One of the core issues in representation is that most Americans and many others around the world believe that American Indians are part of the past.
This idea has a long history going back to the 1700s.
Due to disease and conquest, Indians were thought to be well on their way to disappearing.
They also were the only group with a true history on the continent; all others were seen as being newcomers. Thus, Indians provided the only real link to the land.
For reasons already discussed, Indians were also thought to be part of the natural landscape and their history was essentially like that of geology or animals. As other animals had gone extinct, so had Indians.
Thus, when it came to Indian history, the only way the story could be told was through what whites learned of the Indian pasts.
In other words, the Indian past became a public heritage. By 1906 the Antiquities Act was already discussing archaeological materials as resources to be protected and preserved.
By the late 1960s, efforts were made to protect Indian archaeological sites. 1968 National Historic Preservation Act was structured in such a way as to ignore Indians themselves.
Even as Indians began to challenge the actions of archaeologists and others, the law still continued to ignore Indians' ideas about their own heritage, especially control of their own pasts.
An odd parallel track seemed to develop. Some laws acted as if Indians didn't exist any more in terms of their own pasts while others acknowledged an Indian presence.
By late 1960s Indians had expressed concerns about the treatment of burials and had even disrupted several digs. In some spots, such as Washington and Idaho, Rick Sprague and Deward Walker worked out compromises over remains.
The early 70s brought a period of distraction (Wounded Knee II), but by the mid 70s, the pressure came back.
Maria Pearson changed the way things worked by pushing for a reburial law in Iowa, which was passed in 1976, the first comprehensive law in the country. Elements of the law.
After that more than 30 states eventually followed suit. By the late 1980s the pressure for a national law was intense.
The first was the National Museum of the American Indian Act, which contained two elements.
The first was a demand that the Smithsonian inventory and then repatriate all Indian remains for which they could demonstrate genetic or cultural affiliation.
The law as a bit unsatisfactory because affiliation is hard to demonstrate.
The second was the development of NMAI, which finally set up a way for Indians to tell their own story.
NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990) became law.
In essence, NAGPRA was an extension of the burial elements of NMAI Act but stated that all federal agencies or any agency that had involvement with the federal government (in any way, from funding to permitting), had to inventory human remains or sacred objects in their possession and repatriate them to nations for which the remains' cultural affiliation could be determined. It also demanded consultation with Indians on ground disturbing projects.
Cultural affiliation was a problem.
Reasons: the nature of tribes, time depth, poor information on remains in collections
Some archaeologists used this as a tactic to keep remains.
Many archaeologists and physical anthropologists claimed NAGPRA would be "the end of archaeology." But such was hardly the case.
NAGPRA also challenged notions of evidence. Whereas before, only scientifically derived evidence could be used to determine affiliation, there was a shift to the idea of "preponderance" of evidence and finally, Oral Tradition/History was to be acceptable as proof.
In many scientists eyes, this challenged the primacy of science as the best way of knowing the past.
NAGPRA was largely unfunded, so it took much longer to do the inventories, but truthfully, probably more research in osteology has been done since the enactment of NAGPRA than during the whole period before.
In 1996, Kennewick Man was discovered in Washington along the Columbia River, and all hell broke loose, a fight that's still going on. See the Tri-City Herald's "Kennewick Man's Virtual Interpretive Center" for substantial coverage of the case.
There are really two central issues, both relating to control of the past.
The first is a matter of ownership of the objects from the past and an assortment of issues associated with that.
The second is a matter of ownership of "intellectual" property, that is, who gets to tell the story of the past.
The latter is rather more complicated that the former.
Dull Knife and the 1879 Breakout from Ft. Robinson, NE and the 1988 archaeology of the event.
Are there multiple pasts? If so, how can we get at them? Is archaeology useful at all?
Indigenous Archaeology and its role in interpreting pasts.