Indigenous Archaeology: American Indian Values and Scientific Practice

232 Pages·2001·4.43 MB·English

by  Joe Watkins

ALTA MIRA PRESS
A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
1630 North Main Street, #367
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
http://www.altamirapress.com

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
4720 Boston Way
Lanham, MD 20706

12 Hid’s Copse Road
Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ, England
Copyright © 2000 by AltaMira Press
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission
of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Watkins, Joe, 1951—
Indigenous archaeology : American Indian values and scientific practice / Joe
Watkins.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
9780759117099
9780759117099
1. Indians of North America—Antiquities—Collection and preservation. 2.
Archaeology—United States. 3. Cultural property—Repatriation—United States.
4. Human remains (Archaeology)—United States. 5. Anthropological ethics—
United States. I. Title.

E77.9.W37 2000
973.1—dc21
00-044802

Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper
for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I - Issues
1 - American Indians and Archaeologists: A Stormy Relationship
2 - Ethics in Anthropology and Archaeology
3 - Laws Protecting American Indian Cultural Resources
4 - Repatriation Legislation
5 - Sampling the Attitudes of Archaeologists
Part II - Cases
6 - Navajo Cultural Resources Management
7 - The Pawnee and the Salina Burial Pit
8 - The Conflict at the East Wenatchee Clovis Site
9 - “The Ancient One” of Kennewick
10 - Repatriation in a Global Perspective
11 - Indigenous Archaeology
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Acknowledgments
The writing of this book has not been a one person job. Without the help of all
those involved, it never would have reached completion.
First, I wish to acknowledge the help and support of my wife and family who
understood when I wrung my hands over unanticipated delays in getting the
chapter drafts finished.
I also wish to acknowledge the help of friends and colleagues: to Marjy
Duncan who read through my dissertation and offered insightful comments
regarding its strengths and weaknesses; to Richard Wilk and Anne Pyburn who
convinced me that publishing this book was a good idea; to the reviewers—
Stayce Hathorn, Matthew Purtill, David Hurst Thomas, and Edward C.
Brodnicki—who helped make this a better volume, and especially to Mitch
Allen, who helped bring this entire process to fruition.
Much of this book has been taken from my original dissertation research, and
the acknowledgments made in that work should be restated here. Without the
inspiration of Dr. Robert E. Bell who told me to do what I liked doing before
retiring instead of waiting until after; the help of Dr. Jack Hofman for helping
me get started again; the support of Dr. Robert Brooks, Oklahoma State
archaeologist, for obtaining funding for the copying and mailing costs of the
questionnaire; the conversations and arguments with John Hartley that
stimulated the research; and the members of my dissertation committee, who
waded through the rough drafts and helped me write what I hoped to say, none
of this would have ever been written.
And, of course, I must also acknowledge my mother, who instilled in me the
desire for education and the need to learn.
Introduction
Why don’t more American Indians get involved in archaeology?
I’m not sure there is an answer to that question—at least not an easy one.
Perhaps a story will help. I was walking across Cambridge Common, trying to
find my way to the Peabody Museum. I must have looked a little lost (as I was)
and perhaps broke an unwritten rule by walking across the grass. As I passed an
elderly woman sitting on a park bench, feeding popcorn to a flock of pigeons, I
heard her say “Stupid foreigners,” not quite under her breath, but fairly close to
it.
I slowed and turned, curious about whom she was speaking, and saw a look of
distaste in her eyes that rocked me a bit. Only then did I realize she was talking
about me. I stopped only for a moment, and then smiled at the irony of it all.
My ancestors on my father’s side have been on this continent for perhaps
15,000 years, give or take a few hundred years, while her’s, giving her the full
benefit of the doubt considering her dress and appearance, 380 years at the most.
Maybe I don’t belong at Harvard, but who is the true foreigner?
American Indians often feel they are the foreigners in the Land of Prehistory,
to steal a title from Alice Beck Kehoe (1998). Their passports, wrought from
their bloodlines and their culture, are carefully scrutinized each time they cross
the borders, and even when they become “naturalized citizens” of the Land, their
passports seem to bear the words “Watch out for this one!” They feel
uncomfortable at the border crossings between their land and the foreign land,
uncomfortable with a seemingly “Jekyll and Hyde” existence, with neither set of
citizenry able to recognize its true character.
In my first years in archaeology, I was taught that science was first and
foremost an unbiased attempt at compartmentalizing the natural world, that
archaeology was the only option available to “write” the unrecorded history of
American Indians, and that archaeological resources were the “pages” of the
book of history.
My grandmother instilled in me my desire to help maintain the history of the
American Indian. When I found an Archaic projectile point at my family
homestead and showed it to her, she told me (through my cousin who translated)
that it was part of the history of those who had lived there before the Choctaw
were moved to Oklahoma, and that it was important not to forget that history.
Later, however, I was shown another side of what has become a multifaceted
issue, that the scientific method might also be considered to be only a thinly
disguised way of separating archaeologists from other grave desecrators.
I first encountered such an opinion concerning my choice of careers in 1973,
when, after being introduced as an archaeologist to a Comanche Indian man, I
was asked if I was one of those “bone diggers.” I answered that I had never
excavated human remains, didn’t want to, and never would, but such an
explanation was insufficient. Leroy Mason would not believe me then, and
probably, if he is still alive today, would still consider me “one of those.”
The exact beginning of the conflict between American Indians and
anthropologists may never be determined, but anthropologists tie its origins
within the early development of American anthropology in the United States.
American Indian authors, such as Vine Deloria Jr. (1969), Jack F. Trope and
Walter Echo-Hawk (1992), and James Riding In (1992), however, tie its history
to the gruesome collections made by battlefield medics of the U.S. Army
Surgeon’s office and to anthropologists on late-night grave-robbing expeditions.
Anthropologists claimed to be saving the information for science and the Indians
themselves, while the Indians claimed they were tired of being treated only as
bits and pieces of information to be saved. Few members of either side appeared
to recognize the rights of the other side. Regardless of who recounts this history,
it is one filled with distrust and innuendo.
The 1969 publication of Deloria’s Custer Died for Your Sins brought
discussion of the conflict into mainstream America, and scientists began to see
the need for cooperation. Individual archaeologists such as Elden Johnson
(1973) and Roderick Sprague (1974) called for the development of working
relationships with American Indian groups, but, in general, the profession of
archaeology seemed to remain distant from those whose ancestors they studied.
Which brings us to the title of this book. In 1996, I was asked to teach
American Indian tribal members an introductory class on archaeology. Rather
than teach the same course I would have taught to incoming college freshmen, I
chose to orient the class toward an American Indian perspective, focusing on