"Last winter, the Department of the Interior issued regulations for the disposition of ancient American Indian remains and funerary objects that cannot be affiliated with modern tribes. Unfortunately, these new rules will destroy a crucial source of knowledge about North American history and halt a dialogue between scientists and Indian tribes that has been harmonious and enlightening.

The new regulations help carry out the 20-year-old Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a law that was devised by tribes, scientists and museum officials. It was a compromise between the tribes’ sensitivity to having the remains of their ancestors excavated and analyzed and the archaeologists’ desire to learn what bones can reveal about ancient peoples’ diet, health, migration patterns, marriage practices and so on.

Scientists acknowledged that it is wrong to study the dead in ways that insult the living. Therefore, they relinquished control over the 25 percent of all catalogued remains at museums and other institutions that could be culturally affiliated with federally recognized tribes. Some tribes have reburied these remains, others have stored them, and some have asked institutions to continue to hold them.

In making arrangements to repatriate these culturally affiliated remains over the past 20 years, archaeologists and tribal leaders opened new lines of communication with each other.

This was a welcome development, because relations between them had been touchy, at best. Many American Indians had questioned the need for research on their ancestors’ bones, and considered archaeological digs to be insulting, or simple theft. Tensions were often high. I still recall the moment in 1979, when I was starting out in archaeology, that two young Paiute men approached me in a bar in Fallon, Nev., flashing knives, and warned me not to “dig up” their grandfather."

Get the Story:
Robert L. Kelly: Bones of Contention (Indian Country Today 12/13)