Ann M . Kakaliouras

This article considers the repatriation of some the most ancient human skeletal remains from the United States as two sorts of ending: their end as objects of scientific study, and their end as ancient non-American Indian settlers of North America. In the 1990s, some prominent physical anthropologists and archaeologists began replacing 'Palaeoindian' with the new category of 'Palaeoamerican' to characterize the western hemisphere's earliest inhabitants. Kennewick Man/the Ancient One, a nearly nine-thousand-year-old skeleton, convinced some anthropologists that contemporary Native American people (descendants of Palaeoindians) were not biologically related to the very first American colonists. The concept of the Palaeoamerican therefore denied Native American people their long-held status as the original inhabitants of the Americas. New genetic results, however, have contradicted the craniometric interpretations that led to these perceptions, placing the most ancient American skeletons firmly back in the American Indian family tree. This article describes the story of Kennewick Man/the Ancient One, the most famous 'Palaeoamerican'; explores how repatriation has been a common end for many North American collections (Palaeoindians included); and enumerates what kind of ending repatriation may represent materially and ethically for anthropological science. If this individual is truly over 9,000 years old, that only substantiates our belief that he is Native American. From our oral histories, we know that our people have been part of this land since the beginning of time.

Since the 1990s, in bioarchaeology we have typically learned to think of descendant communities as people who gain certain rights or benefits from being recognized as such by law (e.g., NAGPRA), by evidence of historical oppression (e.g., the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York City), or by consensual agreement (e.g., the numerous peoples around the world who live near, and identify with, sites bioarchaeologists excavate). The repatriation and reburial movements in the United States, Australia, and Canada are the touchstones by which the benefits of membership in a descendant community have been articulated for anthropology. Before these movements, and legislation that followed in their wake, indigenous groups were generally not acknowledged as proper stewards of the remains of their ancestors and cultures—whether they planned to curate or rebury them. The benefit of being able to claim one’s ancestors is, in the early twenty-first century, a key feature of successful identification as a descendant community. In this article, though, I will explore the idea that bioarchaeologists and archaeologists have participated in a benefits discourse about descendant communities that deserves revision. We have not learned enough, perhaps, about the heavy responsibility that indigenous people take on when they participate as members of a descendant community in repatriation activities. Likewise, shifting the emphasis of our perspectives on descendant communities from benefits to responsibilities may open an avenue for bioarchaeologists to consider the worth of our own engagements with both the past and the present of peoples we choose to investigate. Keywords: descendant communities; professional ethics; archaeology; bioarchaeology; physical anthropology; indigenous people Desde la epoca de 1990, los bio-arqueologos hemos aprendido a considerar a las comunidades descendientes como pueblos que reciben ciertos derechos o beneficios al ser reconocidos como tales ante la ley (e.g., NAGPRA), al presentarse evidencias de opresion historica (e.g., el Monumento Nacional a los Cementerios Africanos en Nueva York), o al llegar a un acuerdo consensual (e.g., los numerosos pueblos por todo el mundo que viven cerca de, y se identifican con, los sitios excavados por los bio-arqueologos). Los movimientos de repatriacion y re-entierro en Estados Unidos, Australia y Canada son las piedras de toque por las que se han articulado los beneficios de membresia en una comunidad descendiente. Antes de estos movimientos, y las leyes creadas tras la formacion de estos, los grupos indigenas por lo general no se aceptaban como administradores competentes de sus restos ancestrales y culturales—sin importar si los pensaban re-enterrar o conservar. El beneficio de poder reivindicar a sus ancestros es, en el temprano siglo XXI, imprescindible para poder identificarse como comunidad descendiente. En este articulo, sin embargo, explorare la idea de que los arqueologos y bio-arqueologos han participado de un discurso centrado en beneficios, respecto a las comunidades descendientes, que merece revision. Posiblemente no hemos aprendido lo suficiente sobre la fuerte responsabilidad que asumen los pueblos indigenas al participar en actividades de repatriacion como miembros de una comunidad descendiente. Asimismo, el transferir el enfoque de nuestras perspectivas sobre comunidades descendientes, enfatizando las responsabilidades en vez de los beneficios, podra facilitar que los bio-arqueologos consideremos el valor de nuestro trabajo tanto con el pasado como con el presente de los pueblos que elegimos para nuestras investigaciones.