Indigenous Community Archaeology

The relationships between Native Americans and Archeologist has been difficult to say the least. In the past archeologists have never been seen in a positive light by Native Americans. The relationship between us has improved with the passing of NAGPRA. However, there are a lot if things that need to be done to make a permeant change. The way to change the relationship between us and them is a simple idea but a difficult undertaking. First we need to make all the laws that involve native American antiquity have more effect. This laws, if broken, should have a real punishment to the people that broke them. If we can show Native American that we are trying to make a change at the governmental level that could translate to a change in community relationships. Additionally, there needs to be more community involvement, whether that is inviting native people work on sites, or having more indigenous archeologist. Overall if we want to continue to learn about the past, archeologists must make a change for the future.

During the end of the nineteenth century, the United States had formed policies which reduced land allotted to Native Americans. By enforcing these laws as well as Anglo-American ideals, the United States compromised indigenous people’s culture and ability to thrive in its society.

Human beings, desire to maintain a connection with the past is achieved through the languages spoken, the various cultures practiced, and sadly through acquiring of cultural property by the means of grave robbing. Native Americans wanted justice for these past mistreatments and control over their history. According to Chip Colwell, campaigning, repatriation of indigenous artifacts began in the 1960s by indigenous activism. Finally, on November 16, 1990, The United States Government passed The Native American Graves Protection and Reparation Act. NAGPRA summarizes that museums must conduct an inventory of all native American cultural artifacts and remains. (Native) In addition, Museums send the inventories to federally recognized tribes, in

In understanding the importance of cultural continuance is it necessary to understand its connection and direct relationship to Canada’s long history of colonialization. Although western art places Indigenous history within in a complete pre-contact lens, Indigenous art and histories are connected and shaped by both pre-contact and post-contact worldviews which have influence and shaped various works and understandings. Yet, one significant separation between settler and Aboriginal world views that is important to notes in the role of cultural continuation is the difference to the linear event based view of history that western society is predicated on. As opposed to many Indigenous nations view of history as always within motion, not static

Archaeologists are now able to come together with natives and learn about the past as a team, getting more insight into ceremonials, traditions, sacred ritueals, everyday workings, and lifestyles of native peoples. Respecting the grounds and artifacts of these indigenous people is respecting their heritage- our universal heritage. The unfolding of information allows archaeologists to gain perspective on the people and land before the white

People tend to forget that the Indigenous peoples traditions and cultures run much deeper then many think. As we have learned from the changes that have occurred after colonization and the displacement of these individuals these are people with strong self-determination. Although many people view them as sad, broken and dying there is many reasons why these people still exist today. As explained by Stephen Cornell in “American Indian Self-Determination”, only about 1.5 percent (4.7 million AI/AN people) of the total population today is made up of American Indian and Alaska Natives (Cornell, p.3). So we ask ourselves what must a population so small do to gain recognition and credibility as people of change and intelligence?

I agree with you. I also believe that archaeologists do have the right to excavate Native Americans ancestors only if they have the proper permission. If the surviving family wants to know more information about the deceased and the tribe, then it is a good idea; but if they do not, then it is not good. I also agree that there is not much difference between excavating Native American ancestors and modern day cemeteries; to me they are both disturbing someone’s family who has been laid to rest.

Despite the intense efforts to uncover information on the prehistoric Native Americans occupying the Washington Coast, very little archaeological evidence has been uncovered to suggest prehistoric occupation (Cole, et.al, 1996). A finding that fiercely contrasts with the early historic record, which projects a population total of 6,000, and as such, should demonstrate heavy if not consistent findings within the region (Cole, et.al, 1996). However, this is not the case for the Washington State coastline. Despite the extent of research that has been conducted from 1976-1994, the archeological findings along the Southern Washington Coastline are nonexistent, less for what has been found upon the surface. Cole and associates attempted to find the missing link between as to where the evidence may have gone. In 1990 two geologist accidentally uncovered prehistoric fishing camps in the interdial zone, covered by mud from an earthquake that occurred 300 years ago (Cole, et.al, 1996). By studying the geophysical qualities of Southern Washington (1700 AD), Cole and associates, discover that seismic activity at the Cascadia subduction zone caused not only an earthquake, but a substantial Tsunami, which worked to bury the

The colonisation of Australia was based on the legal fiction of terra nullius. Compare and contrast the consequences of terra nullius on the experience of Australian Indigenous people, with indigenous peoples’ experiences of colonisation in Canada.

The following report details the archaeological fieldwork conducted by New South Associates, Inc. for proposed widening and improvements along U.S. 158 in Forsyth and Guilford counties, North Carolina. The purpose of the survey was to identify and evaluate archaeological sites for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), within the proposed project area of potential effects (APE). This project was conducted for the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) (TIP R-2577ABC, State Project No. 37405). This is a state-funded project covered under a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) individual permit. As such, the USACE serves as the lead federal agency and the work complies with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA), as amended.

The idea that Prehistoric Aboriginal culture is averse to change or is static is a belief shared by the minority. Although it can be said that Indigenous culture and our ancestral peoples share many similar or unchanged basic behaviour patterns, each society or culture can be distinguished from others by the certain configurative patterns or directives for why the Prehistoric peoples did or did not achieve things and how they were or were not achieved. This willingness to change and not be opposed to innovation and holding traditional values all the time, suggests that Prehistoric Aboriginal Culture was constantly changing. This essay discusses the concept that Prehistoric Aboriginal culture adopted a willingness to learn, change and grow through forms of art and culture, for both aesthetic and useful purposes. Secondly, the developing cultural intricacies will be deliberated, how hunter gatherer societies affected Prehistoric Aboriginal culture and how these complexities are the source of change for many Indigenous peoples through time.

Environmental degradation has become a social and cultural norm both within and supported by Westernized North American life, and the average Canadian and American citizen will likely suffer an estrangement from our natural world. This separation, backed by centuries of social constructions, has done much more than alienate us from our original physicality: it has enforced a culturally justified set of values rationalizing and permitting the devastation of wilderness. A cultural mindset extending centuries into the past is difficult for the individual to identify and even more challenging for a society to overcome; however, another culture exists, namely that of the North American indigenous peoples, who have developed and experienced, through a history of living at peace with the land, what is known as traditional knowledge. This unique relationship to the land encompasses a truth that colonial and subsequent Western rule both overlooked and stigmatized in the face of economic and social “progress”. While Western North American culture is beginning to acknowledge and explore the worldview and methods accrued through traditional knowledge and employ consultation with the indigenous peoples as a vehicle of sustainability, serious damage has already been committed and could have been lessened had our past entailed an adoption of Aboriginal worldviews. The benefits of traditional knowledge can particularly be seen through analysis of Aboriginal relationships to forestry, which

In addition to the loss of culture and language for indigenous people, they are also experiencing the loss of their traditional lands and native environment. For indigenous people, much personal and group meaning comes from the natural environment and as a result, their religious practices are deeply rooted in the environment in which they live. When the environment that they rely on is taken away for development, both their cultural and religious identity suffers.

Throughout his works that focus on reflexivity, Hodder proposes that in the past decades, there has been a growing discrepancy between theory and practice in archaeology and that new ideas and approaches are needed to bridge this gap (Hodder, Karlsson & Olsen 2008, 37). His approach to excavation is therefore a result of trying to move the practical side of archaeology away from the relatively positivist and objectivist stance that has been prominent in the past years, and steering it towards the ideals proposed by the post-processual movement (Hodder, Karlsson & Olsen 2008, 37). He achieves this not only by critical evaluation of himself and his methods, as has been suggested by Salzman in his critique of reflexivity, but also by recording the thought processes in the form of videos, diaries and interviews on site (Salzman 2002, 808). There has been much discussion whether such approaches have been fruitful and brought any significant addition to archaeology as a discipline (Hassan 1997, 1021; Yoffee 2003, 862; Chadwick

The purpose of this article is to document the first archaeological evidence in Australia both by death by spearing and the use of backed artifacts as spear armatures before European contact. Furthermore using barbed death spears as a ritual punishment was known to have happened in the Sydney region at European contact, but not before then. So this finding would provide early archaeological evidence for ritual payback killing by spearing, as well as be significant in understanding other archaeological signs of the increase in social complexity across south-eastern Australia due to the timing of the individual’s death.