Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh

The premise and promise of indigenous archaeology

Researchers have increasingly promoted an emerging paradigm of Indigenous archaeology, which includes an array of practices conducted by, for, and with Indigenous communities to challenge the disciplines intellectual breadth and political economy. McGhee (2008) argues that Indigenous archaeology is not viable because it depends upon the essentialist concept of “Aboriginalism.” In this reply, we correct McGhees description of Indigenous Archaeology and demonstrate why Indigenous rights are not founded on essentialist imaginings. Rather, the legacies of colonialism, sociopolitical context of scientific inquiry, and insights of traditional knowledge provide a strong foundation for collaborative and community-based archaeology projects that include Indigenous peoples.

Virtue ethics and the practice of history: Native Americans and archaeologists along the San Pedro Valley of Arizona

For nearly a century archaeologists have endeavored to illuminate 12,000 years of Native American history in the San Pedro Valley of southeastern Arizona. Although this scholarship has established an essential foundation, it is limited by the construction of history through the singular interpretive framework of western scientific practice. The Tohono O’odham, Hopi, Zuni and Western Apache peoples all maintain oral traditions that provide alternative voices about the lives of their ancestors. This article examines the ethical environment of a collaborative ethnohistory project, which sought to document Native American histories and adjoin humanistic understandings of the past with scientific findings. We argue that a Virtue Ethics approach to the social context of this research offers sound moral guidance to a flourishing ethic of collaboration. Using this work as a case study, we aim to extend the available research models for future anthropological inquiry and broaden the ethical framework of historical research.

Dismembering/disremembering the Buddhas Renderings on the Internet during the Afghan purge of the past

In February of 2001, Afghanistan’s de facto Taliban government publicly announced its intention to systematically destroy every statue within its borders. Immediately, numerous nations, organizations and individuals rallied to avert the impending destruction. Despite these efforts, countless objects were obliterated, including the two colossal Buddhas of Bamiyan carved nearly two millennia ago. This article explores this disturbing, yet fascinating, episode with a particular view towards the discourses that emerged on the Internet just preceding and following the Afghan purge. Setting aside the theological and moral questions that arise from these events, the author aims to elucidate the intersection of ancient artifacts and modern politics, local action and global reaction, and the material and immaterial clashes that shaped the worldwide debate. Oriented around Marcus’ notions of global-local, simultaneity and complex connections, this study views the Internet as a metaphor for Marcus’ theory, as well as an object for ethnographic inquiry to examine the politics of the past in the present.

Intersecting magisteria: Bridging archaeological science and traditional knowledge

Stephen Jay Gould famously argued that science and religion are fundamentally ‘nonoverlapping magisteria’ — two spheres of understanding that should peacefully coexist without intersecting. However, when Native American religious practices contain cultural and historical information that can inform archaeological interpretations, the wall separating these spheres of knowledge necessarily breaks down. This essay examines how archaeological science and traditional knowledge can be bridged, by exploring the ancient history and contemporary meanings of archaeological sites in northeastern Arizona, a landscape that is important to the Hopi and Zuni, among other tribes. Methodologically this work builds outward from a series of ‘placebased interviews’ to create a framework for collaborative research, while theoretically it builds upwards from the foundation of an ‘ethnocritical approach’ that willingly returns to the sacred. Through such collaborative projects, we may develop a shared authority for shared places, meeting upon the magisteria’s common ground.

Saints and evil and the wayside shrines of Mauritius

This article discusses the cultural practice of constructing wayside shrines in the Black River district of Mauritius. Using interdisciplinary methods, the authors map the material practices of shrine-making, examine their historical and social contexts, and investigate their contemporary cultural meanings and values. The Mauritian tradition draws important parallels to what scholars have termed ‘spontaneous shrines’ but is a singular material expression of popular religion that is deliberate, often durable, apolitical, profoundly religious, and inextricably tied to the supernatural. In Black River, the majority of roadside shrines are grounded in a local folk Catholic tradition, derived from beliefs about the power of saints in everyday lives, the co-dependent relationship between the living and the dead, and the omnipresence of evil in the world. These shrines are complex sites that materially locate Catholic believers in the country’s varied ethnic geography, yet they also work as an articulation of popular religion that creates a unique intercultural space.

The repatriation of culturally unidentifiable human remains

Abstract For nearly two decades, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA) left unresolved a complex problem: the fate of Native American human remains that could not be affiliated with federally recognized tribes. In the spring of 2010, the US Department of Interior finally promulgated regulations for the disposition of these remains, providing a pathway for the potential return of 115,000 human remains. This paper presents the work at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS) to address culturally unaffiliated human remains in its collection. Since 2008, the DMNS has received three National Park Service NAGPRA grants to consult with 142 tribes on human remains from across the USA. Drawing from the lessons of these consultations, this paper examines the philosophical, logistical, legal, and ethical issues confronting museums as they seek to contend with the quandaries posed by these remains.

Reconciling American archaeology & Native America

Dædalus Spring 2009 Shortly after William Bradford and his fellow pilgrims arrived on the eastern shores of the New World in the cold autumn of 1620, a small group of men set out to make a “full discovery” of the snow-covered land.1 After some days of wandering the unknown rivers and hills, they grew hungry. With Providence observing, they thought, the men happened upon a store of corn and grain that Indians had cached underground. The ravenous pilgrims took the food for their own. The next day, Bradford reports that the company wandered into the wilderness deeper still, following the well-beaten trails of the Indians, in the hope that they would 1⁄2nd a town; they encountered no one. Eventually the company came to a flat area covered with boards. Curious, the men began to dig. A layering of grass mats and boards sat just beneath the surface, concealing a few strange bits of bowls, trays, and dishes. Encouraged, they burrowed further and discovered a prize of two bundles. A heavy scent of mildewed earth drifted over them. They unwrapped the 1⁄2rst bundle. In their hands they saw a few tools and, as Bradford recalled, “a great quantitie of 1⁄2ne and perfect red Powder, and in it the bones and skull of a man.” They opened the second bundle. It, too, was packed with the 1⁄2ne red powder, though this time laced with small bones and the skull of a child. The child’s remains had been carefully swathed and decorated with bracelets of pearl-white beads. “We brought sundry of the pretiest things away with vs, and covered the Corps vp againe,” Bradford later wrote. “After this, we digged in sundry like places, but found no more Corne, nor any things els but graues.” Bradford’s and his fellow pilgrims’ investigations constitute the 1⁄2rst known archaeological excavation in North America. Although the discipline would not be fully formed for another two-and-a-half centuries, Bradford’s group unknowingly set the pattern for how Euro-American explorers entered Indian country to satisfy their curiosity, driven by a desire to conquer and control the land, to claim and possess all that made up their new home. Indeed, Bradford and his men put in motion one of the de1⁄2ning narratives of the American self, a self exalted for exploring and exposing American Indian history. Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh

Multivocality in Multimedia: Collaborative Archaeology and the Potential of Cyberspace

In recent years, archaeologists have paid increasing attention to how knowledge of the past is constructed, particularly as Native communities have begun to challenge practices that uphold the researcher as the ultimate arbitrator of the truth. The concept of “multivocality” provides scholars one means to create alternative archaeologies that do not eschew scientific principles while respecting Native values of history. Moving beyond traditional epistemological stances, however, may also entail moving beyond traditional methods of presenting the archaeological past.

Repatriation and Constructs of Identity

This paper examines the methodology by which cultural affiliation is determined through the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) of 1990. Using a case study of cultural affiliation between the contemporary Haudenosaunee nations and the historic Susquehannock, we explore the applied frameworks and theoretical implications of how identities are constructed in the repatriation process. In particular, first, we provide an analytical approach to consider the legal logic by which anthropology museums can determine cultural affiliation under NAGPRA. Second, we consider why legal constructions of social groups legitimized through NAGPRA broaden anthropological concepts of identity but still are not embraced by scholars and museums. The paper’s goals are thus to provide a foundation to reconsider Susquehannock collections in museums across the United States, make more transparent the means by which cultural affiliation is determined, and advance our understanding of how NAGPRA shapes constructs of identity.

Civic Engagements in Museum Anthropology: A Prolegomenon for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Over the course of the 20th century, advocates and activists have sporadically argued that museums provide an ideal platform for engagements of civic life. Into the 21st century, the social roles and responsibilities of museums are actively being renegotiated, particularly with the blossoming of new collaborative and community-based programs and projects, from local tribally run ecomuseums to the National Museum of the American Indian. Through this case study of work at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science—focusing on two new enterprises, the Collections Synthesis Project and the Indigenous Inclusiveness Initiative—the challenges and opportunities for museum anthropology to contribute to the agenda of civic engagement are examined.