Can you name 3 ways the Native American Grave Protection Act(NAGPRA)has affected anthropology/anthropologists?

For my cultural anthropology class, I need to survey people to find out the top three ways they feel that NAGPRA has impacted anthropology and and anthropologists. Can you help me out?





EASY 10 points!!!

Can you name 3 ways the Native American Grave Protection Act(NAGPRA)has affected anthropology/anthropologists?
The `Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act', passed by Congress in 1990. Concerned over the number of human remains being held in museums, and private collections, Congress passed the act mandating the return of identifiable human remains to the appropriate tribes. In short, if you have human remains from a specific tribe and the tribe asks for them back, you return them. The same request can be made for various artifacts.





The issue was that museums and other organizations held literally thousands of Native American remains. The tribe of the remains was often known and in some cases even the name of the individual. There was a tourist attraction in the Midwest that shown remains in an excavated graveyard and I recall seeing a Smithsonian exhibit of skulls with turquoise in their teeth.





NAGPRA supposedly works both ways. The institutions are required to conduct inventories of their collections and be willing to repatriate items that are requested. Native American (to include Alaskans and Hawaiians) must provide proof that they (or the tribe) have a "cultural affiliation%26gt;" This is defined as:





"Cultural Affiliation


The prehistoric or historic state of ancestry existing between modern Indian tribes or Native Hawaiian organizations and an earlier group. Under NAGPRA, cultural affiliation is established based upon a preponderance of the evidence gathered from anthropological research and presented during tribal consultation."


http://bss.sfsu.edu/nagpra/defs.htm





Notice that the phrase "preponderance of the evidence gathered from anthropological research" This was a major issue in the Kenniwick Man case.





Kennewick Man is one of the oldest and certainly most complete skeletons found in the Americas. Further, his bone structure and presumed appearance is very different from the Native Americans or the PaleoIndians.





As the land where Kennewick Man (K-Man) was found, the Army Corps of Engineers obtained custody of the bones. Under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, Native American tribes requested the bones be turned over to them. Scientists protested, the sued to prevent this.





The plaintiffs arguments were that K-Man was highly important to science and his remains deserved study. Given what was know he was not related to any of the tribes requesting his remains. In one case it was a historic fact one tribe had been in the area for only 400 years. K-Man is dated at over 9,000. The chance of one tribe maintaining it's identity and staying in the same location for over 9,000 years is very low and there are no such documented groups. However the federal government awarded the remains to the 5 tribes based on the tribes oral tradition of a flood. It was assumed by the government that the "flood" was the one that is known to have occurred at the end of the last ice age. This was the government version of "preponderance of the evidence gathered from anthropological research"





During the lawsuit the government lawyers argued that K-Man was older then 1492 and therefore "had to be" Native American. The trial judge asked if Norse remains from Greenland (dated about 1000 CE) were found, would they also be repatriated to the Native Americans? The government position was "yes."





The court decision was that the tribes had not provided the "preponderance of the evidence gathered from anthropological research" to meet the standards of NAGPRA.





Since the court decision an amendment to NAGPRA has been submitted that would prevent future lawsuits over remains. The change would be





from:


"of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is indigenous to the United States."





To


"of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is or was indigenous to the United States."





As the Friends of America's Past puts it,





"Expanding NAGPRA in this way imposes a simplistic view of the past: that the only inhabitants of the continent were the ancestors of modern American Indians. Time and time again, scientists have refuted this idea.... With NAGPRA's amended language, the public would be denied access to any information discovered about the earliest people to inhabit the continent. All information about our prehistory would belong exclusively to the tribes."


http://www.friendsofpast.org/





Presidential candidate McCain supports this amendment.





An underlying question is posed by the bones themselves. The oldest remains found in the Americas do NOT have the same characteristics as the Native Americans. If they represent a earlier migration to the Americans, what happened to them? Were they assimilated or were they killed off?





NAGPRA has required anthropological institutions to inventory their collects, publish the inventories and repatriate remains when native American/ Hawaiian/ Alaskan groups request them. It also, in the case of K-Man has cast a chill over the ability to conduct scientific research. James C. Chatters, Roger Downey, Jeff Benedict,
Reply:You could also look at it from a side perspective in that more collections are receiving the attention they might not otherwise get (unfortunately, after they study them they have to return them). Curating and record keeping has improved. Let's face it, not always a bright star in the archaeological world. More money (relatively speaking) has come in to help get the collections studied.





On the other side I think you will also find that students of archaeology are suffering ... large excavations can be a hassle. Areas that might yield significant finds are being avoided (despite the fact that much of NAGPRA, with its convoluted and clangy statutes, has been left unfinished since the early 90s). Professors are employing different teaching methods, etc.





I was a volunteer archaeologist in VA and on the land on which we were working was an area that was thought to have the remains of slave quarters (and perhaps burials) ... it was avoided all together, which was unfortunate. It was just too much of a risk of too much hassle.
Reply:This whole thing has opened a real can of worms. I do believe human remains need to be handled with sensitivity,and consultation with relevant groups taken where APPROPRIATE. this would be primarily where groups can demonstrate direct ancestry,as in SOME native tribes (Kennewick would certainly not be included in this!)


I have seen it getting very silly in the UK with druids protesting about 'druidical' remains which are in fact from the neolithic %26amp; hence nothing to do with iron age druids.Other protest that they are all 'pagan' remains %26amp; it is wrong to study them,(yet,oddly, they never seen to protest the same way about finding pagan Romano-british,saxon or viking remains as they do about the neolithic/bronze age bones! After all,they were all pagan!) They also,despite claiming to be so 'in touch' with the 'ancestors' seem to demonstrate a complete lack of knowledge of ancient burial customs and attitudes towards the dead-in fact, in the neolithic it was common to excarnate bodies and remove various bones for ritual use. Skeletons, it would seem, were often on display....
Reply:The natives wanted to take Kennewick Man and bury it. Fortunately, they had made some casts and already did some measurments. They tried to do some DNA tests but the Natives claimed it would violate some religious beliefs when it is quite obvious they didn't want DNA to show it was certainly not related to them.





1. You need to get Native American consultation to do anything involving any remains since any remains could potentially be ancestors.





2. That allows natives to politicize finds and prevent some actual science from being conducted. They are only interested in maintaining the idea that their lineage has lived on the land before anyone else.





3. You must consult with native Americans tribes even if you aren't on the reservation. "The act allows archaeological teams a short time for analysis before the remains must be returned. Once it is determined that human remains are American Indian, analysis can occur only through documented consultation (on federal lands) or consent (on tribal lands)."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Amer...





To point out how stupid that is, it is like having to ask current local British people permission to excavate an ancient Druid site.
Reply:NAGPRA has made anthropology more difficult in the following ways:


1. Kenewick man, with all of the important related data was returned to Native Americans before allowing intensive studies on the remains.


2. When remains are found in a dig, all work stops for a time.