Taking the Re- Out of Repatriation
John Hawks on the return of 10,000-year-old human remains to a tribe of current occupants of Beringia:
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Human remains estimated to be more than 10,000 years old will be returned to southeast Alaska Tlingit tribes 11 years after they were found in a cave in the Tongass National Forest.
It’s the first time a federal agency has conveyed custody of such ancient remains to indigenous groups under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, U.S. Forest Service officials said Friday.
… repatriating a 10,000-year-old skeleton must subtract from our future inquiries into the origins of New World peoples. Or I should say, patriating, since it isn’t being sent back to its people, it is being given to entirely new people who have no demonstrated relationship to the skeleton at all.
I do perceive the real benefits from cordial and cooperative relationships with indigenous peoples, particularly where tribes have well-defined and recognized historic territories. The vast majority of skeletal remains of ancient Americans are quite recent, and might in most cases (given sufficient evidence and analysis) be attributable to particular historic cultural groups.
But for remains over a few thousand years old — and certainly for the earliest New World populations — every living person of Native American descent may count these early skeletons among their ancestors.
Topics: America, anthronerdism
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:05 am on Friday, October 26, 2007
4 Responses to “Taking the Re- Out of Repatriation”
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October 26th, 2007 at 9:56 am
The Kennewick Man, all over again. Only, this time, the tribes won.
October 26th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
I always thought it would be kind of cool if somebody dug up my bones a few thousand years from now and studied them and put them on display in a museum somewhere so people could look at me and wonder what kind of person I was. That won’t happen because I’m going to be cremated, but I thought it would be cool anyway.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Yeah, cuz if scientists actually studied a 10,000 yr old North American skeleton and they found out it was some white guy, all bets would be off on who had to subsidize who.
October 26th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
“every living person of Native American descent may count these early skeletons among their ancestors.”
Yes, and every person alive might count them among their cousins.