Open Letter from the Indigenous Archaeology Collective
Greetings,
We, the Indigenous Archaeology Collective (IAC), are writing to protest in the strongest possible terms the Society for American Archaeology’s (SAA) harmful statement sent on June 19, 2020 to the University of California Office of the President and email to CA residents of the SAA on June 22, 2020 enlisting support of members to undermine the University of California’s (UC) efforts to revise and modernize its Native American Cultural Affiliation and Repatriation Policy. In addition to noting the inaccuracies within the statement endorsed by SAA, we are deeply concerned that the SAA statement did not follow protocol and failed to consult SAA’s Board of Directors and Committee on Native American Relations (CNAR) before disseminating the harmful statements to SAA’s membership and UCOP that seek to block the University of California’s necessary (and long overdue) repatriation policy revisions. We call on the SAA to support UC’s revised Repatriation Policy, share the retracted statement publicly and with all SAA members, and address the specific actions called for in our letter.
The Indigenous Archaeology Collective is a network of Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars within archaeology, heritage preservation, Cultural Resource Management, museum studies, and related disciplines working from Indigenous epistemologies in engaged ways with Native American Tribal Nations and Indigenous and descendent communities. IAC advocates for the rights of Indigenous peoples throughout the world reflected in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. IAC thus seeks to support the UC’s efforts to comply with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and CalNAGPRA and to develop policies that reflect the letter and the spirit of this U.S. federal law in consultation with California Tribal Nations as well as the sovereign rights and perspectives of these Nations.
We, the IAC, invite you to read (https://bit.ly/2NC8LQ3) and sign our letter to the SAA (https://bit.ly/3dHCqlF) to show your support for the actions we are requesting from the SAA. The actions we propose are necessary first steps the SAA must take to begin to address the harm caused from their recent action and to move forward in a productive and positive way with respect to its Native American members and the Tribal Nations that this action has potentially impacted. In brief, these actions include the following:
- The SAA must support the UCOP draft Policy and issue a public retraction of its June 19th statement to UCOP.
- The SAA President and board must make all attempts to communicate with and apologize to CalTHPOs and the Native American Heritage Commission.
- In demonstration of the SAA’s commitment to addressing structural inequalities and promoting anti-racist practice in our field, the society will undertake a racial climate survey; increase funding for the participation of Native American and Indigenous peoples in archaeology; provide meeting registration and membership waivers to Native American and Indigenous meeting attendees; highlight the Indigenous history of host meeting cities; and formally request and receive permission of local Tribal Nations to host SAA meetings in their traditional lands and territories.
- The SAA must formalize its commitment to consulting with the Committee on Native American Relations on any and all matters related to NAGPRA and repatriation.
- Convene a Task Force to develop a revised policy on repatriation that supports the rights of Indigenous peoples “to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the Repatriation of their ancestral Human Remains” as articulated in Article 12 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
You can read the IAC’s letter in full here: https://bit.ly/2NC8LQ3
To sign on to to IAC’s call to action please click here: https://bit.ly/3dHCqlF
If you would like to contact the IAC, you can email us at: IndigenoughArch@protonmail.com or follow us on Twitter @IndigArchs.
Ka molis! Yawi! Miigwech! Achema! Ahé’héé! Qe’ci’yew’yew! Thank you for your support!
The Indigenous Archaeology Collective
Desiree R. Martinez, MA, RPA, (Tongva), President, Cogstone Resource Management, Inc.
Sonya Atalay, Ph.D., (Anishinabe-Ojibwe), Associate Professor, UMass Anthropology
Michael Wilcox, Ph.D., (Yuman descent), Native American Studies Senior Lecturer (2017-present), Muwekma Ohlone Tribe Cultural Resource and NAGPRA Officer
Tsim D. Schneider, Ph.D., (Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria), Assistant Professor, University of California, Santa Cruz
Peter A. Nelson, Ph.D., RPA (Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria), Assistant Professor, San Diego State University
Sara L. Gonzalez, Ph.D., Associate Professor & Curator of Archaeology at the Burke Museum of Natural History, University of Washington
Wendy G. Teeter, Ph.D., RPA, Curator of Archaeology, Fowler Museum at UCLA; UCLA NAGPRA Coordinator; UCLA American Indian Studies Lecturer
Dorothy T. Lippert, Ph.D., (Citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma)
Patricia Garcia-Plotkin, Director of Historic Preservation and Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians;
Ora V. Marek-Martinez, Ph.D., (Diné, Nimiipuu, Hopi) Assistant Professor and Executive Director of the Native American Cultural Center, Northern Arizona University
