|
March
23 , 2005 —
Along
with the rock art, granaries and pit houses that have been
discovered in the Range Creek canyon, there are human burials.
If these skeletal remains date from the same period as the
Fremont artifacts in the area, they could be as old as a thousand
years. Human remains from that long ago hold clues that scientists
can use to figure out a lot about the way people lived their
lives. But to access that information means subjecting the
bones to study, and some people consider that kind of analysis
to be disrespectful of the dead. Some people prefer not to
have ancient remains studied at all.
In
recent years, new laws have tried to legislate how to proceed
when ancient remains are discovered. Since the indigenous
people of North America are the descendents of people who
lived here long ago, Native Americans are granted a special
role in deciding what happens to ancient remains discovered
on federal and state land.
Scientific
American Frontiers explores what these laws mean to scientists
and Native Americans, and everyone else — and learns
there are as many opinions on the value of human remains as
the number of people you ask.
-
- - - - - - - - - - -
 |
 |
|
|
Bones
and pottery found in a mound grave in upstate New
York
|
Throughout
much of the history of the United States, Native American
artifacts and bones were collected by white people. In what
might be considered the best case scenarios, these items wound
up in natural history museum collections; in the worst case
scenarios private citizens held these relics as souvenirs
or trophies. Either way, Native Americans' rights were ignored
along with their wishes for how these objects should be treated.
In 1990, the federal government passed the Native American
Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) to try to
redress this longstanding situation. The law requires museums
to inventory the Native American belongings in their collections,
figure out what modern day tribes are most closely affiliated
with these articles, and then return the items. This is a
massive undertaking — the National Park Service alone
has counted more than 3,600 sets of human remains in its collection,
along with tens of thousands of associated burial items.
 |
|
|
A
museum display of Native American bones excavated from
a burial
|
|
A
second part of NAGPRA is meant to address how what it calls
"inadvertent discoveries" on federal land should be treated.
Construction crews, for instance, can reveal new objects,
as can archaeological digs or even the natural processes of
erosion. The law mandates that the federal agency that manages
the land in question must immediately halt all activity, secure
any remains and cultural items, and then notify the tribes
likely to be culturally affiliated with the finds. The goal
is to allow modern descendents to decide how the items should
be handled — whether left in place, reburied in another location,
or stored in some other way. Together, the two parts of NAGPRA
try to ensure that Native American remains and artifacts are
treated with dignity and that modern tribes are granted the
decision-making power they had been deprived of for so long.
States have enacted similar laws that apply to discoveries
on state-controlled lands.
No
one argues with the moral underpinnings of these laws and
their attempt to right past wrongs. There are conflicts over
what should be done with human remains, however. "Everyone
agrees that Native American descendents should have the right
to determine disposition of the remains of their relatives,"
says Phillip Walker, president of the American Association
of Physical Anthropologists. "The problem is how to balance
the spiritual concerns of some groups with the importance
for everyone to have scientific evidence of what happened
in the past." By studying ancient human remains, scientists
say they can learn things about prehistoric life that they
can't any other way. But Native Americans are not always eager
to grant permission for scientific analysis that some feel
unnecessarily disrespects the dead. 
-
- - - - - - - - - - -
3 pages: | 1 | 2 | 3
|
