Category Archives: Politics

Indigenous Archaeology is Evolving

by qjjfc

Recently our coursework has been covering community-based approaches to archaeology. One subject in particular has come up repeatedly: Indigenous Archaeology. So, what is it? Indigenous archaeology arose from the post-processual movement of the 1980s to challenge Anglocentric interpretations of the archaeological record. This practice aims to interpret the record through an Indigenous lens by merging indigenous values with Western scientific practice (Torres 2024). In practice, this involves collaboration with indigenous communities, integration of traditional knowledge, an emphasis on decolonization, and community-centric goals (Lyons et al. 2010).

One example of indigenous archaeology from our class readings is the Arviat Archaeology and Oral History Project. In their article “Person, Place, Memory, Thing: How Inuit Elders are Informing Archaeological Practice in the Canadian North,” Lyons et al. discuss how they collaborated with Inuit Elders to synthesize different forms of knowledge. Traditional knowledge was integrated into their research to aid in the interpretation of the archaeological record. Oral histories and “map biographies” were recorded to develop an indigenous perspective on the surrounding landscape and the people who have occupied it through time. The information produced in this project is used by the Elders to educate the youth in the community and preserve and transmit their cultural heritage.

Another example of indigenous archaeology is the Crow Archaeological Field Camp, a collaborative project between the Crow Nation and archaeologists (Schreiber 2011). This field school in Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area utilizes ethnographic archaeology through the integration of Crow oral histories, and local Crow students benefit from educational outreach efforts. There is an emphasis on building partnerships and putting indigenous perspectives at the forefront of research.

Through legislation, indigenous archaeology is now being integrated into the cultural resource management processes in California. The AB52 amendment to CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) created a new protected class referred to as “tribal cultural resources,” and these resources are determined by tribes rather than archaeologists (Torres 2024). The treatment of tribal cultural resources is decided through collaboration between tribes and government agencies. This amendment has led to the training of tribal monitors to safeguard resources. Tribes are already bringing traditional knowledge to the table, but now there is a necessity to train indigenous archaeologists.

For some time now, archaeologists and indigenous communities have been advocating for changes in the way archaeology is practiced. They want indigenous people to be able to take a more active role in the study of their history. Recent changes to CEQA and CalNAGPRA that empower tribes should be seen as part of a wider trend that aims to more fully include indigenous people in the field of archaeology and allow them to have more say in how their past is researched and preserved.

Indigenous archaeology is the future of archaeology in North America.

References Cited

Lyons, Natasha, Peter Dawson, Matthew Walls, Donald Uluadluak, Louis Angalik, Mark Kalluak, Philip Kigusiutuak, et al. 2010 “Person, Place, Memory, Thing: How Inuit Elders are Informing Archaeological Practice in the Canadian North.” Journal Canadien D’Archeologie 34: 1-31.

Schreiber, Laura L., Kelly M. Branam, Judson Byrd Finley, Rebecca A. Nathan, Katherine L. Burnett, Maureen P. Boyle, Dawn M. Rutecki, et al. 2011. “Crow Rediscover a Piece of Their Homeland.” Archaeological Practice: A Journal of the Society for American Archaeology.

Torres, John A. 2024. Indigenous Archaeology in Practice. SAA Webinar Series.

Columbus Day vs. Indigenous Peoples’ Day vs. Italian Heritage Day

by Bridget Roddy

With President Biden officially recognizing October 11th as Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we question what may happen to Columbus Day, typically celebrated on the second Monday of October. Several states have been celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day for years in protest of Columbus Day, saying the Christopher Columbus “brought genocide and colonization to communities that had been in the United States for thousands of years.” Columbus Day has been celebrated as a federal holiday since 1968, and as a national holiday from 1934, from the belief “that the nation would be honoring the courage and determination which enabled generation of immigrants from many nations to find freedom and opportunity in America.”

At a United Nations conference in 1977 idea of an Indigenous Peoples’ Day was first proposed by a delegation of Native nations. In 1990, South Dakota became the first state to observe Native American Day. Columbus Day is a federally recognized holiday, and Indigenous Peoples’ Day is not, however there is proposed bill from Congress in the works. Although, U.S. cities and states can choose to observe or not to observe federal holidays.

A sunrise ceremony in observation of Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Randall’s Island in New York City.

Indigenous people have protested Columbus Day for many years, and favor a complete transformation of the holiday, rather than a separate celebration for both. Many wonder whether this acknowledgement from the President is actually doing enough for the Indigenous, while other see it is a promising beginning. Jonathan Nez, president of the Navajo Nation stated, “transforming Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day will encourage young Navajos to have pride in the place and people they come from and the beauty they hold within.” While the proclamation does not address issues Indigenous people face with land, water, or female disappearances, some believe that it will help bring awareness to these problems.

Many Italians support Columbus Day and others have called for an Italian Heritage Day, to still allows them to celebrate their heritage. After an 1891 lynching of 11 Italians in New Orleans, many Columbus statues were erected. The president of the National Italian American Foundation stated, “Columbus represented their assimilation into the American fabric and into the American dream.” He believes that Indigenous Peoples’ Day should not “come at the expense of a day that is significant for millions of Italian-Americans” and that the Indigenous are still worthy of their own holiday to “celebrate their contributions to America.”

Some have taken to calling this day of the year both Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Italian Heritage Day. Festivities across the U.S. today still include celebrations for all three titles.

What do you think?

Do you think Columbus Day should be forgotten, despite its intention towards “commemorating the country’s spirit of exploration and honoring Italian-Americans?” Should all three titles be used and celebrated on the same day? Will Indigenous Peoples’ Day increase advocacy toward Indigenous efforts?

 

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Further Reading:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/us/indigenous-peoples-day.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/columbus-day-indigenious-peoples-day-what-to-know-11633787027#:~:text=When%20Congress%20officially%20made%20Columbus,to%20the%20Congressional%20Research%20Service.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/10/08/a-proclamation-indigenous-peoples-day-2021/
https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/11/us/indigenous-peoples-day-2021-states-trnd/index.html
https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/informational/columbus-day-myths

 

Never Forget

by Bridget Roddy

Tomorrow marks the 20th Anniversary of what we now refer to as 9/11. The horrid attack on The World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, New York is remembered as one of the worst terrorist attacks on U.S soil. The lives lost that day will forever be remembered, with almost 3,000 taken that morning.

9/11 Memorial Plaza, set where the original Twin Towers stood. (9/11 memorial plaza – Bing images)

An article from National Geographic, published this month, discusses the hundreds of thousands of artifacts that historians and archaeologists sought to recover months later. The artifacts missing “told the origin story of New York and the history of the enslaved men and women and immigrant workers who built the city into a global powerhouse.” Urban Archaeologist Sherrill Wilson ran the African Burial Ground project from the Six World Trade building that was destroyed from the fall of the North Tower during 9/11.  The Six World Trade had a “large archaeology lab used to study artifacts unearthed during city construction.”

The African Burial Ground was uncovered in 1991, showing the presence of a large African community and the horrors of slavery that contributed a great deal to the building of the city. It now rests under Manhattan’s financial district. The plot of six-acres was given to freed Africans by Dutch colonists in the early 1600s, as a place for the Africans to bury their dead. More than 15,000 people were buried there with the passing of 150 years. Bones revealed the nasty circumstances the enslaved faced, their teeth shaving traditions erased and their bones fractured. The documentation, analysis, and artifacts, of the study of this site were stored in the Six World Trade building.

A map showing the location of the African Burial Ground and Five Points Neighborhood locations.

Also in 1991, the remnants of Five Points, “one of the world’s most densely populated neighborhoods and 19th-century Manhattan’s most notorious slum,” were discovered. This site gave the archaeological record artifacts from the working-class, more than 850,00 of them! These artifacts were also in the basement laboratory of Six World Trade. The studied artifacts showed a more understated side to those that lived there, with children’s toys and matching dishes, alluding to a life more sought on just “trying to dig themselves out of poverty,” or that some were not as impoverished as originally presumed.

September 11th, 2001 also destroyed the archives of Helen Keller, records of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and art by Rodin and Picasso. While the human remains of the African Burial Ground had already been transported to Howard University in D.C., much of the other artifacts and Five Points artifacts were buried. Nearly all the African Burial Ground artifacts were recovered, but what remained of the Five Points collection was records, the artifacts themselves demolished.

Today, a monument marks the African Burial Ground and researchers are even studying soil samples to study the human microbiome for some people who lived and died almost 400 years ago! It was also later discovered that 18 of the Five Points artifacts had been lent to the archdiocese of New York in 2000. These objects are now at the Museum of the City of New York, including the “prized” teacup artifact with the image of Father Matthew, an Irish priest.

The Father Mathew teacup, one of 18 surviving artifacts of the Five Points collection. (teacup_e4c9a1af69.jpg (712×397) (cuny.edu))

The Museum of the City of New York and the 9/11 Memorial Museum house relics from the history of September 11th, preserving wreckage and memorial artifacts to remind the world of not only the destruction from that day, but also the heroism. While the “loss of understanding ourselves and where we came from” in the archaeological world occurred that day, the human lives lost was certainly the greater tragedy.  Please take a moment to remember and reflect on those who were taken and the events of that day.

IUP dedication marker.

 

Find more detail see the original article:

The archaeological treasures that survived 9/11 (nationalgeographic.com)

 

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Digging into Human Remains Legislation

by Rachael Smith

Written by Jamie Kouba

“I have a project that I’m working on and I thought you might want to help”.  That’s how it all started.  Dr. Andrea Palmiotto asked me if I’d be interested in helping her work on a grant funded project.  Honestly, I was just excited to help, I probably would have said yes to just about anything.  Once I found out what the project was and that it involved archaeology and the law, I was completely sold! Due to the publicity that the

Arch Street Project received for the unexpected discovery of hundreds of human burials, members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly were made aware of certain complicating factors that must be dealt with when human remains are inadvertently discovered.  The Center for Rural Pennsylvania (CRP) is a bipartisan legislative agency that serves the Pennsylvania General Assembly in helping to create rural policy.  In 2019, CRP tasked Dr. Palmiotto with providing a comprehensive assessment of Pennsylvania legislation related to human remains and burials, specifically those of archaeological concern, such as abandoned or forgotten cemeteries, or isolated and unmarked burials.  Although there are federal laws regarding the discovery of archaeological remains, those laws only apply to projects that include federal involvement.  In the state of Pennsylvania, there is no state-level legislation that adequately addresses the inadvertent discovery of archaeological remains on state owned, state-funded, state-assisted projects, or private property.

After some conversations about what we thought Pennsylvania was missing, in terms of legislation, we ended up with more questions than answers.  What is supposed to happen when human remains are discovered?  Who is in charge?  What happens to those remains after a disinterment?  Dr. Palmiotto and

I made a list of agencies in Pennsylvania and other states that we needed to contact in order to gather case studies, and we got to work.  Due to the pandemic, we couldn’t meet with any of these agencies in person. Luckily, we had technology and so we did months of research and interviews through emails and Zoom.  We gathered dozens of stories, field reports, and news articles and we started to assess which laws were applied to each project and why.  As it turned out, because there was only a web of partially intersecting local laws, state laws, and standard operating procedures among different agencies, every case was handled differently.  It was really interesting to see how different agencies interpreted that patch work of laws and put them to use.  Seeing how each of the projects were handled with the utmost care and respect for the deceased was wonderfully reassuring to my faith that modern archaeology is not grave robbing.

It took about nine months; but at the end of it, we submitted a completed report to CRP that outlined the existing laws and standard operating procedures that are currently being utilized in Pennsylvania and in other states, as well as making recommendations for new legislation that will help to create best practices for the future of archaeological burials.  Copies of our report were published by Pennsylvania General Assembly and sent to other state agencies.  It is our hope that these recommendations will be used to guide Pennsylvania in the respectful and efficient recovery of human remains.  Although Dr. Palmiotto and I didn’t use any trowels, our digging into the Pennsylvania’s laws and regulations regarding archaeological remains will serve the future archaeological record.  And for that, I’m so very grateful that I got the chance to work on this project.

The article can be found here: Historic-and-Archaeological-Human-Remains-2021.pdf (palegislature.us)

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Suffrage and Haudenosaunee

by Rachael Smith

Illustration titled “Haudenosaunee” by Jessica Bogac-Moore. Source: https://www.yesmagazine.org/

This year marks the 100-year anniversary of the 19th Amendment which granted women the right to vote.  When we study the women’s suffrage movement, the focus tends to be on the Seneca Falls Convention and three main activists: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Matilda Joslyn Gage.  However, history rarely discusses the women of the Haudenosaunee women who inspired these three incredible women.  Since the creation of the United States of America, men have been the center of attention.  They were given the right to vote, create laws, manage money, and had complete control over everything his wife and daughters “owned”.  However, not all governmental systems were like this.  The Haudenosaunee of New York, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, was a democracy (possibly the world’s oldest still in existence) which was based on a matriarchal system.  Women were not only included in conferences, had ownership of possessions, and could vote on matters, but they also had great authority and could even dismiss clan leaders.

Cady Stanton lived in Seneca, NY and had close contact with members of the Haudenosaunee and saw first-hand a better life for women.  These interactions greatly impacted her view on the world, and she wrote many of her impressions of the Haudenosaunee women in the National Bulletin.  Mott also spent time discussion politics and women’s roles in government

Elizabeth Cady Stanton one of the major activists of the suffrage movement

with these women.  Gage admired the equality among men and women of the nation.  To these three women, and the rest of the women who follow the very male-centered American cultural system, this way of life probably seems like heaven on Earth. Haudenosaunee women could divorce their husbands with ease and keep all their possessions and children. While in the event of an unlikely divorce, the American woman was left with nothing.  American women did not have money, possessions, agency, or control over their physical being. They were little more than child baring objects for men to control.  Wedding vows included a statement that the women would “obey” her husband, a statement which Cady Stanton omitted from her vows.  Men were allowed to beat their wives, and rape or sexual assault did not exist within a marriage.  Among all these problems, there was one overarching issue that needed to be addressed.  In order to change or create laws to improve women’s lives, men had to take action.  Not only were women forced to rely on men in their daily lives, but they also had to rely on them to better their stations.  This was not so for the women of the Haudenosaunee.  Clan mothers had the authority to take away male authority and change clan leadership.  They were consulted at every conference, treaty meeting, and any other major political event.  This female presence often made the American male representatives rather uncomfortable.

It is unfortunate that many of these First Nation women are nameless and not mentioned in history books.  This nation had democracy and gender equality before the United States even existed.  We as people who live under the US Constitution, owe our democracy to these democracy First Nations and we as women owe our rights and ability to vote to those women who through living their lives, inspired other women to make a change.  Other cultures can offer so much information that can change the way someone looks at their own culture.  Just like Cady Stanton, Gage, and Mott were inspired by the Haudenosaunee women, we can be inspired by many other cultures from around the world.  It is important to consider other ways of life and view them not as an “other” but as something to seek new experiences from.  Maybe we live better lives if we take a little outside inspiration.

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Sources: Yes Magazine and http://www.suffragettes2020.com/resources/native-american-and-american-indians

 

The Vote

by Rachael Smith

The 2020 election has been a wild ride for all parties and people across the country.  For better or worse this has been a rather historic election with unprecedented conditions, turnouts, and outcomes.  This is especially true for the many First Nations people who have been elected to offices in the local and national levels.  At the federal level, Yvette Herrell a Cherokee member from New Mexico became the

third First Nation woman to hold a seat in the 117th Congress’s House of Representatives.  She will join Deb Haaland (laguana Pueblo from New Mexico) and Sharice Davids (Ho-Chunk Nation from Kansas) who won their seats in 2018 and were reelected this year.  For New Mexico, this is the first time that two First Nations women will be representing the state.  Another record for First Nation women was that highest number of women (18) were running for congressional seats making up 2.6% of the women running for election. In total, six indigenous person won seats in the House of Representatives Tuesday.  This includes Native Hawaiian Kaiali’I Kahele for Hawaii, Tom Cole (Chickasaw Nation) and Markwayne Mullin (Cherokee Nation) for Oklahoma, and the three women previously mentioned. Many more ran and were elected to positions at state and local levels. Details are reported on Indian Country Today and can be found here.

The COVID-19 pandemic further eliminated the lack of consideration for and hardships of Native American tribes and reservations.  Lack of health care, clean water, internet, and electricity on reservation lands made it difficult and sometimes impossible for the people living there to stay safe.  It also showed how little the government has done to help the tribes and others living in similar situations.  However, this year also showed the country what an important role First Nations can play in politics.  Groups like Native Vote aim to increase awareness of how important it is to vote.  They register voters, discuss issues, recruit poll workers, and education people about the election system in order to increase voter turnout.  In the past, First Nations people have had the lowest turnout rates because of various barriers placed upon them.  First Nations votes have changed electoral outcomes in the past and have the ability to do that same in this election. As of last year, there were 1.2 million eligible First Nation voters who were unregistered. See more from GlobalCitizen here.

 

 

 

While statistics are not yet available for the turnout at this election, the impact has already been felt.  More First Nations people have been elected to office this year than any other.  Their voices are beginning to be heard and it appears organization such as Native Vote have been successful.  Only time will tell how those results will play out in the presidential election.  The long-forgotten constituency is finally making waves in politics. Let’s see how big they get.

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