of the archaeological record relies on a respectful relationship with the descent communities. These are the people most directly related to the ancestors we uncover in our research. Principle 2 notes that archaeologists are accountable. That is they need to make every reasonable effort to actively consult and work with descent groups, ensuring clear lines of communication throughout the process so that there are no misunderstandings or mistrust. Lastly, Principle 3 focuses on commercialization, or the use of the artifacts that are found as commodities that can be sold for profit or personal enjoyment. The market for these artifacts, which is often illegal, has resulted in the destruction of archaeological sites and of the information that the context of these sites can provide to better understand these societies. Looting believes in the idea of “finders keepers,” which is the opposite of the scientific research carried out by archaeologists that is based on preservation and education (Society for American Archaeology 2024).

As archaeologists, we rely on knowing a wide variety of natural environments as well as the peoples who lived and sometimes still live in a location. We need to know where we are, or are NOT, allowed to work and study within archaeological sites which requires getting permits and establishing collaborations with local institutions and communities. Before we begin looking at how archaeologists work at these sites to promote the principles of stewardship, accountability, and protection from commercialization that we noted in the previous paragraph, we need to go back and learn about how the first scientists who practiced archaeology created this field. For much of the history of archaeology, and anthropology more broadly, we focused on collecting and collections with an emphasis on salvage ethnography. The idea of salvage ethnography is that field anthropologists would interview members of a descent community. The goal was to gather as many personal histories, myths or sacred stories, and linguistic notes as possible before the Indigenous communities or earliest known civilizations in a specific locale disappeared. Salvage archaeologists, for their part in these investigations, focused on obtaining the cultural materials from the descendent communities as well as from archaeological excavations. Most anthropologists received proper training and gathered all the necessary information to keep the materials intact such as the name of the owner, the materials, and perhaps even the process of creating the object. Some salvage archaeologists systematically gathered data which is still available for reference today. This combination of well-trained anthropologists and careful data collection help us to figure out the cultural patrimony which refers to all the aspects of culture a community owns, which is built on that community’s past, whether it is through written records, material culture, or oral histories.

Cultural patrimony can be difficult when it comes to nonmaterial culture such as stories, songs, and performances, but identifying material culture as belonging to just one society can also be challenging. Many nations who lived close to one another shared raw materials and conducted economic trade of finished goods. Additionally, as people moved, techniques traveled from one community to another through intermarriage which reminds us that there are many ways for artifacts to move among communities. New types of technologies are providing clues in the creation of the objects that help us to narrow down a projectile point, such as an arrowhead, to the Pacific Northwest, the Great Lakes region, or the Southwest. Ancient trade routes, such as the Silk Road through Asia, offer enormous amounts of evidence of the sharing of goods and ideas that took place 2000 years in the past. (See Bower 2017, Oldest Evidence of Patterned Silk Loom Found in China.)  Two thousand years before that, there is evidence of trade between Ireland and the U.K. based on Cornish gold. (See Archaeologists Discover Evidence of Prehistoric Gold Trade Route to read more.)

While the concept of protecting these objects of cultural patrimony goes back to the early 1900s, the use of the term CRM shows up for the first time in the early 1970s. Archaeologists in the United States historically worked for the government or for research institutions such as museums or universities, but an increasing number of these archaeologists founded their own firms, working alongside construction companies and for transportation organizations as contract archaeologists. Instead of working for the Department of the Interior or the Bureau of Land Management, the archaeologists of the 1970s began to create their own projects and train their students to do the same. To learn more about the early history of CRM in the United States, please check out A Qualitative History of Cultural Resource Management (Giacinto 2011).

Most international protections of archaeological sites and artifacts are administrated through UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. The relevant legislation is the UNESCO Convention of 1970 on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.  This is an international treaty, which regulates the import and export of cultural objects. Two years later, in 1972, the Convention Concerning the Protection of Cultural and Natural Heritage first created World Heritage Sites.  A World Heritage Site is recognized by UNESCO as having cultural, historical, and/or scientific significance to humanity as a whole, and is protected by international treaty. To access some wonderful resources through the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), please go to this website where you have access to four PDFs to explain practical ways to manage World Heritage Sites – Managing Disaster Risks for World Heritage. This will help you better understand the practices in places such as Machu Picchu, the Parthenon in Athens, the pyramids of Giza, and ancient temples throughout Southeast Asia (Figure 1).

Early archaeologists relied on paper maps and local knowledge of important locations. Now that we have advanced technologies like GPS and satellite maps of the surface of the Earth, we can anticipate and proactively protect ancient Indigenous sites like Mesa Verde in Southwestern Colorado. We will focus on Mesa Verde National Park as a case study (one specific research example) to help us understand the terminology in the next few paragraphs. There are no Indigenous populations living in this National Park today, and archaeologists are still unsure as to the exact reason that the sites were abandoned in the past.

When the National Park first opened in 1906, long before it became a protected site in 1978 thanks to UNESCO, people helped themselves to artifacts and wandered all over the property, doing irreparable harm during this looting. That damage means we have lost archaeological knowledge forever, and descent communities have lost their physical links to their ancestors. Now, both tourist and scientific access is limited, and any artifacts discovered are claimed by the museum on site. There is a timeline from the 1700s to the present to learn about Mesa Verde’s history – Important Events in the Development and Preservation of Mesa Verde National Park (National Park Service 2024). To learn about the descendent communities associated with Mesa Verde who are related to the Ancestral Puebloan Nations who left over 700 years ago, see The Archaeological Survey of Wetherill Mesa: A Prologue to the Project (Osborne 2007).

As we learned earlier in this chapter, natural processes can uncover previously hidden archaeological sites. In the early 2000s, a wildfire in the National Park exposed some living sites previously unknown to archaeologists (To learn more about those fires and the aftermath at Mesa Verde from a non-scientific point of view, please see After the Fires, Gaug 2001) Since these sites had not previously been examined, CRM specialists came in to investigate which were the sacred (religiously important to a culture and/or its descent community) sites and which were the secular (everyday, non-sacred) portions. In the next paragraph, we will begin to delve into the differences in approach between secular and sacred sites.

Scientific and Humanistic Approaches to CRM

In anthropology, we separate our research approaches into two major categories: the scientific approach and the humanistic approach. As you might imagine, the scientific approach is very data-driven, where we emphasize statistics and categorization. At a site like Mesa Verde, how many lithic (tools made of stone) points are there? How many of these points are from the area compared to the number of those traded from other locations? How many of these points show wear patterns? What do those wear patterns indicate about their use? To answer some of these questions, we rely on experimental archaeology which allows us to reconstruct the technological past; the goal is to create an idea of the past of the specific culture we are studying which helps us to track secular information. For those of you who are interested in experimental archaeology, please read the “Ancient Technologies” chapter for more examples and details!

How do we use the humanistic approach properly in archaeology? After all, if archaeology is the study of the human past, we need to include the specific humanity of the population and focus on learning everything we can about their culture (the behaviors that are shared and learned). We need to discover their demography (their population statistics such as adult vs. juvenile; healthy vs. sick; etc.) as well as their behavioral patterns such as how they processed and stored their food, with whom they traded, etc. While demography offers data-driven, research-based information about cultures, we cannot learn as much as we would like about individual lives of people within a population. The main exception to this is when there are precise written records available from primary sources (evidence left by the people at the time such as documents and other artifacts).

Just because someone follows the traditions of a specific religion, does not mean that they practice their faith the same way every other member of that religion does. Faith is personal in practice and belief. Sacred sites mean that for a culture, specific areas were treated differently by the community. Some sacred sites were used every day while others were used just for special purposes, such as initiation ceremonies (changing social status within a group from outsider to insider or child to adult). Some were private and inside buildings while others were meant to be accessible to everyone in the community. How do we know from studying these sites that they are sacred, and why does this matter to Cultural Heritage?

Sacred sites are the most important locations for a society, as they offer cohesion for the social system, especially in times of stress. Sacred sites will be apart, both physically and emotionally, from the secular parts of life. We do not, for example, find middens (trash piles) in the middle of the holiest part of a site, but we might find burials, objects of special value, and even ways to protect the sacred space from accidental discovery (hidden behind several sets of doors, for example).

Secular sites, while important to a community, can be easily rebuilt. If there is a house fire, another house can be constructed with the knowledge from the builders of the original building. However, it is much more challenging to recreate the place of the origin of a culture (ethnogenesis), because once it is destroyed, it can never be formed again. The biggest challenge is that we need to know which sites, or parts of sites, are the most important to the descent group before we perform analysis, and if that community has been gone for generations or centuries, the challenge to identify the sacred spaces might be too large for us to tackle. Read the Indigenous Archaeologies chapters for further case studies.

Even if a culture no longer lives in their original homeland, they might still have descendants whose rights and beliefs need to be respected. It is important to keep the humanistic approach in mind when collecting data since every discovery is potentially part of someone’s life, whether we know the descent community or not. I get a lot of questions about who has the right to say whether archaeologists should work with descendent communities or if we should stay away. Each community knows what they want to accomplish, and if they are looking for an archaeologist to set up a CRM program for a Nation, there will be a job posting. Keep in mind the layers of laws you will need to be familiar with, from local jurisdictions as well as international mandates. Ethics are just the beginning of the challenge.

While there are many private CRM firms across the country, working usually with construction companies, one of the largest employers of archaeologists in the State of California is the State itself. The two biggest employees for CRM specialists include CalTrans, through the California Department of Transportation. You can learn more at CalTrans: Environmental Analysis (CalTrans n.d.). (Information specifically about the relationship between the California department of Fire and archaeologists can be found at CalFire: Suggestions for Preparing Archaeological Site Records and Site Maps, Betts 2001.)

One of the major reasons that CalTrans hires so many archaeologists is that the State is constantly building and upgrading the roads and highways, leading sometimes to the accidental excavation of Native and other historic sites. The more we know ahead of time which societies lived in which specific areas, the better our chances of either avoiding starting construction in that location, or we can form a plan to excavate and move materials from sites if necessary. If artifacts need to be removed, there are several components to this relocation: who on the crew will excavate the actual artifacts and ancestral remains, and where will all the finds go at the end of the project? Each project has its own mitigation plan. Sonoma State faculty and students helped with work in downtown San Francisco in the middle of the business district, where they learned about the lives of Gold Rush residents. Based on a combination of historical maps and a wide variety of artifacts, archaeologists determined details of the lives of individual families. The David A. Fredrickson Archaeological Collections Facility at Sonoma State houses those objects, including children’s toys. To learn more, see 41 Tehama Street, San Francisco (Stewart et al. 2018).

CalFire, of course, is interested in mitigating damage done by fires as well as avoiding them in the first place. While the emphasis is protection of human life, CalFire also is tasked with making sure properties are safe. If employees can work with archaeologists and descent communities to identify and protect archaeological sites well in advance of fire season, then firefighters can focus on keeping destruction to a minimum if burns begin. CalFire creates maps of places most likely to burn based on past events such as previous years’ fires, but they also need to track fast-moving wildfires spurred on by winds. It benefits the departments to have people trained in the identification and protection of archaeological sites so firefighters can focus instead on the crisis at hand. CalFire offers training for people interested in assisting professional archaeologists at sites. To learn about the mapping process with GIS, go to CalFire: GIS Data as well as the chapter titled Survey/GIS in this OER text.

 

The more human activity spreads out into geographic locations that are not sustainable for year-round water and food resources, the more difficult it is to reach those communities in times of disasters. The more we can plan ahead of time which archaeological sites need protection (and which should be left alone), the more CalFire can focus time on action plans. It is important to keep in mind that Indigenous peoples throughout the world relied on fire technology long before European Contact. In fact, the reason that places like Yosemite ended up so lush is that the local Native Nations (Paiute, Miwok, and Ahwahnechee) used traditional methods to keep plants, trees, and grasses from overgrowing. Understanding the time of year and the proper conditions required for a successful burn meant that Native peoples maintained the park-like surroundings we still experience in Yosemite. You can learn more about these challenges in the Ancient Landscapes/Ancient Environments chapter and in How John Muir’s Brand of Conservation led to the Decline of Yosemite (Johnson 2014).

One major challenge with creating these maps of sacred spaces is once the map is published, it usually becomes public. More often those maps end up as PDFs online for people to search and print. That means absolutely anyone, from construction crews to vandals, knows where important archaeological sites are. As you can imagine, that leads to increased challenges with protecting these sites from destruction. We are in a catch-22: if we do not have the maps, in cases of emergencies, we cannot know where to focus our attention; however, having the map means everyone knows everything about a specific locale. One possible solution is to create the maps and provide them only to emergency services.

Another challenge in reading an archaeological site is the introduction of invasive species (species introduced intentionally or otherwise that take over an ecosystem), which do not act in the same ways as the original landscape. California is packed with eucalyptus trees from Australia which are incredibly flammable. Eucalyptus comes in, as do fig trees, take over an ecosystem, then their roots crowd out the native plants, the burn patterns change (especially with the eucalyptus oil being so flammable), and it changes the landscape of archaeological sites in California. Experts such as Professors like Dr. Don Hankins from California State University Chico continue to practice Indigenous burning techniques today, modeling them for the next generations and for CalFire to better perform controlled burns. Here is a link to Professor Hankins’ work from 2014 with traditional burning in California: Lighting Cultural Fires.

Similar projects exist in areas of Australia and Canada. In Australia, since it is such a large continent with hundreds of different Aboriginal Nations, there were different techniques for using traditional fire management that encouraged wildlife to return as well as plants to drop open seeds for germination. To learn more about the methodology still used today, check out this webpage on Fire Management from Bush Heritage Australia. We may not think of Canada as having similar challenges as California or Australia, but as another country with widely varied ecosystems, the reliance on Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) helps to save lives every year. Working with descent communities to restore ‘buffalo jumps’ similar to ones used by the ancestors means burning grasses to bring back new growth to encourage buffalo to feed near hunting places. To learn more about the variety of ways First Nations (the Indigenous Nations of Canada) continue to use their burning technology in British Columbia, please see Indigenous Fire Management and Traditional Knowledge (2019).

What if we do have some sort of natural disaster headed our way: typhoon, volcano, earthquake, forest fire (hopefully not all the above)? Step one: archaeologists are not going to remain in the field trying to save a site. We are amazing, no doubt about that, but we cannot protect sites from disasters of any size. We might have spent time removing materials from a natural disaster previously just to deal with this all over again. For example, there was a small volcanic situation at a site known as Pompeii in Italy. Archaeologists needed to make the decision of whether to excavate the entire city (not happening) and what to do with what had already been uncovered. Why would an archaeologist make the decision NOT to excavate? Remember that as soon as material is exposed, it breaks down much faster than if skeletons, for example, remain in an anaerobic (without oxygen) environment. Think about how much time and money it takes to excavate an entire city and all its contents. Sometimes it makes more sense to stop, even when it is tempting to complete an entire project. You can find a link to a virtual dig of Pompeii at Archaeology’s Interactive Dig: Pompeii Tour (2003).

Ethical Display

We found a city at Pompeii, but that was not a complicated task since the ancient world knew exactly where it was thanks to trade routes and city planners; historical records indicated exactly when Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered much of the surrounding area. There were even maps of the city itself, as you can check out at Archaeology’s Interactive Dig: Pompeii Maps. That means that we know the exact location of the different homes, businesses, and roads in the city. The problem is that we do not know the exact use of every artifact found within the walls of Pompeii. We can make interpretations based on other objects from other cities, and that is the biggest clue.

The bigger question is how do we treat the ancestral remains with respect? What did the ancient Pompeiians believe about the afterlife and human remains compared to contemporary Italian cultural norms? The predominant religion is Roman Catholicism which widely displays relics (personal items, including bodies, of religious people) in public. Is it permissible to have bodies on display since these people died naturally and were not buried? I would argue that this is completely the decision of the local populations. If the people in Southern Italy encourage tourists and archaeologists alike to visit Herculaneum and Pompeii, take photos of the dead, and leave the casts and molds in situ (in their original location) then that is their decision (Figure 4).

Naturally occurring mummies can happen under ideal conditions around the world: tannin-filled peat bogs in Ireland as well as high altitude sites in the Andes. In 2018, I traveled to Dublin to the National Museum of Ireland: Archaeology (there are three others: Decorative Arts; Country Life; and Natural History) and discovered several bog bodies on display. As an anthropologist, I am always filled with awe that nature has the perfect combination of tannins to preserve the ancestral remains and some of the artifacts, but I am also trying to be sensitive that not everyone would like to see human bodies on display. The museum set up the exhibits brilliantly where, if you wanted to just read the signs and learn about the artifacts and ancestors, you could. However, you would have to move off the main path to reach the actual bodies and could not accidentally come across them. For more information on natural preservation of human remains, check out the chapters on Bioarchaeology and Ancient Environments.

It is fantastic to realize that many of our archaeological finds are pure coincidence: many stories begin with farmers preparing their land and finding arrowheads/pottery/gold hoards/human remains (not all in the same place). If we are lucky, the farmers stop, call the local law enforcement (especially if there are human remains) so that all the evidence is in situ. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes the peat farmers only have part of a body since they were cutting up large chunks of peat for fuel. In any case, we would like everything to remain where it was so that we show up so we can systematically excavate. The best museums may even set up their display to mimic the original provenience (the location of everything at a site) so that visitors experience an authentic reproduction of the site. To learn more about the bog bodies in the museum in Dublin, please check out Kingship and Sacrifice (National Museum of Ireland n.d.). (WARNING: there are photographs of ancestral remains.)

In the Andes, finding the mummies requires more effort and luck than plowing a field. It might mean climbing up mountains and dealing with strong winds, mud, and altitude sickness, as well as language and cultural barriers. In some cases, local descent populations know exactly where these sacrifices were made but not necessarily how long ago. What will you discover about these people?

They are primarily young women of good health and high status. How do we know that? We can tell their high status socioeconomically from the artifacts surrounding them: the quality of their clothing and the quantity of the jewelry they are wearing are straight-forward indicators of their family’s wealth.

We can tell their high status biologically from the wear on their teeth, the lack of multiple fractures on their long bones as well as general health of the skeletal materials compared with other ancestors from that period. We will rely on forensic archaeology (learning from skeletons both their life and death stories) to estimate approximate age at death as well as health, height, and cause of death in some cases. We are especially lucky with high altitude finds since that lack of oxygen leads to more organic materials remaining intact, including stomach content. Search the Bioarchaeology chapter for more examples.

Here is where the story becomes more complicated: we know that the women ingested large amounts of narcotics before they died, because the evidence remains in their system, but did they take this willingly or were they forced or coerced into taking the chemicals? When did they understand they would become a sacrifice to protect their entire population? How much fear did they have, and were they scared enough to try to run away? Perhaps some people think this is not scientific. Some people may think there is too much speculation involved at this point. This is your choice as an archaeologist how much cultural interpretation you want to include, but the facts show that there are levels of coca in her system that date back one year before her death as well as alcohol. Based on the large quantity of both alcohol and coca in her body at the time of death, she probably did not feel pain as she slipped away. To learn more about these women, please check out this article from Nature – Incan child mummies show evidence of sacrificial rituals. (Check Hayden 2013) (WARNING: there are photographs of ancestral remains.)

You learned in the Introduction to this textbook about the scientific and humanistic approaches to archaeology. We can add to that processualism and postprocessualism. Processualism is the scientific approach in which we catalog the approximate age, approximate health, the biological sex based on the skeleton, the number of artifacts, and the approximate year the victim died. Postprocessualism would give a humanistic approach to these Andean mummies, telling us about the victims personally which helps outsiders to connect with their stories, but those details are not guaranteed to be as accurate. To learn more about both sides to this story, please check out this National Geographic article from 2013 about Andean natural mummies – Inca Child Sacrifice Victims were Drugged. (WARNING: there are photographs of ancestral remains.)

In both these cases, Ireland and the Andes, even though their landscapes may be completely geologically different, CRM practitioners would have parallel training in how to identify and preserve these culturally significant sites. The reality is that when mummies are involved, as with any ancestral remains, we are most likely going to remove them for safe keeping until they can be returned to their descendant group or protected in a museum. These will be the same challenges for archaeologists working with Native sites in the United States.

NAGPRA and the Protection of Cultural Heritage in the U.S.

Finally, for me, one of the most important pieces of legislation in my research as an anthropologist and ethnohistorian is the 1990 ruling for the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) which you can also read about in the CRM and Bioarchaeology chapters. The main purpose is this: when you know that what you have discovered is Indigenous, stop. Do not touch anything. Contact the local authorities, especially when there are ancestral remains, and protect the site. Our desires to do science DO NOT MATTER. These are someone else’s relatives, and under the law and under our code of ethics, we have no right to study them. If we cannot deal with this, we need to work in a museum with artifacts or to go to the hundreds of countries who are happy to have our help, such as Greece, Thailand, or Rwanda. It is not that forensic anthropologists cannot work with Native ancestral remains; it is simply that it is up to Native Nations to ask for our help. If they need trained forensic archaeologists to identify their ancestors, then we help. Non-Indigenous scientists do not get to decide what is appropriate and what is not.

This is a very difficult Act since it does not have mechanisms to punish those who break the laws. As with other federal laws, the strength of the Act is in its enforcement. This applies to museums, colleges and universities, and other public institutions. Another challenge is that this Act only applies to federally recognized Nations (any Native Nation who terminated in the 1950s or later would lose all rights under NAGPRA). Furthermore, NAGPRA only applies to materials found on public land and not private property. Inventories are maintained by all organizations who receive federal funding, including museums, colleges, and universities. Keep in mind, NAGPRA only applies to the United States; each nation has its own sets of regulations to protect their Indigenous ancestors and cultural materials.

Here is a brief overview of NAGPRA from the United States Bureau of Reclamation:

“The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 and the regulations (43 CFR Part 10) that allow for its implementation address the rights of lineal descendants, Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations (parties with standing) to Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony (cultural items). The statute requires Federal agencies and museums to provide information about Native American cultural items to parties with standing and, upon presentation of a valid claim, ensure the item(s) undergo disposition or repatriation

“NAGPRA requires that Reclamation complete a number of reports and submit them to tribes and the Department of the Interior through the National NAGPRA Program. Reclamation submitted a single Reclamation Summary Report in 1993. All five regions within Reclamation submitted region specific inventories by the statutory deadline in 1995. Several inadvertent discoveries and intentional excavations of NAGPRA cultural items have occurred on Reclamation lands or because of its actions on tribal lands since 1990.” (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Bureau of Reclamation)

It is important that archaeologists learn the four major categories of protection under this law so that when excavating, we pay special attention to the following: 1) we must protect graves with Native American ancestral remains (in some cases, this might mean the respectful removal of the ancestors to another location); 2) we consider the grave goods (materials buried with the dead) to be sacred and to be protected as well; 3) we must protect items of cultural patrimony (objects that belong to a culture and are specific to them such as pottery or worked obsidian); and finally 4) we must ensure that sacred sites are protected, like the ground surrounding the burials, which we would refer to as cemeteries when they are grouped. The idea is to protect the materials still in the ground, and by law, repatriate (return) any of the items that have already been excavated. Here is a link to the law from the National Parks Services for NAGPRA – National NAGPRA Program.

Despite the best intentions of the legislators who enacted NAGPRA in 1990, there are some serious restrictions. For example, if the land or the stakeholders who have possession of the ancestral remains are privately owned and not under federal jurisdiction, there is no protection under NAGPRA. If the Native Nation is not federally recognized, or the materials are in Canada, Mexico, or overseas, NAGPRA cannot directly protect the remains or objects. We would need to rely on other laws, local or international, to help preserve the materials for repatriation.

Since NAGPRA was enacted in 1990, archaeologists have been incredibly careful in their excavations and research to avoid disturbing Native sites. That is why partnerships such as with CalTrans and CalFire are so important, because once those maps are created to indicate sacred and other important spaces, those maps can be shared with archaeologists and construction firms. A combination of working closely with tribal councils and an increased number of Native archaeologists has reduced the damage we have done to Indigenous cultural and ancestral remains.

Each Native Nation creates a taskforce or working group where all members are trained in the details of NAGPRA as well as local laws in addition to their tribal laws. The goal is to create a handbook that lists exactly what steps need to happen when someone calls to alert the task force that something might have been discovered. Some of these groups also train site monitors to work at construction or archaeological sites, so that a team member already knows the proper procedures to follow. Failure to follow the law can end up with a construction firm losing their license or an archaeological team to be censured. This is a small enough community that word gets out quickly when someone is unethical.

How do museums, colleges, and universities repatriate what is already in their possession? Much like the Native Nations, each college and university with a museum or other type of collection must also be aware of the rules of NAGPRA and the consequences for not following the letter and the spirit of the law. One of the biggest challenges for repatriating the ancestral remains or the sacred objects is a lack of paperwork. When there is a donation or addition to a museum, the intake paperwork is supposed to include all the significant information. For anything Native, that should include the name of the Native Nation and the exact location of the original find. When archaeologists retire from a college or university, if they do not leave a copy of their fieldwork notes behind, there may be no way for their colleagues to know the details. When we find handwritten notes that say, “Northern Alaska” or “Plains”, then this information is too broad to allow us to initiate a consultation with the correct Nation. However, we at least have a clue of where to begin. Remember that the Department of the Interior maintains the national NAGPRA database online.

Since the Smithsonian is a collection of museums, how have Native Nations worked with the anthropologists to repatriate materials respectfully? The best way to focus on the Smithsonian is to emphasize the collections of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) which opened in Washington D.C. on the Capitol Mall in 2004 (Figure 5). It helps both Native Nations and anthropologists that the board of directors includes Native leaders from across the continent who know NAGPRA and other related legislation. The NMAI exists in three separate locations (New York, Maryland, and Washington D.C.) but only the Maryland facility housed ancestral remains. Before the D.C. location opened to the public, the Smithsonian held a series of consultations with tribal leaders who were invited to look at their portion of the collection. The goal was two-fold: to make sure that everything was legal under NAGPRA, as well as to ensure objects with special cultural limitations were housed properly (objects that could be seen by men only, women only, initiated members only, etc.) To learn more about the Smithsonian and NAGPRA consultation, see National Museum of the American Indian: Cultural Resources Center (National Museum of the American Indian n.d.). You can also learn more about the repatriation process at National Museum of the American Indian: Repatriation (National Museum of the American Indian n.d.).

Protecting Ancestors Outside the United States

What are the laws in places like Australia that might parallel NAGPRA? The remains found in Kow Swamp give us an indication of how Australian archaeologists treated ancestral remains in the past compared to the repatriation process that recently occurred. It is important for us to remember that much like Indigenous Nations in the United States, there are hundreds of Australian Aboriginal Nations who are the descendent communities from a specific area. There are not always clear delineations of territorial lines, especially for Nations who moved seasonally such as the Tasmanian Aboriginal Nations of Australia. To help you understand the enormity of Aboriginal land, here is a map created by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies: Map of Indigenous Australia. Each descent community knows their own funeral rites through personal experience, but what about ancestral remains from tens of thousands of years ago?

Kow Swamp, located in southeastern Australia, became archaeologically significant in 1974 with the discovery of an ancestor known now as Mungo Man. Immediately people wanted to know how long ago he lived, and while that information is never exactly precise, archaeologists discovered he is tens of thousands of years old. There is no consensus, however, whether he lived 40kya or 60kya, due to differences in chronometric dating results. He matters to archaeology, because to date, he is the oldest human from Australia. To Indigenous Nations of Australia, he is significant because he is an ancestor to his people. Like many other important discoveries, his find was unexpected and welcomed by the scientific community. It makes sense, of course, to search near freshwater areas since that would be an important resource for survival. To find someone so old and so intact is largely due to the way his people buried him, protecting his remains for millennia.

He was not the first individual found in that area. Archaeologists discovered the cremains (cremated remains) of Mungo Lady in the late 1960s, but for some reason, her repatriation took place in 1991 while scientists waited to return Mungo Man to the closest descendent population in 2017. You can learn more about their discovery and, more importantly, their repatriation in the British Broadcasting Company’s article Mungo Man: Australia’s oldest remains taken to ancestral home (2017).

What about identifying and repatriating the recent war dead in places like the Philippines during WW2 or Rwanda during its Civil War? The Japanese military maintained a Prisoner of War (POW) camp in Cabanatuan Prison Camp on the main island of Luzon. While there are maps of the camps and the surroundings, there are still prisoners who have not yet been identified after all these decades. You can learn more about the prison camp in Challenges to Identifications of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp Cemetery Remains (Megyesi 2018).

Rather than outsiders, Rwanda turned on its own people in the Civil War from 1990 to 1994, when the Hutu and the Tutsi killed each other in a horrible genocide where there were more similarities among the peoples than differences. As in the Philippines during WW2, Rwanda had to deal with admixture (when multiple human remains are mixed) which led to challenges in repatriating the dead. What do we do about mass graves (places where multiple sets of remains have been buried or covered) and what we find there? The approach to removing the dead in Rwanda needed to be systematically scientific since prosecutors needed all the possible pieces of evidence to bring charges against the perpetrators from the 1994 Civil War. Then the victims might be able to be returned to their families based on personal effects and DNA if anyone alive was left in the country to receive their remains. To learn more about the history of the Rwandan genocide (WARNING: this link includes some photographs of the ancestral skeletons as well as some ancestors wrapped in shrouds), please go to the British Broadcasting Corporation’s website – Rwanda Genocide: 100 days of slaughter (2019).

In places like the Philippines where thousands died on battlefields, historians know exactly who began battles, so the point is to return remains to families where possible. Typhoons and earthquakes can accidentally unearth those who died and were buried on the battlefields. In those cases, we may not find entire skeletons or enough of the skeleton to return them to their closest relatives. In places like the Philippines, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam, the combination of tropical storms, jungle settings for warfare, and decades since the time of burial combine to destroy many of the skeletons long before recovery is possible. To learn about recovering the war dead, here is a link from the University of Queensland (Australia) that offers case studies about the specific challenges of retrieving these bodies – Body of Evidence (2017).

Archaeology is not an easy science. No science guarantees outcomes, and many times we end up with more questions than answers. I like to think of archaeology as a jigsaw puzzle where there is no reference picture, no known number of pieces, and no way of knowing if you have completed the challenge. However, it is an amazing holistic (interconnected) field with opportunities for people who are also interested in: linguistics, ethnomusicology, ethnobotany, archaeoastronomy, architecture, art, food, healing…. pretty much every major you can think of is related, somehow originally, to archaeology. That is why it is so important for us to act ethically at all stages of our archaeological work, from making connections with descent communities before we begin projects (and maintaining those relationships throughout the work) to publishing thoughtful, accurate information that can impact generations to come.

About the Author

Kristina Casper-Denman teaches anthropology at American River College in Sacramento. Her career began in primatology with fieldwork in Costa Rica and chimpanzee sanctuary work and continued in Native American Studies with an emphasis on educational sovereignty. While she was involved with Neanderthal fieldwork in southeastern Spain, her primary archaeology emphasis has been with repatriation of NAGPRA collections in Arizona and California. Her life goal is to visit as many natural history and archaeology museums as possible, especially if someone else will fund those trips.

Further Exploration

41 Tehama Street, San Francisco, by Suzanne Stewart and other contributors: http://asc.sonoma.edu/projects/41-tehama-street-san-francisco

After the Fires: Mesa Verde National Park, by Maryann Gaug: https://cyberwest.com/mesa_verde_fires/

The Archaeological Survey of Wetherill Mesa: A Prologue to the Project, by Douglas Osborne: http://npshistory.com/series/archeology/7a/prologue1.htm

Archaeologists Discover Evidence of Prehistoric Gold Trade Route, University of Southampton: https://phys.org/news/2015-06-archaeologists-evidence-prehistoric-gold-route.html

Archaeology’s Interactive Dig: Pompeii Maps: https://interactive.archaeology.org/pompeii/maps.html

Archaeology’s Interactive Dig: Pompeii Tour: https://interactive.archaeology.org/pompeii/tour.html

Body of Evidence: https://shorthand.uq.edu.au/contact-magazine/summer-2017/body-of-evidence/

CalFire: Suggestions for Preparing Archaeological Site Records and Site Maps: https://www.fire.ca.gov/programs/resource-management/resource-protection-improvement/environmental-protection-program/cultural-resources-management-program/suggestions-for-preparing-archaeological-site-records-and-site-maps/

CalTrans: Environmental Analysis: https://dot.ca.gov/programs/environmental-analysis

Challenges to Identifications of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp Cemetery Remains, by Mary Megyesi: http://journals.upress.ufl.edu/fa/article/view/834/1016

Fire Management, from Bush Heritage, Australia: https://www.bushheritage.org.au/what-we-do/landscape-management/fire

Hiking Mesa Verde: https://www.nps.gov/meve/planyourvisit/hiking.htm

How John Muir’s Brand of Conservation Led to the Decline of Yosemite, by Eric Michael Johnson: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries/how-john-muir-s-brand-of-conservation-led-to-the-decline-of-yosemite/

Important Events in the Development and Preservation of Mesa Verde National Park: https://www.nps.gov/meve/learn/historyculture/stories.htm

Inca Child Sacrifice Victims Were Drugged, by Brian Handwerk: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/130729-inca-mummy-maiden-sacrifice-coca-alcohol-drug-mountain-andes-children

Incan Child Mummies Show Evidence of Sacrificial Rituals, by Erika Check Hayden: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature.2013.13461

Indigenous Fire Management and Traditional Knowledge: https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/indigenous-fire-management-and-traditional-knowledge

Kingship and Sacrifice, National Museum of Ireland: https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Archaeology/Exhibitions/Kingship-and-Sacrifice

Lighting Cultural Fires, by Mary Ellen Hannibal: https://boomcalifornia.org/2014/09/24/lighting-cultural-fires/

Map of Indigenous Australia: https://aiatsis.gov.au/explore/map-indigenous-australia

Mungo Man: Australia’s oldest remains taken to ancestral home: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42020675

National NAGPRA Program: https://www.nps.gov/orgs/1335/index.htm

National Museum of the American Indian: Cultural Resource Center: https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/collections/crc

National Museum of the American Indian: Repatriation: https://americanindian.si.edu/explore/repatriation

Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, Bureau of Reclamation: https://www.usbr.gov/nagpra/

Oldest Evidence of Patterned Silk Loom Found in China, by Bruce Bower: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/oldest-evidence-patterned-silk-loom-found-china

Principles of Archaeological Ethics, Society for American Archaeology: https://documents.saa.org/container/docs/default-source/doc-careerpractice/saa_ethics.pdf?sfvrsn=75f1b83b_4

A Qualitative History of “Cultural Resource” Management, by Adam Giacinto: http://www.anthropologiesproject.org/2011/05/qualitative-history-of-cultural.html

Rwanda Genocide: 100 days of slaughter: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26875506

Traditional Cultural Places and Indian Sacred Sites, from the US Bureau for Land Management: https://www.ntc.blm.gov/krc/uploads/646/GuidetoTCPs&SacredSites.pdf

References