"Federal legislation introduced in the U.S. House on Wednesday by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., would protect the opportunity for scientific study of ancient remains such as Kennewick Man.He proposed the legislation in response to a bill quietly approved by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs last month that Hastings said would effectively block the scientific study of ancient skeletal remains discovered on federal lands.
'This change, tucked into what is being called a technical corrections bill, is very far from a minor "technical correction,"' Hastings said of the Senate bill. 'It is a fundamental shift in existing law and would overturn a decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.'"
As always, up-to-date links and commentary on this and related issues can be found at Friends of America's Past; see the NAGPRA News and Comment page for background and current commentary on proposed legislation and regulation. Of particular note is the American Association of Physical Anthropologists statement, and attorney Ryan Seidemann's letter, opposing the Department of Interior's proposed rules for the disposition of culturally unidentifiable human remains, posted in the Federal Register 10/16/07, not long after S2087 was passed out of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in late September.
*The text of Hastings' bill (a brief backgrounder on Hastings and this issue can be found here, and a q&A here):
HR 4027 IH
110th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 4027
To amend the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act so that it will be interpreted in accordance with the original intent of Congress to require a significant relationship be found between remains discovered on Federal lands and presently existing Native American tribes for those remains to be applicable under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 31, 2007
Mr. HASTINGS of Washington introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Natural Resources
A BILL
To amend the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act so that it will be interpreted in accordance with the original intent of Congress to require a significant relationship be found between remains discovered on Federal lands and presently existing Native American tribes for those remains to be applicable under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. PURPOSE.
The purpose of this Act is to reflect the decisions of the United States District Court of Oregon and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and reiterate that Congress intended the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Public Law 101-601; 25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq.) (referred to hereafter in this Act as the `Act') to apply only to remains and other cultural items that have a significant genetic or cultural relationship to presently existing Native American tribes, and to protect the ability for scientific study of ancient human remains or cultural items discovered on Federal lands that are not substantially related to presently existing tribes.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds as follows:
(1) The American public benefits in many important ways from new information about the ancient peoples and cultures that preceded us on this continent.
(2) The litigation that occurred over the study and disposition of the ancient
human skeletal remains known as Kennewick Man was extremely costly and divisive.
Ultimately, the United States District Court of Oregon and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Federal agencies erred in applying the Act to Kennewick Man and blocking scientific study.
(3) Future controversies are likely to arise over scientific study, safekeeping and disposition of other ancient skeletal remains and cultural items if greater clarity is not provided in the Act.
(4) When the Act was originally enacted, it was the intent of Congress that the
Act should only apply to human remains or other cultural items that have a special, significant, and substantial relationship to presently existing Native Americans.
(5) Determinations by Federal agencies and museums that human remains and other cultural items are subject to the provisions of the Act should be based upon reliable and substantial scientific information.
(6) The Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (Public Law 96-95; 93 Stat. 721, 16 U.S.C. 470aa et seq.) reflects this Nation's commitment to the preservation of archaeological resources and scientific study of these resources for the benefit of all Americans.
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
The text of section 2(9) of the Act (25 U.S.C. 3001(9)) is amended to read as follows: `Native American' means cultural items that have a significant and substantial genetic or cultural relationship, based on factors other than geography alone, to a presently existing tribe, people, or culture that is now indigenous to the United States.'.
SEC. 4. PROTECTION OF ABILITY FOR SCIENTIFIC STUDY.
Section 3 of the Act (25 U.S.C. 3002) is amended by adding at the end the following: `(f) Protection of Ability to Study- Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to restrict excavation, examination, investigation, or scientific study under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 of any cultural item found on Federal land that has not been determined to be the property of an Indian tribe or a Native Hawaiian organization.'.
END
"...with respect to S2087 (the Native American Omnibus Corrections Act of 2007) all of the sections of the bill are similar to sections which were previously approved by the committee or passed by the Senate in the 109th Congress. So it's my hope that the committee and the full Senate can speedily enact these provisions into law."
Well, if by "similar", you mean "completely opposite in content and intent", then I guess the above is an accurate description of Section 2 of S.2087. (Follow the link, select "bill number" and search on "S2087".) And I'm sure the bit about "hope" and "speedily enact" is accurate.
If you are interested but not up to speed on this issue, please check out my category archive page or (not quite perfectly updated) post links page. (The former link goes to complete posts but only goes back to 2005. The latter lists links to all the actual posts on both this and the old blog.. One of these I shall rationalize my archives. )
The issue, in a nutshell, is this: NAGPRA (the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) was enacted to make sure that Indian tribes could exercise control over ancestral remains and artifacts, and prevent and redress any abuses of that right. Problems arise when groups make claims to remains or artifacts to which they are unable to demonstrate the ancestral or cultural affiliation which would trigger NAGPRA's provisions and legally privilege their claims over those of other interested parties. The most famous of these disputed cases is that of the Kennewick Man, in which the courts (after years of appeals) ruled in favor of scientists and the general public interest against tribal claimants. The latter were unable to persuade the courts that Kennewick Man was their ancestor.
Immediately, parties that were unhappy with the Kennewick decision attempted to amend NAGPRA to ensure that any and all pre-1492 artifacts and remains would be legally defined as falling under the purview of that legislation, no matter what "absurd results" (as the Kennewick Man plaintiffs' lawyers explained) this definition might entail, and no matter what new evidence about the peopling of the New World comes to light. Essentially, S2087 Section 2, like its failed predecessors, will function to suppress new information, and enshrines the religious beliefs - about history and origins - of a select group of citizens into law, which is of course a direct violation of the First Amendment.
See Kate Riley's Seattle Times piece and a National Review editorial.
And, as always, keep up on these issues at Friends of America's Past.
Update: We're out of town this weekend, to toodle along the Great River Road and finally explore Effigy Mounds National Monument. Here's an editorial from the Seattle Times arguing against the amendment. Be on the lookout in the same souce for a feature article (this Sunday?) from Kate Riley, who writes extensively on the topic. Word is that John J. Miller of National Review will have a piece up there on Monday.
Enjoy your weekend.
(Related posts here.)
I've been lax in writing up the latest Kennewick Man and related news. The image above is one of the photos from a Friends of America's Past first report on the taphonomic studies conducted last July. (The image shows a polymer prototype of the skull constructed from high density CT scans.: "The reconstructed polymer prototype of the cranium was the first use of this technology on human bone". The CT scan project also allowed "[t]he projectile point prototype [of the projectile that was embedded in K-man's pelvis] "...[to be] digitally 'freed' so that lithic experts can actually hold, rotate, and discuss the type of point still embedded in the bone.")
Also of interest at the FoAP site is an archive of "The Army Corps Process to Approve Study", which includes the scientists' requests for access and study plans, and the Corps' response. Interesting reading, about which I hope to get around to commenting on soon.
But just when you thought it was safe to take a breather, it's time to gear up for another round of controversy and court battles:
Kennewick Man now has company in testing the limits of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGRA). The Spirit Cave Man, who lived a thousand years before the Kennewick Man, is the subject of a lawsuit filed in Nevada Federal District Court.In the Kennewick Man case, scientists sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) over its decision to give the ancient skeleton to a coalition of northwest tribes for burial. The ACOE's decision was based on a broad interpretation of NAGPRA. Two courts ruled in favor of the scientists, allowing study.
The Fallon-Shoshone Paiute Tribe has filed a lawsuit against the US Bureau of Land Management (Federal District of Nevada, Reno, CV-N-04-0466). The Tribe claims that Spirit Cave Man is their ancestor and should be given to them for burial. BLM disagrees. A panel of three BLM scientists found that “the remains predate contemporary Northern Paiute tribes and cannot reasonably be culturally affiliated with any of them.” [2000 BLM Determination at 66]. Like Kennewick Man, this skeleton does not physically resemble modern Native Americans. Nor are there any significant resemblances between Spirit Cave Man’s material culture (what little is known of it) and later Nevada populations.
The Tribe and BLM do appear, however, to agree on one assumption: that the Spirit Cave Man skeleton, because of its age, is Native American and subject to tribal claims under NAGPRA. In the Kennewick Man case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that age is not sufficient. The court ruled that NAGPRA applies only to remains that have a proven relationship to present-day Native Americans. Friends of America’s Past filed an amicus brief with the Nevada district court arguing that the same rule should be applied to Spirit Cave Man. Amicus briefs were also filed by scientists, the Ethnic Minority Council of America and the Ohio Archaeological Council.
Cross-motions for summary judgment by both the Tribe and the BLM are currently pending before the court. A decision is expected sometime next year.
Spirit Cave Man background can be found at this page, which includes links to the pertinent goverment documents as well as a Q&A, a preliminary comparison of K-man and Spirit Cave Man, and photos.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the committee, was not pleased at the administration's change in position. He said the amendment was "consistent" with the law's original intent.After the hearing, a McCain aide said the amendment was mum when it came to whether it could be retroactively applied to Kennewick Man, adding that the committee had received differing opinions from lawyers.
Asked whether a compromise was possible, McCain told reporters, "You can't forget that the desecration of Indian remains was a common and obscene practice for centuries. This (Kennewick Man) is kind of a unique situation. But for us to do anything that would undermine our ability to finally prevent that kind of disgraceful practice is something we want to prevent."
Well, John, you've got the right tools of vocabulary here. "Common", "Indian", "unique". It's a start. Put them all together logically, and you've got this figured out. These unique remains do not share the properties held in common by the Indian remains covered by NAGPRA.
The word "obscene" can also be usefully applied to other, more modern, political practices.
*Interior has - surprisingly, considering its former actions - come out against the amendment. This return to reason is, naturally, being spun as yet another government betrayal of American Indians. It is no such thing.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
Anyway, here's the (far too prolix) letter I'm firing off to assorted Whoms It May Concern. I'd like to ask y'all to go forth and do likewise but realize that you require access to the hearing transcript or audio file to do so (though you can write to them re the amendment itself!):
Re Senate Indian Affairs Committee Hearing on S536.
I viewed the hearing today, and was disgusted to note the complete lack of interest in the real issue at stake: why, exactly, are modern day groups to be given a privileged claim to ancient remains and artifacts to which they have no greater affiliation than any other citizens? In the hearing, many words were spoken by amendment-supporting panel members about the great importance of legally defining all ancient North Americans as "Native American" - despite no evidence of ties to modern groups - without it ever being made explicit why they felt so strongly that this arbitrary and, quite frankly, nonsensical definition needed to be enshrined into law.
Instead we had, among other misdirections, Mr. Bender (if I recall correctly) advancing a circular argument about how it was necessary to define all pre-1492 remains as Native American so that Native American members of the NAGPRA committee could comment on their Native American-ness as provided for in NAGPRA. (In the end he made it sound as if the purpose of the amendment was to provide make-work for the committee!) I waited in vain for one of the pro-amendment panel members (who, by the way, significantly out-numbered the anti-amendment panelists) to explain how the "human rights" of American Indians are to be advanced by requiring the consultation of NAGPRA's Indian committee members in the disposition, for example, of the (hypothetical) remains of a Viking from 1000 A.D. - or an unrelated proto-Ainu or proto-Polynesian from 10,000 years ago. And I'll wait in vain forever for an explicit, straightforward explanation, because it is obvious to any attentive follower of this debate that the rationale for the amendment violates the First Amendment.
That all pre-1492 remains are "Native American" (i.e., bearing special relation to modern Native Americans) arises from the belief of some Indian groups that they have been here since the "beginning of time" - a religious belief that is not shared by other citizens. Indeed, the committee members seemed well aware that the amendment had to do with "spiritual" beliefs, a word used several times. But our legislators should not have to be reminded that we do not allow establishment of religion in this country - and while the government must respect and protect the freedom of belief of all citizens, it is forbidden to privilege the beliefs of one group over others. Encoding into law a definition that has no meaning outside the spiritual convictions of some citizens does exactly that.
Instead of explanation I heard rambling, inapt, and issue-obscuring references to the injustices perpetrated by the government on tribes. Discussion of past abuses of American Indians is an obfuscation in this instance - the government of the United States certainly owes redress for past (and continuing) injustice. NAGPRA, as originally formulated, adequately addresses one form of this abuse, restoring the rights of American Indians to control their own remains and artifacts as they see fit. But past abuses should never be used as an excuse for shoddy thinking and the abrogation of the rights of other citizens. The logic of Senator Dorgan and some panel members appears to be that, as some groups have suffered injustice, we properly address that injustice, not by just means, but by talking nonsense and violating the rights of other groups - a "logic" to which no reasonable person should assent, and in which any honest person should be ashamed to traffic.
The pro-amendment panelists were profoundly disingenuous about the probable effects of this amendment. Mr. Echohawk's claim that "no absurd results" have arisen from "consultation" is flatly untrue. Already, at least five very ancient skeletons between 7,800 and almost 11,000 years old, with no demonstrated affiliation to existing tribes, have been repatriated to unaffiliated groups and reburied. More are in jeopardy. These are abuses which this amendment can only promote.
I also note that while the offices of various committee members have been putting out emollient statements that this harmless little "technical correction" to NAGPRA will of course have no effect on the Kennewick Man and like cases, the proponents of the amendment plainly and honestly testify that they support this amendment precisely because they strongly believe that the Kennewick Man case was wrongly decided in favor of the scientists.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
I'm glad to see that both of the above articles discuss McCain's deplorable proposed amendment to NAGPRA. As the latter article reports:
But the scientists say they are worried about Kennewick Man’s future.Further studies of Kennewick Man could be stopped if a bill proposed by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., passes and a two-word amendment changes the wording of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It would let federally recognized tribes demand the return of remains, even if they can’t prove a link to a modern tribe. And that decision might be made in just a few weeks in Washington, D.C. Northwest Native American tribes believe Kennewick Man is their ancestor and want to rebury the bones.
“That is so scary because it would end it,” Berryman said. “Any attempt to understand the past would be gone.”
Today (Friday) could be the last time the forensic scientist ever gets the chance to study the ancient bones.
On a less ominous note, there's a fascinating report in Nature (436, 162: 14 July 2005 - subscription only) regarding research on another ancient North American skeleton. Excerpt:
Oldest American genetic sample reveals early New World frontiers.The oldest sample of human DNA ever isolated in the Americas is providing a glimpse of how people spread across the land masses.
The DNA was extracted from teeth, more than 10,000 years old, found in a cave on the northern tip of Prince of Wales Island, off southern Alaska. Researchers compared the pattern of mutations in the DNA against those in thousands of samples. They found matches with 47 Native Americans from tribes living in areas ranging from North America to Tierra del Fuego, showing how the caveman's descendants must have spread.
"I could hardly believe what I found," says molecular anthropologist Brian Kemp from the University of California, Davis, who reported the results last month at a regional meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Ashland, Oregon.
The work, which has yet to undergo peer review, indicates how genetic techniques are giving researchers a new window on genetic migration, says Kemp. Cooperation between scientists and Native American tribes on the project is cited as an example of how science and traditional cultures can coexist — in stark contrast to the case of Kennewick man, bitterly disputed for nine years before studies finally began last month (see Nature 436, 10; 2005).
The DNA was extracted from teeth on a mandible found in 1996 in On Your Knees Cave, named by the explorer who first crawled inside in 1993. Carbon dating in 1997 showed the remains to be from someone living 10,300 years ago. Attempts to extract DNA from the bone failed, so Kemp spent two years probing the teeth. Working in high-containment facilities to prevent contamination, he and his colleagues finally managed to isolate fragments of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down the maternal line, and Y chromosome DNA, which is passed from father to son.
The researchers compared the mitochondrial DNA with nearly 3,500 Native American sequences available in public databases. They found 47 matches, mostly from modern individuals but some from samples up to 1,500 years old. More than half of the matches were with members of the the Cayapa coastal tribe in Ecuador. Others were with members of the Chumash tribe of California, the Klunk Mound people in Illinois, the Tarahumara of Chihuahua in Mexico and the Mapuche and Yaghan tribes of Chile.
The caveman belonged to 'lineage D', one of the five founding lineages believed to have settled in the Americas more than 10,000 years ago. Lineage D is thought to have originated in Asia, and researchers also found a close match with a member of the Han ethnic group from Qingdao in eastern China.
"This is an exciting frontier," says co-author James Dixon, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who first dated the remains. But he adds that it will be important to repeat the work with other samples.
The local Tlingit and Haida tribes welcomed the project, which supports their concept of 'haa shagoon', learning from their ancestors.
"We went right to the tribes within 24 hours of finding the bones, asking them to be a partner," says Terence Fifield, the US Forest Service archaeologist for the region.
"We viewed the remains as offering us knowledge," says Rosita Worl, a Tlingit tribal member who is a Harvard-trained cultural anthropologist. "We wanted the knowledge for current and future generations."
(More Kennewick-NAGPRA.)
Well, more or less, but my frustration with all the burning straw developed into laugh-out-loud amusement - because frankly, most of this piece is so loony that I'm not convinced Hitt isn't having us on. Or, maybe, Harper's really has slid down the intellectual rat-hole as per rumor. (Haven't read it in years, myself.)
Where to start? Hitt's grassy-knoll conviction is that pre-Clovis investigation is motivated by by a "whitey #1" mentality. Yes, he regurgitates every tiresome tactic that ever demonstrated its use in confusing the issues for the muddle-minded: science and oral tradition are equivalent mythological systems, scientists are as prone as other people to pettiness and blinkered rivalries (stop the presses), 19th century anthropologists said and did racist things, popular science is often poorly written, cranky, and wildly speculative, historical fields like archeology are inexact, and anyway archeologists are always arguing and re-evaluating and changing their interpretations, ergo, ergo, ergo...ergo what? Well, nothing, despite the author's pretense that this is all somehow evidence that the Bad Guy contemporary scientists are motivated by racism and essentially just making shit up. There's no argument here, just the usual sound and light show meant to produce an atmosphere of menace and moral suspicion.
Bored yet? Don't be. The amusing daftness is yet to come. A large part of Hitt's phantasmagoria flows from his pretending to be too dim to grasp the distinction between words like "caucasoid" and "Caucasian"; he is also ideologically primed to go into hysterics at the use of either one. While I'm sympathetic to the position that a careful speaker ought to avoid the use of old, vague terms like "caucasoid", I also have the suspicion that c-word ninnies are, as they say, doing it on purpose. It's hard to read a piece like Hitt's and not conclude that if "improper" usage wasn't available to flail at, he'd have no trouble sniffing up other evidence of racial thoughtcrime, because, deeply confused - deliberately or otherwise - he convinces himself that the scientists are talking about white folks despite the clear evidence, which he himself presents in detail, that they are talking about something quite distinct. Remember, the following lines are used to support his contention that pre-Clovis scientists are trying to impose on the public a "narrative" that beautiful, superior white Europeans were the first to colonize the New World:
Don't be confused here.
("Don't be confused here". Isn't that lovely?)
The scientists themselves who fling around words like "Caucasoid" are the very ones who also admit that the "Caucasian" skull is found everywhere. That's right. This Caucasian skull shape is found all over the planet. For example, another ancient skull always brought up alongside Kennewick's is a female skull found in Brazil. Nicknamed Luzia, the skull was analyzed in a report in a report that cited the following locations for resemblance: skulls seen among early Australians, bones found in China's Zhoukoudien Upper Cave, and a set of African remains known as Taforalt 18. So we've narrowed it down to Australia, China, and Africa.
But remember, mum's the word on possible non-European origins of Paleo-americans with anomalous caucasoid skull morphology!
And wait, did our wily reporter just mix up the c words in a way that would lead the right-thinking Harper's reader to believe that such usage was attributable to the scientists? (Don't be confused here!) He also hilariously describes the Center for the Study of the First Americans as "pro-Caucasian". You can click on over and decide for yourself. If you are eagerly expecting images of Wagnerian Norsemen, be forewarned, for example, that the page on colonization models is quite disappointingly studded with speculation on pre-Clovis migration to the New World from the Pacific side.
But Hitt goes off the deep end even before he starts hallucinating that pre-Clovis investigators are championing the notion that Kennewick Man and Luzia were the King and Queen of Sweden. Try p. 46:
"The word itself is lovely. Say it: 'Caucasian'. The word itself flows off the tongue like a stream trickling out of Eden. Its soothing and genteel murmur poses quite a patrician contrast to the field-labor grunts of the hard g's in 'Negroid' and 'Mongoloid'."
Yup, there's a world o' racism twixt those voiced and unvoiced velar consonants. (Yes, if you bother to read this piece, you will find an exasperated "whatever, Jack" rising to your lips several times per page.) How about p.48:
And the story that has been told these last eight years about this 100-century-old man is marvelous in its perverse beauty. It begins with the name. Does anything sound more European, more positively British, than Kennewick? Native Americans had dubbed him the "Ancient One," but it didn't take. The mass media, which follows the meandering will of the popular mob, could sense where this story was trending..."
Excellent point, because Java Man, Neandertals, Mungo Man it is exceedingly rare Peking Man, Spirit Cave Man, Buhl Woman for archeological finds Cheddar Man, Tollund Man, Taung Child to be named for the place they were found or a nearby locale. And there is no such place as Kennewick, Washington State.
Witch-Finder General Hitt tries the souls of pre-Clovis investigators and writers against the evidence of his hallucinations and finds white power advocates everywhere. Scientific American publishes some European-looking reconstructions of Kennewick and his honey; Scientific American is promoting a white supremacist agenda. Hitt is not off the mark in mocking these pictures - Mr. and Mrs. Kennewick Man look like a couple of Bobos searching for their SUV in a Mt.Rainier National Park parking lot. But if you want to demonstrate that the current incarnation of Scientific American is a crypto-Aryan Nation publication - hey, knock yourself out.
One has to have quite the subtle nose for sin to interpret the multiregional hypothesis as naught but an exercise in exalting Europeans above other groups. Something about the positing of Neandertal genes in modern European populations being an argument for white superiorty. (No, it doesn't make any more sense in context.) He supports this eccentric view by presenting handsome photos of reconstructions illustrating our changing perception of Neandertals, from brutes to intelligent, sympathetic cousins. Hitt tells us that this rehabilitation is motivated by an ideology of white superiority - you know, those multiregionalists. Unfortunately, though he insinuates a great deal, he provides not a shred of evidence that the changes in reconstruction have anything whatever to do with anybody's ideology, nor does he provide any evidentiary link between his claims about multiregionalists and the illustrations reproduced. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say nuh more...(Speaking of winky winky, Hitt not once but thrice makes snickering nudge-nudge reference to the bearded Nordic-ness of three different men. Why beards or Nordic appearance is snicker-worthy, I do not know. It's downright weird.)¹
He also throws in, as "backstory" to the Kennewick case, a lengthy aside on the often very European appearance of American Indians in European illustrations - a tendency I assume has been noted by any alert observer. I certainly noticed this phenomenon, and was puzzled by it, as a child. Of course, I was also puzzled by the appearance of Europeans in illustrations by East Asians. (Hey, I never knew that Commodore Perry was Japanese!) This common human tendency (necessity, really) of interpreting the new in terms of the already known is - yes, you've guessed it -insinuated into thoughtcrime, and the thoughtcrime plastered onto James Chatters's famous "Captain Picard" reconstruction of K-man. On the one hand Hitt acknowledges that "[f]orensic reconstruction is a very iffy 'science'", with no better than even odds of being accurate. On the other hand, he's dead sure the "Picardian" interpretation is dead wrong and could not possibly be the result of educated judgment, but only the product of Chatters's racist agenda.
For a brief space Hitt does turn himself to data rather than spinning pop-sociological potboilers, and addresses the subject of skull morphology:
We don't really know what people's skulls looked like 10,000 years ago. We have only a few, like the pre-Clovis points, so it's reckless to draw any conclusions. Skull shapes, like skin color, can change more quickly than we think, especially if there has been traumatic environmental change.Franz Boas, the legendary anthropologist from the turn of the last century, debunked a lot of skull science in his time by proving that the skulls of immigrant children from all parts of the world more closely resemble one another than do their parents'. Rapid dietary shifts can cause major structural changes in skeletons - just ask the average Japanese citizen, who has shot up four and a half inches in height since World War II, or the average American man, who has packed on an extra twenty-five pounds since 1960. The truth is that there exists no coherent history of skull shapes back through time, so to say that a 10,000-year-old skull resembles a modern white-guy skull is to compare apples and oranges.
Let us put aside for the moment the fact the Boas's debunking has been, to say the least, seriously challenged, and Hitt surely should have availed himself of Sparks and Jantz's 2002 paper, or at least the numerous press reports of its results. (Jantz does get a mention, but only in the context of pooh-poohing his and Doug Owsley's - another K-man plaintiff - database of genetic profiles based on a large set of skull measurements. Ha ha! Apparently it's silly to statistically analyze skull measurements, unless you're Franz Boas.) An excerpt from Sparks and Jantz:
In this study, we conducted a modern statistical evaluation of Franz Boas' data (2) and attempted to replicate his findings of cranial plasticity under changing environmental conditions. Instead of the large plasticity component claimed by Boas and countless others who have cited his work, our analysis reveals high heritability in the family data and variation among the ethnic groups, which persists, in the American environment. Research on this topic has shown major influences of changing environmental conditions on human stature and body-fat patterning (25, 26), but the only studies capable of dealing with effects of these changing conditions on the cranium were published 50–90 years ago (1–3, 6). Uncritical acceptance of his findings has resulted in 90 years of misunderstanding about the magnitude of plasticity. Reanalysis of Boas' data not only fails to support his contention that cranial plasticity is a primary source of cranial variation but rather supports what morphologists and morphometricians have known for a long time: most of the variation is genetic variation.
But leave all this aside and grant for the sake of argument that Hitt is completely correct about the meaninglessness and uselessness of skull morphometrics. What exactly, after kicking up all that racism-alleging dust, is Hitt's case against the Kennewick Man plaintiffs and for the tribal claimants? He straightforwardly admits the reasonableness of the pre-Clovis research project: "Chances are that Adovasio and his colleagues are right about the basic assertion of an ancient arrival of Homo sapiens to this continent. It easily fits in with what else is known."
Not that I'd recommend that the layman take Hitt's word for any of this, but if this is so, why exactly is he so bent out of shape by anyone's so much as suggesting that pre-Clovis migration may have come not only from the west but from the east? Fear of beards? Why the kitchen-sink reiteration of (legitimate in their own context) histories of conquest, racism, abandoned theories, all stirred into an incoherent tarry mess and presented as "evidence" that the paleoanthropologist at the local university keeps a set of white sheets with eye cut-outs in the bottom of his sock drawer? (This is not a practice unique to Mr. Hitt - though his is an unusually florid sample.) There's no sign that he recognizes any obligation to produce a coherent argument; he knows that pre-Clovis investigators, and even the courts that found in favor of the Kennewick plaintiffs, do what they do, and find what they find, because of a psychological craving for a Euro-centric, white supremacist "narrative" of history.
Well, let us grant him even this nutty view, and see where it leaves us. If "it's reckless to draw conclusions" based on so little available data, why exactly is he implicitly assailing the desire of scientists to add to the tantalizing but meager amount of information from the past? And if, as is surely correct, race is not an eternal category but a temporally fluid distribution of gene frequencies, why is he holding a brief for the Platonic essentialism of the defendant tribes? (In fact, aside from some boilerplate about "competing narratives" and a bit more toasty straw about the uses of oral tradition, Hitt shows little interest in exploring the defendants' side of the case.) If we don't know what was what 10,000 years ago, we don't know what was what 10,000 years ago. How exactly does all this gossipy hand-waving put the Kennewick plaintiffs in the wrong for wanting to know more about millenia old skeletons?
Hitt gives some inkling of understanding the foolishness of claiming descent through hundreds of generations. Or then again, maybe not - perhaps he only "understands" genealogical arithmetic when he's busily flattering and confusing himself into believing that pre-Clovians are all about claiming personal descent. Throughout, Hitt misses the obvious implications of his own commentary: at the beginning of the piece, he relates how, as a youngster, he believed that a relative's demonstration that he was "a direct lineal descendant of Charlemagne" was actually meaningful, and a legitimate point of pride. As a young man he was disabused of his arithmetic misapprehensions by a helpful professor, and the scales fell from his eyes about the nature of genealogy.
Now, this is a useful anecdote - people will pridefully relate that they are the great to the googleth grandson or the umpteenth cousin elebenty times removed of some kahuna (you and Bonzo, toots) - but, as usual, Hitt has obscure uses for straightforward information. When the late Robson Bonnichsen (who is beardedly Nordic, winky winky) makes an innocuous statement about the possibility of early New World populations sharing some genetic characteristics with later European populations, Hitt gleefully squeals, "Maybe he doesn't know that he's the direct heir to King Charlemagne" - as always, trying to pass off as an oh-so-clever aperçu a comment that, on examination, doesn't really make any sense (unless you've already bought Hitt's slanderous assumptions), or imply what he thinks it implies. Bonnichsen was one of the Kennewick Man plaintiffs. There were indeed persons peddling the equivalent of the "I am the direct heir of Charlemagne" line in support of their views in this case. But neither Bonnichsen nor any of the other plaintiffs were among these persons. Hint hint, nudge nudge, winky winky, Mr. Hitt.
¹Hitt is very fond of winky winky. Apparently he considers the sexual exploitation of his black slave ancestress by white men a subject for chatty innuendo. (Footnote 3 p. 46) Razib has pointed out to me that this bit of drollery also suggests he doesn't understand the genetic tests he's discussing: there is no ambiguity about the sex of the ancestor in NRY or mtDNA lineage testing.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
UPDATE: Here's some more.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
Meanwhile (via Lynxx Pherrett), come claims of 30,000 year old footprints in Mexico. Cool, but, of course, controversial:
Dr Michael Faught, an expert in early American archaeology, was reserving judgment until evidence was published: "It would be significant if it were demonstrated, but usually those (early) sites don't hold up well," he told the BBC News website.But, he added: "There's more and more evidence that Alaska was not the only place people came into the continent."
And this bit in the last paragraph of the article caught my eye:
Dr Gonzalez [the leader of the footprint team] and ancient DNA expert Alan Cooper, of the University of Adelaide in Australia, have managed to extract genetic material from three molars belonging to Peñon Woman III, a 13,000-year-old partial skeleton from Mexico. The analysis is still underway.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
Hearing on the McCain amendment to NAGPRA has been scheduled:
July 28, 2005
Oversight Hearing on Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.
9:30 a.m.
SR-485
UPDATE: Here's the best address by which to make your views known:
Testimony@indian.senate.gov
A new bill number will be assigned; in the meantime, use a subject line such as "McCain's Bill to amend NAGPRA".
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
UPDATE: And here's the original study plan submitted by the scientists to the Corps of Engineers in 2002. (And it's only 2005! Things move so quickly, no?)
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
Scientists from around the country plan to convene in Seattle for about two weeks early next month to conduct the research, said Alan Schneider, Portland-based attorney for the scientists.
However:
The study potentially could be halted if the tribes asked for a stay, but they haven't yet, Schneider said. But further studies of Kennewick Man might be stopped if a bill proposed by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., passes and changes the wording of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.The senator has introduced a two-word amendment that would let federally recognized tribes demand the return of remains, even if they can't prove a link to a modern tribe.
"Right now skeletal remains that are culturally unaffiliated are being given to tribes and reburied," Schneider said. "If the McCain amendment goes through, we are very concerned about what would become of Kennewick Man and all of these other skeletal remains that are so different from present day Native Americans."
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
Tribal members believe that they have simply been here. Their creations stories have them created from the coyote or from other animals that are indigenous to these places and have always been here. And again, those stories have to be respected.
Now, it is true that, depending on exactly what issues and rights we're talking about, science doesn't always legally trump "cultural beliefs" - people are, after all, free to believe what they choose about origins. But note what he is explicitly arguing for here: inscribing respect for particular "creation stories" into U.S. law, and requiring all other citizens, whatever their beliefs, from studying any evidence that might challenge the protected creation stories.
Odd, isn't it, that when people try to pull stunts similar to this (if not quite so extreme in scope) in Kansas or Georgia, a lot of other people (rightfully) go nuts on 'em.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
First, some basic instruction on whom to contact and how to do it can be found here. At the bottom of this page is an example for getting started on your letter. I also recommend this paper as a good summary of the law as it stands and the issues at stake in changing it.
Here are some suggestions for points to cover in your letter (courtesy of opposition volunteers):
• Open with your statement of your position: Example - that you oppose the McCain bill (or any similar legislation) to extend NAGPRA's definition of Native American to include all people on the continental US before European contact.
• The actual intent of this legislation is not clear. The impact
raises legitimate political, social, and scientific concerns:
• The First Amendment prohibits using any religion as the basis for
public policy.
• Modern American Indians would have the singular privilege of claiming remains or other items to which they have no relationship.
• Prehistory is complex and our understanding of the past should not be limited to one explanation.
• Identity of human remains should be established not assumed, then imposed.
• The peopling of the Americas is of interest to people world wide. The ancestors of American Indians did not evolve on this continent, they came from elsewhere.
• The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the government's claim that 'or was' is implied in NAGPRA yields an absurd result. Making it law will yield an equally absurd result.
• This and future generations (including those of American Indians) should have access to a factual information about the past.
• NAGPRA's requirement to establish cultural affiliation for a claim
does not protect ancient remains if it is ignored.
• An example: The Army Corps of Engineers assumed Kennewick Man was a Native American and assumed that the Umatilla et al. claim was legitimate. A lawsuit was needed to stop the Corps from simply handing over the remains. The court ordered the Corps to re-evaluate their process and follow NAGPRA's requirements. The result: the claim was based on false assumptions and untrue assertions. The Indian Claims Commission had not established aboriginal lands where K-man was found as the Umatillas asserted. No credible evidence demonstrated any cultural link to the tribes.
• Government's defense in the Kennewick Man case of its insupportable assumptions about prehistory have already set the taxpayer back approximately $6,000,000.
I'll add:
• The panel for the hearing appears to be stacked in favor of proponents of the amendment, suggesting to a concerned citizen that the hearing is for special interests, not the public interest.
(More Kennewick/NAGPRA.)
(Related links here.)
While this is heartening, it's important that all of the public's concerns should get an airing at the hearing. To that end, a volunteer who is helping to organize the testimony for the amendment's opponents has asked me to send out the following request to everyone who has written (or will write!) their representatives and pertinent committee members:
We have received disturbing news that only the speakers' testimony goes into the official record of the hearing. If you write to the committee please send copies to your Senators, Represenatives and tocleonehawkATcomcastDOTnet
with the subject line: input to McCain committee
She will make every effort to enter your particular concerns as part of a speaker's testimony. If the bill passes the committee, we'll also make the packet available to members of Congress to show the broad range of people who are against this legislation. The packet may also be made available to the press.
So please take a moment to cc your letters to the above address. And if you've come up with any other brilliant points or important concerns you think germane to the hearings, they probably wouldn't mind hearing about them, too. ("While we can't absolutely promise that we'll get them all worked into oral testimony, we will try. Also there may be important points raised that we haven't thought to cover!!!")
UPDATE: In response to popular demand, here are some helpful tips for writing your letters.
(Related links here.)
______________________________________________________________________________
Note: Here's some more info and background on the McCain amendment hearing (see two previous posts). I'll be adding more info as I get it and expanding background if I can.
He's Mr. Anti-Special Interests, so I'm sure McCain's proposed amendment to NAGPRA couldn't be motivated by the concerns of any special interests. The list comprising those invited to testify at the hearing scheduled for 14 June does not, however, indicate any great concern with expanding perspective beyond an echo chamber. Of six invitees, two names have not yet been made public pending acceptances, but the four remaining slots are filled by proponents of the amendment. All are on record as supporting an interpretion of NAGPRA that would produce the "odd or absurd results" rejected by Judge Jelderks in Bonnichsen et al. vs. United States (the Kennewick Man case). Their preferred, highly idiosyncratic definition of "Native American" having been rejected by the courts, they now support amending NAGPRA such that the law is required to return "absurd results".
Some brief background on the named invitees:
The representative of the Department of Interior is as yet unnamed. Interior under Secretary Babbitt during the Clinton administration ruled in favor of the tribal claimants in the Kennewick Man case, rejecting morphological anomalies, and the implausibility of static populations and discernable descent over hundreds of generations, in favor of evidence for continuity such as: "[t]he oral tradition evidence reveals that the claimant Indian tribes possess similar traditional histories that relate to the Columbia Plateau's past landscape. The oral tradition evidence also lacks any reference to a migration of people into or out of the Columbia Plateau." (I don't think the list of possible representatives for Interior at this hearing includes anyone not enthusiastically in favor of the amendment. I will provide more background as more information becomes available.)
Walter Echohawk is an attorney with the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) who has disputed court rulings in the Kennewick Man case and argued that the Kennewick litigation demonstrates that "NAGPRA itself is under attack by the scientific community...". He expressly advocates changing NAGPRA to alter the results of cases such as Kennewick - that is, changing NAGPRA in precisely the same way that other advocates of this change insist will not have the slightest bearing on cases such as Kennewick:
But Bender and Walter Echohawk, a Native American Rights Fund (NARF) attorney, said Congress can correct the problem [the "wrong" decision in Bonnichsen] with a simple change in the law to ensure that the goals of NAGPRA are met. The changes were suggested at a Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on July 14."The court seized on two words, 'that is' in the definition of Native American, and rewrote the entire statute," Echohawk told the committee, adding that the court cited "no legislative history" to aid its interpretation.
One may ask what "legislative" history supports the "or was" interpretation, as one may ask exactly how the precedent in any way limits legitimate claims protected by NAGPRA.
The Bender mentioned above is Paul Bender, one of the original drafters of NAGPRA. He is a law professor at Arizona State University, who has previously testified in Congress in support of the "or was" addition to NAGPRA, against the Ninth Circuit's decision in Bonnichsen. Bender argues that NAGPRA was intended to give Native American groups control over even unaffiliated remains by the spurious but not uncommonly employed method of imputing a certain mystic aura to the word "indigenous". The simple trivial fact that Kennewick Man was "indigenous", "not a tourist or explorer from a far-off place", is interpreted to mean that he bears some undefined but sacrosanct and not to be questioned relation to any other human groups who happened to wander into, wander around, and settle in North America, over thousands and thousands of years, at any time prior to 1492.
Why this highly arbitrary, not to say nonsensical, connection should be accepted is never satisfactorily explained, though, predictably, the abuses and violations of rights that had led to NAGPRA being enacted in the first place are adduced and then confused with the quite distinct cases exampled by Bonnichsen. NAGPRA, as was intended, addresses and provides for the redress of these historical wrongs, but by what reasons it should be expanded to cover remains to which Native American groups have no more reasonable claim than any other interested citizen is never made explicit. This is the fundamental point in this controversy, and one that proponents of tribal claims in the Kennewick case, and McCain's amendment, consistently obfuscate and refuse to address. This amendment unconstitutionally privileges some groups' preferred, religious views about the unknown ancient North American past.
The same view is espoused by another invitee, Keith Kintigh, a professor of anthropology at Arizona State University. (Let's see, where else have I been hearing about this Arizona place? Ah yes - bill sponsored by Arizona senator supported by testimony by two professors from an Arizona university....sounds like we're working on balanced input here...) Professor Kintigh is representing the Society for American Archaeology. While the SAA supported Jelderks's decision in favor of the scientists in the Kennewick Man case, noting the necessity of giving due weight to science and evidence, and strongly ciriticized the actions of Interior in its decision to repatriate the skeleton, it rejected the logic by which Jelderks had arrived at his decision. That is, they clove to the "or was" interpretation, arguing that the courts should have accepted that Kennewick Man was "Native American" and thus subject to NAGPRA. I have not been able to puzzle out how one can reconcile these two positions. If one respects NAGPRA and the rights of Native Americans to control what is legitimately theirs, on what grounds could one rule that the tribes had no legal claim, if not Jelderks's?
Regarding McCain's amendment, the SAA, while deploring procedural irregularities, is fully on board with its substance:
SAA is not opposed to the substance of this proposed amendment, which affirms the Society's position that the definition of "Native American" was intended to include tribes, peoples, and cultures that were once indigenous to the United States as well as those presently recognized as indigenous.[...]
Kintigh evinces the same contradiction in his own statements, earnestly asserting the importance of "adequately address[ing] scientific concerns" and the need for "focus[sing] our public policy attention - and the public's attention - on the disposition of culturally unidentifiable human remains and the potential these remains have to contribute information of enormous importance about the past". These quotes from the linked 1999 address are preceded by this curious statement (curious, that is, in light of the present proposed legislation):
The disposition of the remains of First Americans [i.e., Paleoamericans] will depend not on their classification as Native Americans but on the determination that the remains have, or lack cultural affiliation. Because the earliest Americans will likely fail to meet the legal standard of cultural affiliation, they should be classified as culturally unidentifiable. As such, they are not now subject to repatriation, but under the proposals that have been floated, they would be.
And what are those floated proposals?
We face a major additional repatriation issue: culturally unidentifiable human remains-remains for which a disposition process is not specified by NAGPRA. Recognize here that many Indian groups are arguing for universal repatriation of these remains. Further, the NAGPRA Review Committee has made their disposition a high priority. SAA has consistently commented on the Review Committee's draft proposals, none of which has adequately addressed scientific concerns. Considerable attention is now focused on this issue; it will not go away. The scientific community is going to have to deal with culturally unidentifiable human remains in the near term, and the outcome is going to be really important.
There is a great deal of brow-furrowing going on in these statements radiating Grave Concern about the lack of adequate attention to scientific concerns. And yet, read carefully, they do not reveal any identifiable position on the repatriation of unaffiliated remains. As of 1999 Kintigh recognizes that certain proposals would change the rules of affiliation prescribed by NAGPRA, and that NAGPRA as it stands does not allow "universal repatriation", yet he does not come out yea or nay for these vaguely referenced "proposals". But whatever they are, the outcome of the debate to which they are addressed - the disposition of unaffiliated remains - is going to be Really Important.
Fast forward to 2005, and Kintigh is now sure that Proposals That Are Floated, affecting what can or cannot be repatriated under NAGPRA, are not really Really Important: “This won’t disastrously affect research”. That's a comfort.
The current official SAA position is, however, consistent with his 1999 views that "under NAGPRA, First Americans are Native Americans, regardless of how many migrations there were, where they came from, when they came, or whether some groups died out. I think that is what the law says; and I'm certain that is what congress intended."
Senators McCain, Cantwell, and Smith pooh-pooh concerns about negative effects on science, but never explain just what function that "or was" is supposed to serve, and never explain just why its absence is damaging to Native American interests. Or why the Kennewick ruling is damaging to Indian interests, but "or was" will have no effect on cases like Kennewick Man.
Last year the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that no direct link exists between the tribes and the skeleton.Scientists say McCain's bill, with a two-word change, could nullify that ruling.
The change would add the words "or was" to a definition. It would then say that in the context of ancient remains, the term "Native American" refers to a member of a tribe or culture that is or was indigenous to the United States.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee approved the bill on a voice vote last month. Rob Roy Smith, an attorney for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington state, and other supporters say the bill would apply to future archaeological finds, and would strengthen the case of tribes across the country that want to claim and bury ancient remains.
But Andrea Jones, a spokeswoman for McCain, said attorneys have told the committee the bill would not apply to Kennewick Man, because the 9th Circuit has already made a decision.
Spokesmen for Sens. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also say the bill does not apply to Kennewick Man.
Angela Becker-Dippmann, a spokeswoman for Cantwell, said that even if the bill is signed into law, tribes "will still have to prove a cultural connection" to an archaeological find before being allowed to claim them.
But as I have noted before, NAGPRA already "does not apply to Kennewick Man", and NAGPRA already requires that claimants "prove a cultural affiliation". So, once again, exactly what is this amendment supposed to accomplish? We've yet to get any straight answers. Not from the congressional sponsors, anyway. To their credit, at least some of the invitees are refreshingly straightforward on what they think the purpose of the amendment is.
I highly recommend dialing 202-224-2251 (the Senate Indian Affairs Committee) and requesting a clarification.
(Related links here.)
In the meantime, you might wish to courteously make your views about the McCain amendment known to the the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Phone calls (202-224-2251) would be excellent.
In addition, please convey your concerns to you congressmen:
(Related links here.)
The latest on Section 108 of S.536 is that a (ahem) public hearing will be held on 14 June. I'll just post the text of the blogospheric alert I'm sending out:
Status update on S.536 Section 108:Thanks again to all of you who blogged on McCain's stealth amendment to NAGPRA (Section 108, S.536). A public hearing on this amendment is now scheduled for 14 June. I heard through the grapevine that the decision to hold a hearing on this deplorable "'was' vs. 'is'" amendment was effected by the number and variety of citizens who wrote in protest. I know many people wrote to say they'd contacted their congressmen; I'd like to think the blogosphere had a hand in getting this into the light.
Unfortunately, as you will note, the hearing has been scheduled on very short notice, and no public notice has been given. Furthermore, word is that the hearing invitations are very much biased against the opponents of the amendment (possibly 5-1 or 4-2), and no time was allowed for the advocates of the underrepresented side to organize, re-arrange their schedules, and find an affordable flight to Washington. [UPDATE: Apparently a staffer of McCain's had indicated that the hearing was to be scheduled for the fall. If so, why the big rush now?] Obviously McCain et al. consider this hearing to be an inconvenience, temporarily interfering with their efforts to ignore the establishment clause of the First Amendment and the public's interest in scientific inquiry.
So now I'm doing my Struthers-esque "save the skeletons" act one more time: time is short, and I'm asking bloggers and readers to make their views known once again to their representatives and to all the members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee - and perhaps to ask what's the big damned hurry here. Friends of America's Past has all the amendment and contact info. (And, of course, you can find more background at my joint.)
Thanks again for your help.
Updates for 6 June: Major and minor.
Related links here.
The Senate will vote on S.536 which includes the amendment Section 108 to expand NAGPRA's definition of Native American. According to staffer Patrick McMullen, Senator McCain will introduce an amendment to remove this section from S.36 before the voice vote. It would be quite helpful if someone is present to keep tabs on this vote to report the outcome. If McCain overlooks this task, he needs to be questioned closely about it. Follow up with Senator Gordon Smith (OR) and Senator Cantwell (WA) on this issue would also be newsworthy.Mr McMullen has indicated that hearings will be held on Section 108. However, the committee has not announced a date for the hearing. We hope that the committee will be reasonable and fair in scheduling a hearing with enough advance notice so that a wide range of views can be expressed to the committee.
So it looks as if there was enough complaint from enough sources to focus somebody's attention. However, the vote appears to be coming up very soon (10 May), so I urge all of you who have helped in the past to keep up the pressure. And if any of you live in the D.C. area and have the time to keep an eye on the procedures noted above?
(Related links here.)
UPDATE: Friends of America's Past also has more on how to help how to help, beyond writing to your congressman.
Chicagoboyz with "Bad Legislation". (OK, this one has a lot of links to me, but that is, after all, indicative of a superior post, no?)
Clayton Cramer's Blog with "Preventing Science".
The Coalition of the Swilling with "Get a Grip People".
Gene Expression with "Kenny Redux". (And you should follow commenter Arcane's lead here and "...e-mail[...] every person [you] know of, tons of bloggers, and fax[...] all of your representatives". Go on, get cracking...
Geosciblog with "Politcal Correctness and the Censorship of Science".
Insolvent Republic of Blogistan with "The Kennewick Controversy".
More to come...
For all my postings on the bill and related issues go here.
Eh, whatcha gonna do? See post below for other bloggers on the case, in addition to ArchaeoBlog. I think he's quite mistaken about the purpose and consequences of the bill (I don't think there's anything ambiguous here) but give 'im a look. I'm going to have to start a new list to keep down constant screwy trackback pings.
Abnormal Interests with "There Ought not to be a Law".
Daily Pundit with "McCain's Bone Bill".
Kloognome with "John McCain, Worthless POS".
Mossback Culture with "Up to their old tricks".
Panda's Thumb with "Call Your Senator".
Stranger Fruit with "NAGPRA".
List continued here.
(For all my postings on the bill and related issues go here.)
Blocked by the courts, the tribes are now seeking a far-reaching political fix. They’ve enlisted the help of McCain, who has just shepherded a bill through his Senate Indian Affairs Committee. It’s actually a big piece of Indian legislation — one of those monster bills that almost nobody bothers to read from front to end. Tucked away in a hidden corner, the NAGPRA revision involves just a pair of words. Yet they would change everything.Here’s how the law currently reads:
“Native American” means of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is indigenous to the United States.
Here’s the proposed revision:
“Native American” means of, or relating to, a tribe, people, or culture that is or was indigenous to the United States.
Those two words — “or was” — would transform the meaning of NAGPRA. To paraphrase a famous former Washingtonian, they would alter what the meaning of “is” is.
Spokesmen for the bill, as Miller points out, are being very disingenuous about its consequences:
McCain’s office recently told the Associated Press that the NAGPRA revision would not apply to Kennewick Man. Aides to senators Maria Cantwell of Washington and Gordon Smith of Oregon said the same thing.“That’s just not true,” says Schneider. “If this becomes law, the case will reopen.”
Moreover, new discoveries of ancient remains — Kennewick Man’s kid sister, for instance, or an extinct human species such as Homo floresiensis — would be placed beyond the reach of science. In the name of a bogus multiculturalism, the story of our common human heritage would be revoked from us.
*There's an apt pun in there.
(Related links here.)
Unfortunately I have no subscription to Nature, and the local university library receives issues very belatedly. Can anyone with a subscription fill me in?
(Related links here.)
Ask Senators Cantwell, McCain and your state's Senators if the amendment will have "no effect" on Kennewick (and thus other ancient remains) as they claim, why are they expanding the definition of Native American in NAGPRA? Point out to them that the [Department of Interior's] track record for following the clear requirements of NAGPRA is dismal. The DOI's willingness to blatantly ignore these "fine points" when implementing NAGPRA promises to continue.
Last year the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that no direct link exists between the tribes and the [Kennewick] skeleton.Scientists say McCain's bill, with a two-word change, could nullify that ruling.
The change would add the words "or was" to a definition. It would then say that in the context of ancient remains, the term "Native American" refers to a member of a tribe or culture that is or was indigenous to the United States.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee approved the bill on a voice vote last month. Rob Roy Smith, an attorney for the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington state, and other supporters say the bill would apply to future archaeological finds, and would strengthen the case of tribes across the country that want to claim and bury ancient remains.
But not to worry, because
[...]Andrea Jones, a spokeswoman for McCain, said attorneys have told the committee the bill would not apply to Kennewick Man, because the 9th Circuit has already made a decision.Spokesmen for Sens. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., and Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also say the bill does not apply to Kennewick Man.
Oh well, that's all right then. It's not as if there are or will be any artifacts or remains comparable to Kennewick's. Move along, nothing to see here.
Angela Becker-Dippmann, a spokeswoman for Cantwell, said that even if the bill is signed into law, tribes "will still have to prove a cultural connection" to an archaeological find before being allowed to claim them.
And we all know how hard it is to get Interior or the Corps of Engineers to accept claims of "cultural affiliation". At any rate, NAGPRA already requires that cultural affiliation be demonstrated. Perhaps Becker-Dippmann could clarify for the public exactly what purpose this amendment is supposed to serve?
(Related links.)
UPDATE: I'm moving the comments from Cleone Hawkinson of Friends of America's Past up to the main page, as it's important to emphasize how obfuscating the happy words of the amendment's supporters and sponsors really are:
The requirement to demonstrate a cultural relationship will be easily ignored and largely uninforceable. The Army Corps' willingness to ignore NAGPRA's requirement to establish cultural affiliation was the original issue in the K-man lawsuit in 1996. It turned out no affiliation or even the most tenuous connections could be established.If all finds and sites are automatically defined as NA, the local tribe has to be consulted immediately. The tribe could refuse to allow anyone (agency or scientist) further access to independently 'verify' their claim of a cultural relationship. The only remedy would be to bring a lawsuit, which is unlikely to be a realistic choice. (K-man is in its 9th year and still has a tribal appeal pending before the 9th Circuit).
With this expanded definition of NA and new NAGPRA regulations covering 'culturally unidentifiable' items and remains, the key to the lock on the nation's entire prehistory will rest in the hands of American Indians.
The world's understanding of human migrations into this continent (via the Pacific and Atlantic) and discoveries such as K-man would be limited by the wims of tribal politics and religious beliefs.
And:
The 'comforting' words by Senators that this amendment wouldn't affect K-man deserve further examination. Nothing in the language of the amendment addresses K-man nor exempts these remains from new claims under NAGPRA.A new round of litigation may in fact eventually uphold the original K-man decison. However, scientists' access to K-man will remain shut down until all legal issues are resolved.
Of course the issue is much broader than K-man. The lack of Senate committee hearings to take input from anyone but the tribes on the issue speaks volumes about the real political agenda. All Senators need to be held accountable for digging further into this issue. We must not be satisfied with their misleading superficial replies. If we let them off the hook with no further questions, they get to take the easy way out issuing reassurances that are baseless.
(More background and info here.)
However, U.S. Sen. John McCain has colluded with those who want to stifle the stories of similar old bones and the light they can shed on the earliest Americans and where they came from. The Arizona Republican, who is chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, supported a sweeping policy change in Senate Bill 536, which is billed erroneously as a technical corrections bill.[...]
"The effect is to push science and scientists out of the picture," says Alan Schneider, a lawyer for the scientists in their federal court battle. "The issue would be solely between the government and the tribes."
A member of the committee, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., raised concerns about such a substantive policy change being tucked into a technical corrections bill. But she voted for it because of other items in the bill. Another Northwest senator, Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon, also serves on the committee.
Way to go John, Mary!
ALERT: Senate to expand the definition of Native AmericanAs early as next week (April 4-8, 2005) the US Senate will vote on S.536. In Section 108 of this bill, the Senate Indian Affairs committee quietly and unanimously voted to amend NAGPRA's definition of Native American. No public hearings were held on this sweeping change.
This expansive definition of Native American sets the stage to overturn the Kennewick Man decisions rendered by the Federal District Court of Oregon and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. More than Kennewick Man is at stake. Unless Section 108 is deleted, public access to the factual understanding of the nation's prehistory shifts to the exclusive control of American Indians.
FAX your concerns to your state's Senators and Senate Majority Leader Frist. Ask them to delete Section 108 from S.536. (US Mail will not reach these offices in time). Every FAX counts.
Voice your concerns - NOW
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Subject: S.536 - DELETE Section 108
Delete Section 108 of S. 536. NAGPRA's definition of Native American should not be amended. In 2004 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled in the Kennewick Man lawsuit that the government's interpretation of the definition of Native American yields an absurd result. This flawed interpretation persists with the language added in Section 108. The Senate must not pass any law that yields an absurd result. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs did not hold public hearings on this matter, nor did it consider the broad implications of this change nor interests of the greater public.
Y'all know the drill.
Related links here. (Yeah, I know the Kennewick page is ugly. I'll get around to prettying it up. Soon.)
Excuse me while I look around for a concrete block to which to apply my forehead repeatedly.
UPDATE: Meanwhile - next week scientists will submit their study plan for review by the Army Corps of Engineers.
I'm also very interested to know from what time period - and among whom exactly - "Anasazi" developed a meaning so offensive that the National Park Service needs to purge any texts using it from its park shops (along with the rock art titles). I'm unfamiliar with this, er, controversy, so I'm going to try to dig around on it a bit more. Preliminary poking about reveals contradictory claims as to the meaning, and explanation for the offensiveness, of the word. The above link states:
The dispute over "Anasazi" is even dicier. According to one interpretation, "Anasazi" is a Navajo pejorative meaning "ancient enemy." Yet many scholars dispute this translation, saying that it simply means "ancient ones."
Researches[sic] have long referred to the people living in the Yellow Jacket region as Anasazi. But that is a Navajo word meaning “enemies of our ancestors,” Carr said.Researchers then picked up the name through the oral history of Navajo still living in the area, though “Anasazi” is not what these people would have called themselves or their ancestors.
“It was one culture’s somewhat derogatory term for another culture,” Carr explained. “In my opinion, (renaming them ‘ancient Puebloans’) is not so much a matter of political correctness as a matter of historical correctness and good manners.”
And:
"Whether one word or another is used is not the issue," [ Tessy Shirakawa, a spokeswoman with Mesa Verde National Park] said. "It's not a matter of censorship - it's actually respect. Out of respect to tribal members, we honor their requests about what's appropriate and inappropriate to present to the public."Leigh Ku-wanwisiwma, director of the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office in Kykots-movi, Ariz., said his people led the protest against use of the term "Ana-sazi" because of its meaning - "enemy of old."
"In Hopi culture, to call another person an enemy is not proper - it is against Hopi ethics to call anyone an enemy … we feel it's a derogatory term," he said.
But:
But Eddie Tso, program director for the Navajo Nation's Office of Language and Culture, said the word - pronounced nah-SAHZ-ah in Navajo - simply means "ancient ones."
I heard some pretty disheartening scuttlebutt over the holidays concerning the probable passage of Senate Bill 2843, the stealth amendment to NAGPRA. If you're unfamiliar with the issue, and would like to know why I think it's a bad thing, or how to contact your congressman to object to this amendment, you can follow the links above, and find more information here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Or just go to the K-man page for the above and more general information.
