More on "Or Was" and NAGPRA

My last post on the proposed wording changes for NAGPRA garnered a couple of surprising responses (well, surprising to me), commenting that not all archaeologists were opposed to the wording change. That made me do a little more digging today. Here's what I've learned.

There are two amendments on the table. The one proposed by John McCain and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee is the two word "or was" addition described below. The other, proposed by Doc Hastings, includes the addition of language to make it easier for scientists to retain any human remains older than a few hundred years.

The dilemma arose out of the basic weirdness of NAGPRA as it featured in the Jelderks decision concerning Kennewick Man. In finding for the defendants who wanted additional scientific examination of Kennewick Man prior to reburial, Judge Jelderks found that NAGPRA didn't apply to Kennewick Man because he wasn't "Native American". That is, you know, logically, really weird. If he isn't Native American, then what is (or was, I suppose) he?

Legislating ethnicity is never a good idea---look up the word octaroon and Plessy v Ferguson for some nasty historical precedent. But, it seems clear to me from my reading that the problem is still one that screams for compromise, so that some investigation takes place within a brokered agreement between all parties concerned. Gosh, this is starting to sound like a Section 106 action.

Nevertheless, loaded rhetoric (like mine, she said, blushing) is not helping the situation. But you should read what I read and make your own decisions.

Pro McCain Amendment

• Change to Native American Burial Law Coming, by Darby Stapp on Peter Jones' Indigenous People's Issues Today.
• The meaning of "is" in NAGPRA, Rob Schmidt on Blue Corn Comics

Pro Hastings Amendment

• Revising NAGPRA, afarensis
• NAGPRA & Bay Area Shellmounds, Kambiz Kamrani on Anthropology.net

Global Perspectives

• Repatriation, Claims to the Past and Compromise, Musings, University of Missouri Museum of Art and Archaeology
• Proposal raises bones of contention, Rex Dalton in Nature, which includes some salient comments which are free to read unlike Dalton's original article