Second, I hope you listened to the State Legislature’s hearings on UC Berkeley’s NAGPRA compliance and checked out some of the documents at http://nagpra-ucb.blogspot.com/ .
Particularly the so-called “Luby Report” where they mention they just filed 40% of their inventories to the Federal government without
proper archival review and Prof. Carol Goldberg’s letter on the UCOP Review Committee.

Best, Mark Hall

1) The mounds actually did contain many remains of human beings. The relatives of these individuals took great care in interning their loved ones in the mounds.

2) These mounds were furthermore not “just trash”! They were places of importance to the people who occupied the site, they lived on these mounds as well as deposited refuse, as well as buried their dead. To generalize about the cultural importance of these mounds is sadly ignorant.

3) The cultural significance of the mounds is highly important to current native groups because it is highly likely that their ancestors occupied the mounds. Please show respect towards these groups as it may be difficult for people to conceptualize the culture and histories of other peoples, especially groups which have been misplaced and abused throughout history.

Having Ohlone blood running through my veins as well please show some respect, it is sad how chronically deceived the average American is. Think about how your words and how your opinions affect everyone around you. Avoid the pessimistic attitudes of an ethnocentric hierarchy and open your minds to the realities around you

Using the phrase “any old Joe with a feather in his head” comes across as intentionally belittling. You and I both know that the process of claiming remains is more complicated than that. I interpret the use of this phrase as an attempt to challenge and trivialize claims of ancestry and legitimacy. Your argument would be stronger without these digs thrown in.

I’ll apply the same criticism to your repeated use of the word “trash”, as in “vilified for transforming trash”. You and I both know that modern connotations of the word trash imply unwanted/gross/cheap/etc. Then you want to know why Native Americans are so upset about us cleaning up trash. That’s not a fair question.

Your question, “If their reburial so detrimental to their spiritual well being then why were they buried in trash mounds in the first place?” is invalid. Can you imagine one person saying to another, “If we don’t want these remains to be reburied in the future, we’d better not bury them here!” If anyone has the ability to see into the future, please–tell me if my grandmother is buried in a safe location.

“There’s a potential to use science to understand why these people from the past dumped their loved ones in their community trash mounds. ” This seems to be one of your main anti-repatiration stances in this particular case. But you’re building on sand. Please clarify how you will use science to access people’s emotions in the past. Not in a general, defending archaeology way. But in this case, how would you use science to reach the “why”? Also note that many Native American groups would say that they don’t need you to tell them or confirm “why”, as they already know. In which case I guess you’d be arguing that humanity at large deserves to know the “why”. And I for one will go on record saying that my need to know why humans were buried in shell mounds isn’t so strong that I need anyone to upset and increase tensions with Native Americans.

“we need to understand how people lived…” Who is the “we” implied here? And how do you define “need”? At what cost?

@ Felix: Thank you for stating so clearly the point that we can’t apply today’s terms and their connotations to materials and situations in/from the past.

Again, I enjoy your blog and appreciate that you deliver informative commentary on current issues in anthropology. But your posts are of little use to public debate if they inappropriately use loaded language and use the word “we” to really mean “me”.

Thanks for your comment. I agree with what you said but the amount of spelling errors you have makes it hard to concentrate on your message. I make spelling errors too, a lot of them, but I usually run them past a spell check built into my browser before I post. I suggest that next time you can do the same.

I’m not an anthropologist or an archaeologist, just a lay person with an interest in history. Based on what I’ve read, I understand that Western Coastal Shellmounds are no longer known as ‘middens’ within the anthropological community. Am I wrong about that? As I understand it, this term is considered derogatory, and fails to capture the complex role of the Shellmounds which people here actually seem to have lived on top of.

My rudimentary understanding of anthropology leads me to believe that it would be wrong to apply our understanding of things to other cultures. For example, the place where you and I send our trash – a garbage dump – holds no spiritual or emotional significance. But it would be wrong for us to assume that the place where other folks sent their waste products had the same meaning to them. That is one argument for accepting the Ohlone perspective that Shellmounds are not ‘just dumps’ but rather hold important spiritual significance. Archaeologists certainly believe that shellmounds, and the Emeryville Shellmound in particular are of deep significance to understanding the lives of Coastal tribal people here.

While the idea of preserving something that many people now see as a garbage dump may seem bizarre to many, I do think that most people would feel some discomfort at planting a mall on top of a graveyard, even a very old one. If the tribes here had used written language, and had chosen to mark the human graves within the mound with the names of the deceased, perhaps contemporary non-Indian observers would feel more sympathetic about this issue?

Anyhow, thanks again for the link and for the discussion about this issue!

Felix

I made a slight mistake, apologies.