Native Americans and CRM
Suggested Oral Reports/Class Papers
1) Profile of a Native American Tribal CRM Program: The student should research an active THPO or tribal CRM program. A good place to start is Nina Swidler, et al., Native Americans and Archaeologists: Stepping Stones to Common Ground (1997) and more and more information is becoming available on the Internet. Questions to consider: How is the tribal program organized? Who conducts the work? What are the goals of the program? Are they different from non-tribal CRM practice?
2) The Larsen Bay Repatriation: Repatriation of remains of about 1000 Native American individuals and 95 lots of funerary objects excavated by the Smithsonian's Ales Hrdlicka between 1931-1936. The basic source is T. L. Bray and T. W. Killion, eds., Reckoning with the Dead: the Larsen Bay Repatriation and the Smithsonian Institution (1994).
3) Native Americans vs. Archaeologists: Some Native Americans consider archaeology and excavation to be intellectually suspect and morally bankrupt. Students should research and assess the fundamentalist Native American perspective through the writings of some of their most outspoken representatives. I would suggest Vine Deloria, Jr., Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. New York: Macmillan (1969), or Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact. New York: Scribner (1995). Another example is the sharp critique of James Riding In, "Without Ethics and Morality: A Historical Overview of Imperial Archaeology and American Indians," Arizona State Law Journal vol. 24, no. 1 (1992): 11-34.